The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Much noise, much heat, little substance April 28, 2022

Interesting point in this piece in the Guardian from Rory Carroll which looks at the Assembly elections and notes that:

Drums, flutes and the tramp of marching feet resounded across Northern Ireland last week in the latest round of protests against the protocol which imposes checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea as part of the Brexit deal. On Thursday, they paraded in Castlederg, on Friday in east and north Belfast, and on Saturday night they were due in Derry, columns of loyalist order bands, unionist politicians, activists and citizens, marching behind union jacks proclaiming their Britishness.

Such parades begin before dusk and climax with speeches as night falls, as if to match warnings of creeping political oblivion. Northern Ireland will hold an election for the Stormont assembly on 5 May, which many marchers consider a proxy battle not just for the protocol but Northern Ireland’s position in the UK. They fear the state’s existence, and with it their culture and identity, is in jeopardy. Promises from Downing Street last week to “reform” the protocol and delay border checks did not assuage unease – unionists feel they have heard it before.

There’s Jim Allister, there’s Jeffrey Donaldson, there’s Jamie Bryson and in Derry at least there was Roy Ferguson of the Apprentice Boys. His contribution?

To preserve our faith, to preserve our culture, to preserve our heritage, we must win this battle,” he thundered. “The blood of our forefathers still flows in the veins of the Ulster Protestant today.” Ferguson surveyed the crowd and jabbed a finger. “This evening the people of Ulster, the grassroots Protestants, have spoken!”

But Carroll notes:

The assertion hung in the night air, hollow and ridiculous. The Protestants of Lurgan and the rest of Northern Ireland had indeed spoken, eloquently, by not turning up. Perhaps 1,000 people stood before Ferguson, a small fraction of the envisaged 10,000, and even that would have been a feeble echo of the flag protests a decade ago and the vaster throngs that protested against the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement. The Lurgan event might have passed largely unnoticed except for a controversy over a noose drawn on a poster of the Ulster Unionist party leader, Doug Beattie, who boycotts such rallies, deeming them irresponsible rabble-rousing. Rallies like this have become a familiar ritual, usually drawing between a few dozen and a few hundred people. This does not stop podium orators proclaiming mobilisation and momentum, as if rhetoric alone could conjure multitudes. Their absence reflects a curious phenomenon unfolding within unionism.

Which Carroll notes is an exaggerated rhetoric (and some incidents of violence or the threat of violence) but simultaneously an, not quite, indifference, but indifference to actually participating in protests. Or to put it another way, much of Unionism may not like the Protocol but it is able to live with the Protocol. And Carroll notes that while the thought of an SF First Minister may be unpalatable, it’s not as if the constitutional position changes overnight, or even next year, or in five years.  Yes, there are implications from all this. But the likelihood of them initiating profound change imminently is much less than might be expected – and oddly it is the DUP/TUV et al, who are overstating matters (for their own political gain, without question).

This disconnect is quite something and perhaps accounts for the state of the polls.

The interesting question, the key question, is, whether come 5th of May the DUP are able to claw back the 7% or so they need to in order to overtake SF. Can they do it?

Nothing to see here? April 27, 2022

From RTÉ – careful phrasing in the following:

“I am very pleased that the garda investigation is now over. It was a very long and thorough one and at the end of it, there was no recommendation that there should be any charges,” he said.

“The matter is now with the DPP and we await a decision,” he told reporters during a trade mission in California.

“The allegations made against me were false, they were politically motivated,” he added.

“I did not commit any crime, I did not do anything corrupt, in fact I did not do anything self-interested and when this is over I think that will be clear to any reasonable person.”

Interesting to read this from November 2020.

To save the Good Friday Agreement, we must destroy it April 27, 2022

Curious piece by Michael McDowell in the IT last week. In it he argued a number of points that seemed almost disconnected from one another. For example, he wrote:

The paramilitary demonstration by dissident IRA members in Derry on the occasion of their commemoration of the Easter Rising demonstrated yet again that the vein of hatred that runs like a deep seam in the former heartlands of paramilitarism – green and orange – is still there to be mined and exploited for political purposes, especially in the run-up to the Assembly elections on May 5th.

Of course, there is nothing republican at all about sectarian paramilitarism. Genuine Irish republicans in the tradition of Thomas Davis all know that our greatest challenge is reconciliation of orange and green. Bogus Irish republicans pretend that the real problem is the presence of any form or trace of Britishness in the northeast of the island. Defeat Britishness militarily, they say, and reconciliation will follow.

That is the stuff of civil war. It is not what the Belfast Agreement is all about. That agreement, democratically endorsed by a majority in both parts of this island, acknowledges the reality of deep-seated disagreement on the issue of Irish unity and the end of the UK link. The people who voted for that agreement endorsed its central term – that any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland must only come about by peaceful and democratic means and not by the use or threat of violence or coercion.

That’s true but given the largest formation in republicanism on the island has eschewed violence and determined that it will only use peaceful and democratic means what precisely is the point being made? He continues:

Demographic change in Northern Ireland will undoubtedly alter the terms of political discourse in all of Ireland. We are on the cusp of one demographic milestone – the number of Catholics will shortly exceed the number of Protestants. Both groups will be minorities. The North will no longer be a “Protestant state for a Protestant people”, as its unionist founders claimed it was and should be.

But it is equally clear that we are far off a situation in which a majority of voting age would vote for Irish unity in a plebiscite. Even on the level of principle, those who would vote against Irish unity appear from current polling data to number at least 60 per cent and might be as much as two thirds.

This is more difficult to assess. But the reality remains that it unionism and republicanism/nationalism which contend at the highest levels in NI and the constitutional issue will remain central. So, again, what point is being made? And there are other impacts. Sinn Féin as the largest party has implications, if not quite the apocalyptic ones of one J. Donaldson’s imagination. One need merely look at the situation where the SNP is now the largest party in Scotland to see how that changes the tone of discussions. It’s not entirely the same but these things do matter, even in terms of optics. Moreover, that demographic change. It seems implausible that it will have no effect short-term or long-term. Many are in the ‘too soon for a Border poll yet’ camp, and that seems sensible. But across five, ten, twenty years, the chances of one being run and a UI being the outcome seems potentially likely.

McDowell, like many IT commentators, dismisses the appeal made by SF to unionists to talk.

Expecting unionists to commence a unity dialogue with a party that dangles the prospect of a 32-county socialist republic before them is very fanciful in present circumstances. It doesn’t appeal to the majority of voters in Northern Ireland and it is simply of no interest to unionist or Alliance voters.

Is it not though? I’d have thought to some Alliance voters it might be of some interest. That persuadable sliver which is even just half-open to unity should surely be engaged with. There is evidence that post-Brexit their identity underwent some transformation, if not necessarily permanent. And what’s lost in the effort? He does not say.

To state that something is of no interest and let’s leave it at that seems a strange one for a politician who presumably spent much of his adult life attempting to do precisely the opposite in relation to his own politics. It’s not that I expect any great rewards for SF’s efforts. But if one believes unity is a good thing – or indeed if the Union is a good thing – then it is incumbent upon those who believe that to make their case.

Which leads us to the last point he makes:

Assembly elections next month will, I think, see Sinn Féin emerge as the largest political party, perhaps having the same minority level of support that opinion polls in the South indicate that it has here.

But what will happen then? Assuming for a moment that the DUP comes second – a reasonable assumption – the question then arises is whether the DUP will nominate a Deputy First Minister to serve with Michelle O’Neill.

My guess is that the DUP will not make such a nomination. I think that the most likely outcome will be a stalemate which will require extensive renegotiation of the Belfast Agreement as amended at St Andrews. A very different form of coalition power-sharing will probably emerge from a very lengthy suspension of the Assembly – possibly lasting years.

So, yes, a dialogue is in the offing. But it’s not the dialogue that Mary Lou had in mind. It will be about a re-design of power-sharing – not about Irish unity.

Basically, he is saying that unionism will not actually follow the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and that this is to be tolerated, indeed to the degree that changes must be made in the Agreement. Isn’t that quite something? Imagine the situation was the opposite and it was Sinn Féin who was resiling from following through on the democratic structures of the GFA/BA? Is it in the slightest bit likely that he would be arguing the GFA/BA should be renegotiated to accommodate that?

Troubling.

Podcast – The National Citizens Movement April 27, 2022

The National Citizens Movement – "The Others" The Alan Kinsella Podcast

Founded in 2014, The National Citizens Movement grew out of The Anti Water Charges and wider anti Austerity Movement. They contested the 2015 Carlow Kilkenny By-Election before merging with Direct Democracy Ireland in December 2015.

1. The National Citizens Movement 26:10
2. Howth Development Association 23:55
3. The Cork Civic Party 39:56
4. The Monaghan Protestant Association 01:38:48
5. Meath Centre Left 14:23

Founded in 2014, The National Citizens Movement grew out of The Anti Water Charges and wider anti Austerity Movement. They contested the 2015 Carlow Kilkenny By-Election before merging with Direct Democracy Ireland in December 2015.

Independent Left: Evasions on the Left over Ukraine April 27, 2022

From Independent Left a post that examines various positions on the left in relation to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. it notes that there is a ‘left argument around the war in Ukraine which has arisen in the West. It is one that condemns Putin’s invasion, but refuses to offer practical support to the people of Ukraine in resisting that invasion.’

This point is particularly well made:

World peace arising from a mass movement from below East and West would be lovely, but what is evaded here is the question of whether the left should support Ukrainian military resistance to the invasion. “Opposing the war” is a comfortable position to adopt if you are on the other side of Europe to the columns of Russian soldiers. But what does this conclusion mean for the people of Ukraine? Perhaps it means they should not fight back? Or perhaps there is room for supporting armed resistance to the Russian invasion, if it is decoupled from NATO? The point here is that in many cases, no one knows what it means. This is not a position that informs the people of Ukraine or those who want to express solidarity with them of what to do.

But it also points to a way out of this cul-de-sac.

It’s not at all unreasonable to keep an eye on what the US is up to. No doubt there are US hawks who are thinking now would be a perfect time to take Russia on and smash Putin’s army while he’s weak. We should oppose US intervention of troops, ships, and aircraft, mainly because of the risk of nuclear war but also because of their own imperialist record. But that’s not happening right now: yes, NATO countries are supplying weapons to Ukraine but at the time of writing they have not entered the war with Russia with their own armed forces. Sitting on the fence now in fear of what the US might do in future, again means not supporting those currently fighting the Russian soldiers. The same question faces the good faith left person as the bad: when the Russian convoy is approaching your town, do you fight back militarily? You can’t say, “well, there’s a balance of imperial interests to consider and I’m going to be neutral until I get non-NATO weapons.” That neutrality will be finished by a Russian bullet to the head to you and anyone else you have persuaded of your position.

What you want to say – 27th April 2022 April 27, 2022

As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

Reviewing mask protocols on aircraft? April 26, 2022

I flew Aer Lingus recently. Twice in the space of a week. The flights were packed out, so much so I was bumped from one seat to another as they put a larger plane on. Which makes me wonder at this from the IT last week where the airline argued:

There is an “urgent need” to review Irish Government and European protocols requiring airline passengers to wear masks aboard aircraft, according to Aer Lingus.

The airline said while it follows rules as set out, the situation has changed following United States and United Kingdom decisions on mask wearing. And this has prompted the need for a rethink here.

And:

“However, in light of the Florida court decision regarding the United States mask mandate and the fact the United Kingdom does not require the wearing of masks on board, there is now an urgent need to review both the Irish Government and EASA-ECDC protocols in order to remove the provisions regarding the wearing of masks on board,” she said.

Any such move would only follow a broader relaxation of coronavirus restrictions. But it would likely lead to unease among some passengers.

Indeed. I didn’t see any complaints from passengers on the flights. Adherence to protocols was universal. It was a small thing. Didn’t see any evidence it was stopping people from flying. Oddly coming from a state where restrictions had all but faded to one where there was much more stringent restrictions and then back again was almost like stepping back half a year albeit in the context of everything being open. Which by the way was very welcome. There were no restrictions on numbers in bars, or museums or wherever. So perhaps it wasn’t like stepping back half a year at all. Perhaps it was like being in a careful but effectively open society. No complaints from me. 

But anyhow, the US government is contesting the decision and this piece here on Slate is good in terms of pointing out just how and why the decision was problematic (it has already significant criticism for appearing to misinterpret the law at hand).

It is easy to dunk on Mizelle’s reasoning. But this ruling has serious consequences that set a terribleprecedent going forward if we want to combat a future pandemic-strain respiratory disease. It could make requiring masks on transportation systems a lot harder if we’re faced with another fast-spreading respiratory virus. Even if the airplane itself has high-quality HEPA air filters, the airport could still be a high-transmission site with passengers eating and milling about.

And:

The implications of Monday’s ruling stretch beyond masks. Mizelle’s decision suggests that the federal government currently has extremely limited power to combat contagious disease. It exudes hostility toward the statute that, since 1944, has formed a bedrock of federal public health programs. This same law, for instance, grants the CDC authority to require quarantine and isolation of infected individuals, particularly at ports of entry. It gives the agency power to inspect animals and other products that could transmit communicable diseases. And in the earlier days of the COVID pandemic, the statute allowed the government to collect and report information about high-risk travelers and mandate COVID testing.

All of which is more an issue for the US. But to see airlines trying to row in behind it is telling.

BTW, just on masks and aircraft this makes for interesting reading.

Under the shadow of the mushroom cloud April 26, 2022

Zoe Williams in the Guardian recently had a pretty good piece on the 1980s and what it was like to live in fear of nuclear war – a fear that, perhaps fleetingly, has resurfaced. Though to nothing like the extent of that period and before.

Before my time but I’m sure many of us have spoken with people who during the Cuban Missile Crisis were convinced there’d be a nuclear exchange then. Thankfully, that didn’t come to pass but the visceral reality of the threat then is evident even now in conversation with people who lived through it, and small wonder that CND and other organisations gathered support as time went on.

What was, perhaps, different about the 1970s and 1980s was the fact that it had gone on for so long. Decade after decade from 1945 on where the potential for nuclear war was very real. And there were some close escapes, not just Cuba, but accidents, omissions and human error. Some people played a near heroic role in keeping the lid on things.

It is, no doubt, difficult at this remove to quite appreciate how the anxieties of the nuclear period were threaded through daily live. I sometimes hear people talking about the certainties of a multi-polar world, but that’s not how it felt at the time. Rather it felt fragile, that those accidents mentioned above, or intentional deployment of weapons could trigger a conflict that would wipe out human civilisation.

I remember reading On The Beach by Nevil Shute and ticking off the towns and cities globally that went quiet as nuclear fallout spread across the globe after a nuclear war. The finality of that novel when you eleven or twelve was quite enough.

Any time I was in England I’d wonder about what would happen if there was an attack, though it was well known that Shannon would be a target in a nuclear exchange. As one grew older, the cultural baggage, if anything, became heavier. Music, political discourse, art, television and so on all sought to engage with the unengageable.

In the 80s, however, there were pop songs, comedy sketches and even board games about nuclear war. Brotherstone and Lawrence have made an apocalypse Top 10, whittled down from 100 chart-toppers about the bomb.

“Strawberry Switchblade, a young couple deciding on suicide after a nuclear war,” Lawrence says. “UB40, The Earth Dies Screaming,” Brotherstone adds, “David Bowie, Eve of Destruction, a song from the second-most depressing film of all time, When the Wind Blows. Ultravox, Dancing With Tears in My Eyes – the video is about him rushing home to be with his wife and kid before they’re vaporised.”

“The Specials, of course,” Lawrence adds, “with Man at C&A” (this begins with the line, “Warning, warning, nuclear attack”). “Men at Work did a song about a lower-ranking army offer and his nuclear anxiety, and accidental nuclear attack,” Lawrence continues.

Brotherstone adds, “I only found out recently that in Nik Kershaw’s I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, the sun he refers to is the flash of the mushroom cloud. Then Kate Bush did a song about an unborn child’s thoughts as it floats in its mother’s womb, wondering whether it’s going to be born into a world of radiation and death.”

In with a bullet at No 1: Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Two Tribes. It’s video is a parody of the Protect and Survive public information campaign.

And of course the early period of Reagan was genuinely scarifying. The FGTH video might be a parody, but it was pretty close to the bone (didn’t know that about Kershaw). And it wasn’t as if actual events, the invasion of Afghanistan, the shooting down of a Korean passenger airliner, the placement of ever more powerful missiles in Europe by the US and indeed the rhetoric emanating from Washington, wasn’t anxiety inducing in itself.

And an odd echo with the pandemic here:

“Before the fully articulated MAD proposal,” Rosen says, “you would get people claiming that we could have a limited nuclear war and win it.” That (completely deranged) idea was given new energy in the Reagan era with the notion of a great nuclear shield, which would allow the US to nuke the USSR without a counterattack (would it shield Europe as well? Not so much).

In the UK in the early 60s, a group of august peace activists – the Committee of 100 – uncovered the Regional Seats of Government (RSGs), advanced governmental contingency planning to keep things ticking over in the event of nuclear war. This unleashed a tide of anxiety that didn’t recede until the 90s – a government that was readying itself, with miles of secret underground bunkers, plainly wasn’t trustworthy and possibly didn’t have its citizens’ interests at the heart of its decision-making.

Carl Sagan and others pushed back sharply against the limited nuclear war idea. And indeed there were those who seemed to believe a full-scale exchange was in some sense survivable. But that lack of rationality about survival seems oddly contemporary given talk of natural immunity and let it rip.

In the early 2010s I went to Hack Green – a former MOD nuclear bunker. One of the most fascinating places I’ve ever been to and a surprisingly comprehensive exhibition of anti-nuclear weapons activism too was there. It was, almost needless to say, a comfort to be there when the threat had so clearly receded. Odd to sit there and have a cup of tea in the cafeteria. But impossible not to have a sense that this was, as it were, the last resort, the end of a process of engagement that was fundamentally inhuman while, of course, being all too human.

And Williams makes an excellent point, which is that there was an intrinsic elitism about this (on all sides).

In what conceivable world would taking a door off its hinges and leaning it against your dining room table protect you from a nuclear blast? Theories swirled that these were all strategic displacement activities, just to keep people busy so they didn’t rush the politicians’ own bomb shelter network. Details of such doors were published in panicky books such as Beneath the Streets by Peter Laurie in 1979, which identifies secret doors to the RSG tunnels. One of them was on Kingsway, which runs from High Holborn to Aldwych in the centre of London. I remember passing it on a march and someone pointing it out, the portal to the postapocalypse underworld.

Trust in political authority was, understandably, low. Unless you were going to go the way of the Swiss – where neutrality was pledged and it had been mandatory since 1963 to have capacity for its entire population in fallout shelters – it’s hard to be open with a population about a plan which will see most of them die. It was difficult to distinguish fact (those bunkers were real) from fiction (were night trains carrying nuclear waste?). But just because you were a conspiracy theorist didn’t mean the government wasn’t out to get you.

And then…

Then, as if by magic, the fear vanished. It left no trace as we hurtled into the carefree 90s, because remembering it was just too heavy. By the time Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour party, Kaldor points out we were at the stage of denial where “he was attacked for saying, if he had to press the button, he would think very carefully about it. Apparently you’re not supposed to think very carefully, you’re supposed to just do it.” Yet the weapons never disappeared, and nor did the fear. It all lay dormant, waiting to be poked awake by another madman.

The fear vanished, stockpiles were reduced, but not eliminated. And never reduced to a level that would guarantee human survival. In some ways this was a process of mass forgetting.

Corbyn was right (and we know from various discussions that many US leaders doubted they would push the button in similar circumstances).  It seems implausible that they would be used in any contemporary conflict. But the very fact this is being raised at all is telling.

Talking about talking about surrogacy April 26, 2022

Anyone read this in the Examiner?

All in the name of being offended. Causing offence is not allowed in the new “liberal” autocracy we find ourselves in, supposedly. People are not allowed to have strong views and will be shouted down by others who claim to speak from a morally superior position which they demand must be honoured and obeyed.

It is becoming stifling.  An example of this played out at an Oireachtas committee meeting this week on the matter of surrogacy.

The committee, normally chaired by Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore but on this occasion by Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion, was hearing from a number of witnesses who were speaking about their experience of surrogacy and their desire for progress on this issue in Ireland.

But during the meeting things escalated when Independent senator Sharon Keogan began her contribution. Ms Keogan stated that it is her belief that surrogacy was “harmful, exploitative, and unethical” and “not in the best interest of the child”.

And:

“I don’t believe it is everyone’s right to have a child,” she said. “It is a privilege to give birth.” Ms Keogan said it was important that the surrogate mother was not “airbrushed out of the process”.

She said she wholeheartedly objected to what she called the commercialisation of the human child and the regulation of women to the status of simply incubators or wombs. She asked the witnesses why other countries have not moved to allow “commercial surrogacy”.

Almost immediately, Ms Keogan was challenged by witnesses and her fellow committee members alike for what she said.

Interesting take. But in fact the statement by the Senator where she outlined her position which finished at 1.38.17 on the video was listened to calmly and with no dissent from the Chair or anyone that one can hear. During this she articulated the view that surrogacy was harmful, exploitative etc.

It was a witness from ARC who asked for no inflammatory language and this was a broad based request that didn’t specifically point at an individual politician. But what is ignored is that it was the Senator who then interrupted the witnesses words. What is also ignored is that there was a serious discussion where the Senator’s points were addressed and in huge detail. To argue that there was an effort to shut down her opinion was incorrect – and her beliefs while challenged and one person argued they were slightly insulting, weren’t ignored at all.

There was a dispute but this was between two Senators starting twelve minutes later (one of whom later apologised for escalating matters). But there one has to feel that this was precisely the sort of exchange that McConnell seems to seek. After all – two views, very distinct views, aired, though to what effect? To argue that one Senator’s views were shut down is to do a serious injustice to what actually happened – to suggest that the process was such that that Senator had no place to air their views equally so.

Yet this is specifically what is suggested happened:

The bottom line is that Ms Keogan’s views may be off the wall. They may be offensive. They may even be abhorrent to a majority of people, but in a democracy, she had a right to be heard.

And the simple truth, from my perspective, is that she wasn’t heard. The true measure of tolerance and equity is to debate and deconstruct the arguments, bogus or otherwise, that are being presented by your opponents.

By making it personal, and accusing her of bigotry and the rest, Ms Ruane and the others betrayed the very liberalism they proclaim to extol. Being offended is the price we pay for living in a free society. Ms Keogan may have been offensive, insensitive, and crass in her commentary, but for her, it is her stated belief and unpalatable as it may be, she should have been able to have her say.

She most certainly was heard. To my mind what occurred later seemed a dispute between Senators over language and so on and that surely is a different matter again. Without question there was blunt language used which appeared to be insensitive to many of those in attendance, but again for this to be framed as a ‘free speech’ issue appears to ignore the actual reality of what took place. The Senator was able to place her views on the record, to question witnesses and to make her points. To collapse these two elements, that latter aspect of the Committee hearing and the later dispute, together is simply incorrect and mischaracterises the reality entirely.

Just a point, the representatives from ARC etc were excellent, measured, dignified and completely open and there was clearly a real intent to promote best practice, acknowledgement of birth parents and so on. There was also a point re the statement there was no right to children. A representative of LGBT Ireland made the point that there is an enshrined right to family life for all individuals. In truth bar the disagreement between Senators and some of the rhetoric used this was, for the representatives at least, a useful exchange.

As to the broader point, little surprise that there’s disagreement. Given how heated the issue can be, and how freighted with expectations and preconceptions on the part of some this was almost inevitable. Having some experience of different areas of IVF it seems to me that anyone going in front of the Committee who has been in that position will have been through some huge challenges and sympathy, even in the context of people not agreeing with surrogacy, is the minimum that could be expected.

The situation facing the Oireachtas is one where:

At present, there are no laws governing surrogacy in Ireland. The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill is coming before the Oireachtas this year and seeks to regulate areas such as surrogacy, IVF and other reproductive issues. The Bill would allow for “altruistic” surrogacy in Ireland, but would ban “commercial” surrogacy.

One need only look at the international experience to see how problematic and contradictory all this is. But I’m unconvinced that there can be no altruistic surrogacy at all. And frameworks to protect everyone involved seem to be a basic minimum of approaching this. Here’s a discussion from almost exactly a decade ago on this site on this very issue.

NI Assembly party political broadcasts April 25, 2022

Thanks to the person who sent this. A review on Belfast Live by Brendan Hughes of party political broadcasts. Interesting how the DUP does so poorly, relatively speaking.