Breakthrough in Northern bank job?

mike65

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Is this a change of programming as the UTV listing do not show it

http://www.u.tv/tvlistings/

Sorry I was given duff info! BBC has Lets Talk on a 22.30 though so I expect it'll be covered there.

Mike.

Zombrex

mike65 wrote:

Sorry I was given duff info! BBC has Lets Talk on a 22.30 though so I expect it'll be covered there.

Mike.

Ah it is going to clash with west wing ... doh!

Do I watch fictional political drama with totally unrealisticly attrative people, or real political drama with far to realisticly ugly people. (not that Gerry's beard isn't lovely)

I supposed the next thing is one of the arrested men will say he was only acting on orders and should be released part of the GFA.

AmenToThat

Wicknight wrote:

A few points.

1) If the IRA did this, and it looks more and more like they did, or at least sanctioned members of the IRA to do it, then they have lost all credibility by saying they didn't do it.

Yes it does for the IRA, but I was talking about SF in reference to Reefs question

Wicknight wrote:

2) If 1 is true then Sinn Fein look like idiots for saying they believe the IRA. That is assuming SF didn't know about it.

Nwesflash! Politicians are made to look like gob****es :rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote:

3) If members of Sinn Fein the party were involved then SF not only look like idiots but also it brings serious questions onto SF that their members were involved in illegal operations.

Seems(for now like it was one SF member from cork maybe another from Derry(?) far lower percentage than is involved in yer average FF brown envelope scandal

Wicknight wrote:

The big question is whether or not senior members of SF knew this was happening. The government said they did.

Ahhhhhhh the good auld government........must be true then!

cdebru

Wicknight wrote:

Ah it is going to clash with west wing ... doh!

Do I watch fictional political drama with totally unrealisticly attrative people, or real political drama with far to realisticly ugly people. (not that Gerry's beard isn't lovely)

I supposed the next thing is one of the arrested men will say he was only acting on orders and should be released part of the GFA.

the GFA doesn't come into affect for anyone convicted in relation to this or the murder of robert mccarthy

if and I m not jumping to conclusions but it would be hard to explain away 2.3 million sterling even if it is not from the northern bank
every one who has voted for sinn fein will have to asess their explanation and the believeability of any explanation and wether the party can be supported into the future

Zombrex

AmenToThat wrote:

Nwesflash! Politicians are made to look like gob****es :rolleyes:

Yeah, and when they are you don't vote for them. Especially when the are made to look like idiots when dealing with the one thing they claim to be able to do that no one else can, ie communication with the IRA.

I would be very surprised if SF don't lose a load of votes because of this, even if it is shown the they honestly didn't know the IRA did this (which looks doubtful)

AmenToThat wrote:

Seems(for now like it was one SF member from cork maybe another from Derry(?) far lower percentage than is involved in yer average FF brown envelope scandal

And yesterday it "seemed" like SF had nothing to do with it. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

AmenToThat wrote:

Ahhhhhhh the good auld government........must be true then!

Well when my government, my army and my police force tell me something, and Sinn Fein tell me something else, who do you think I am going to believe :rolleyes:

AmenToThat

cdebru wrote:

every one who has voted for sinn fein will have to asess their explanation and the believeability of any explanation and wether the party can be supported into the future

One SF member from Cork has been arrested, not convicted mind you simply arrested so why the hell would I feel the need to asess my reasons for voting SF?
Seems like a very odd statement to make to me.

Zombrex

AmenToThat wrote:

One SF member from Cork has been arrested, not convicted mind you simply arrested so why the hell would I feel the need to asess my reasons for voting SF?
Seems like a very odd statement to make to me.

Well at the very least, senior part members don't know that lower level party members are robbing banks with the IRA. I think that would be a reason to re-assess your views in of itself

But, and I think we all know this, it is very unlikely that that is where this is going to end.

AmenToThat

Wicknight wrote:

Well at the very least, senior part members don't know that lower level party members are robbing banks with the IRA. I think that would be a reason to re-assess your views in of itself

O, I see, so informtaion has come to light that this individual was actually involved in the robbery, went into the bank with a gun and intimidated staff without the knowledge of the SF leadership!
Well that really is damning informtation I must admit.

Zombrex

AmenToThat wrote:

O, I see, so informtaion has come to light that this individual was actually involved in the robbery, went into the bank with a gun and intimidated staff without the knowledge of the SF leadership!
Well that really is damning informtation I must admit.

Yeah, if he didn't actually go into the bank and wave a gun around then he hasn't committed a crime ... suppose the get away driver should just be given a parking fine as well :rolleyes:

Oh and I never said information has come to light that the SF leadership didn't know about it. And I don't suspect I will ever have to say that .. if you know what I mean

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

AmenToThat

Wicknight wrote:

Yeah, if he didn't actually go into the bank and wave a gun around then he hasn't committed a crime

Agreed, untill he is convicted in court he is an innocent man.

mycroft

irish1 wrote:

If it is proven that several members of SF were knowingly involved in the northern bank robbery or in the laudering of money from the robbery I will be forced to consider who I vote for in the future. I will not stand by and support members involved in criminality. But I will also not jump to conclusions.

Someone recently pointed out to me the correct spelling of schadenfreuden

AmenToThat

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

And he hasnt been convicted yet of involvement in the bank robbery.

Look, the day the job was done I said I believed it was an element of the provos and I still believe it was.
I do not however believe that it was sanctioned by the army council of the IRA or that the SF leadership knew about it nor do I believe the involvement of one SF member (possibly two) means that all must be condemned which is the fascist stance being taken on this board by several of the contributers.

Zombrex

AmenToThat wrote:

Agreed, untill he is convicted in court he is an innocent man.

Very true. And he should get a fair trial. A trial I am sure Sinn Fein are shaking in their boots about.

It is still going to seriously damage Sinn Fein, who have basically destroyed any idea that NI will have a shared government for the for seeable future.

As I said before... Sinn Fien are f**ked.

AmenToThat

Wicknight wrote:

As I said before... Sinn Fien are f**ked.

Judging by the scandals that FF have been involved in over the years I doubt it

Zombrex

AmenToThat wrote:

Judging by the scandals that FF have been involved in over the years I doubt it

Well last time I checked FF weren't running a private army :rolleyes:

And I think FF were very badly damaged by the scandals of resent times. Considering this is a hundred times worse than that, I would say SF are in serious trouble. And nothing has even be proven yet. Wait until we find how high up SF this goes. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon get senior SF members resigning.

AmenToThat

Wicknight wrote:

Well last time I checked FF weren't running a private army :rolleyes:

And I think FF were very badly damaged by the scandals of resent times. Considering this is a hundred times worse than that, I would say SF are in serious trouble. And nothing has even be proven yet. Wait until we find how high up SF this goes. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon get senior SF members resigning.

Yes its going to be fun fun fun.
The republican movement splinters chaos reigns everbodies happy! :rolleyes:

I really dont think youv fully thought through the ramifications of SF or the Provos splintering, or maybe you have?
Maybe you could share with me how you see things panning out in the near to medium term assuming what your hoping for happens.

mycroft

AmenToThat wrote:

Yes its going to be fun fun fun.
The republican movement splinters chaos reigns everbodies happy! :rolleyes:

I really dont think youv fully thought through the ramifications of SF or the Provos splintering, or maybe you have?
Maybe you could share with me how you see things panning out in the near to medium term assuming what your hoping for happens.

Well for starts I suspect the SDLP are going to start dancing a jig.

This won't lead to an escaltion of violence, the weekus horriblus (to misquote the british queen) has exposed to the IRA that they cannot count on communties for unequivable support, therefore erroding their base. the fact that as it now beyonds apparent SF members were engaged in criminal activity will to my mind lead to a the rebirth of the SDLP, and a possible split in SF between hardliners and the political wing.

Meanwhile in the south it will damage SF credibility in the next GE, and in my mind destroys sinn fein's base.

I think(hope) this is the beginning og the end of SF and a start to a genuine peace movement without the dogma of people like FTA69.

About bloody time.

Villain

mycroft wrote:

Someone recently pointed out to me the correct spelling of schadenfreuden

I believe they were wrong it's schadenfreude i.e. no "n". But I doubt that will take any of the pleasure away :-)

Villain

mycroft wrote:

Well for starts I suspect the SDLP are going to start dancing a jig.

This won't lead to an escaltion of violence, the weekus horriblus (to misquote the british queen) has exposed to the IRA that they cannot count on communties for unequivable support, therefore erroding their base. the fact that as it now beyonds apparent SF members were engaged in criminal activity will to my mind lead to a the rebirth of the SDLP, and a possible split in SF between hardliners and the political wing.

Meanwhile in the south it will damage SF credibility in the next GE, and in my mind destroys sinn fein's base.

I think(hope) this is the beginning og the end of SF and a start to a genuine peace movement without the dogma of people like FTA69.

About bloody time.

Well the problem there is if you exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process your excluding the majority of nationalists, and without them you will never get an agreement, but others will probably argue with them you'l never get an agreement, catch 22 isn't it.

jbkenn

irish1 wrote:

Well the problem there is if you exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process your excluding the majority of nationalists, and without them you will never get an agreement, but others will probably argue with them you'l never get an agreement, catch 22 isn't it.

At the moment Sinn Fein do represent the majority nationalist vote, but they dont own it in perpetuity, any political party's support base is only as good as its next election result. Who knows? things may change in the future, and, Sinn Fein may not represent the majority nationalist vote

jbkenn

is_that_so

irish1 wrote:

Well the problem there is if you exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process your excluding the majority of nationalists, and without them you will never get an agreement, but others will probably argue with them you'l never get an agreement, catch 22 isn't it.

IMHO there is no attempt and will be no attempt to exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process, but I suspect that the cumulative effect of this will encourage Sinn Fein to re-evaluate its version of a win-win situation. In the real world that means an agreement on everybody's terms.
Personally I'd like to see the end of their misuse of euphemisms.
As regards today's news , whoever the people are they are likely to incur the wrath of CAB over time and that is quite likely to result in convictions.
Jim Cusack on Prime Time suggested that this clamping down on ill-gotten gains will go on for years. Hopefully this will go hand in hand with Sinn Fein using sentences with one meaning and one meaning only.

cdebru

AmenToThat wrote:

One SF member from Cork has been arrested, not convicted mind you simply arrested so why the hell would I feel the need to asess my reasons for voting SF?
Seems like a very odd statement to make to me.

I said IF

now the story is the IRA told us it had nothing to do with the northern bank robbery
IF a member of sinn Fein and 6 other "republicans" turn out to have money from the bank and as alleged are members of the IRA it means the IRA was lying to us or it has no control over its membership
if they lied to us about that how could anyone take what they have to say about
the murder of robert mc cartney
decommissioning
standing down of the IRA
not being involved in criminality

as being the truth

even if the money is not from the northern bank what the hell are they doing with 2.3 million in cash and how could it be legitimate money

and IF the IRA did carry out this raid how could the leadership of Sinn Fein NOT have known about it

btw I'm a republican

cdebru

mycroft wrote:

Well for starts I suspect the SDLP are going to start dancing a jig.

This won't lead to an escaltion of violence, the weekus horriblus (to misquote the british queen) has exposed to the IRA that they cannot count on communties for unequivable support, therefore erroding their base. the fact that as it now beyonds apparent SF members were engaged in criminal activity will to my mind lead to a the rebirth of the SDLP, and a possible split in SF between hardliners and the political wing.

Meanwhile in the south it will damage SF credibility in the next GE, and in my mind destroys sinn fein's base.

I think(hope) this is the beginning og the end of SF and a start to a genuine peace movement without the dogma of people like FTA69.

About bloody time.

I think your living in hope rather than reality

what is more likely to affect sinn feins vote in the north would be the murder of robert mccartney

people vote for sinn fein for loads of different reasons and it s not like they have just found out the parish priest is an adulterer
people know what sinn fein is like its not going to come as a huge shock if it turns out to be true

down in the 26 counties a large proportion of sinn fein vote is from people who feel disenfranchised by the political system alot of them had never voted before for anybody some have been attracted by the whiff of cordite
wether this would put them off voting sinn fein is debatable

I reckon it would slow or stop them expanding their vote but alot could happen between now and the next GE here and if SF reckon the IRA is a millstone i wouldn't put much money on them being around come the next GE in the 26 counties

AmenToThat

mycroft wrote:

Well for starts I suspect the SDLP are going to start dancing a jig.

This won't lead to an escaltion of violence, the weekus horriblus (to misquote the british queen) has exposed to the IRA that they cannot count on communties for unequivable support, therefore erroding their base. the fact that as it now beyonds apparent SF members were engaged in criminal activity will to my mind lead to a the rebirth of the SDLP, and a possible split in SF between hardliners and the political wing.

Meanwhile in the south it will damage SF credibility in the next GE, and in my mind destroys sinn fein's base.

I think(hope) this is the beginning og the end of SF and a start to a genuine peace movement without the dogma of people like FTA69.

About bloody time.

Personally I think if it all goes 'tits up' for the want of a better word you will see mainstream republicanism going two ways........those who stay with SF's way forward and those that go the way of mafiosa type gangs who are still idealogically driven in so far as they want Britian out of Ireland and so run a dual campaign of bombings and mafia style rackateering without any political voice and without anyone to control them.

Sand

I think the most likely consequence of all this will be SF/IRA having to do a triple sumersault through burning hoops that Paisley and co will be juggling between them before a deal is close to being done again.

Unionists have always found it repellant that they would have to see serving and former terrorists running their government and having power over the PNSI, a force they trust far more than "community policing" - it runs a distant second in their estimation to solidly liberal democratic rule from London. The Irish government has vouched for them in the past saying that SF/IRA are honestly trying to move into constitutional democracy and need only be given a chance. They persuaded Trimble to give them that chance, and hes political history. Paisley was almost persuaded, but honestly, can anyone persuade him now to accept SF/IRA are truly pursuing a 100% democratic path with all that has transpired?

Blair and Ahern have been made look like trusting fools, Trimble has been made look like a twit for even being caught in the same photograph as SF/IRA and Paisley has been shown to have preserved the concept of lawful government in Northern Ireland by resisting SF/IRA. I cant see his support base slipping because of that, whereas any Unionist leader preaching engagement with SF/IRA is going to have to be very, very persuasive and will need a lot of help from SF/IRA - real, meaningful commitments and actions to back them up. Engaging with the PNSI may be the start of that.

On the other hand, if the SDLP manage to regain the foreground as the party of lawful, respectable nationalism in Northern Ireland then the political situation could be eased greatly and Unionists might be persuaded that a man like Paisley might be needed to deal with SF/IRA ( fighting fire with fire and all that ) but perhaps a more moderate point of view on their side could bring about a closure to the peace proccess.

Hopefully the fallout from all this will be the reduction of the extremist parties stranglehold on the debate and the proccess, and the return of the moderates to the center state.

pogoń

Spot on, Sand.

mycroft

irish1 wrote:

Well the problem there is if you exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process your excluding the majority of nationalists, and without them you will never get an agreement, but others will probably argue with them you'l never get an agreement, catch 22 isn't it.

Uh huh, there'll be a general election in the UK and northern Ireland by the end of may and we'll see how large your mandate is then.

what is more likely to affect sinn feins vote in the north would be the murder of robert mccartney

Uh huh, which is why I used pig latin to call this "weekus horibblus (sic)" the two events are interwined in the public consciousness and the fall out of both is what matters.

cdebru

cdebru wrote:

people vote for sinn fein for loads of different reasons and it s not like they have just found out the parish priest is an adulterer

I'd have thought most people vote tactically in NI, ie Nationalists or Republicans vote for whoever is going to beat the unionist.
They do so with open eyes,I dont expect SF to lose any seats in NI
Their problem will be in the South.

cdebru

Earthman wrote:

I'd have thought most people vote tactically in NI, ie Nationalists or Republicans vote for whoever is going to beat the unionist.
They do so with open eyes,I dont expect SF to lose any seats in NI
Their problem will be in the South.

i would think the problem would be more about increasing their vote than losing it

as for tactical voting in general elections i'am sure some people do
however the assembly vote is PR and sinn fein out polled the sdlp in that election as well