Schrodinger's No Regulatory Divergence

I've just been catching up with the fudge on Northern Ireland that looks set to save the Brexit negotiations - but at what price?  My first reaction was that it would bring down the Tory government because the DUP would withdraw support, but it looks like what we're actually moving towards is a situation where the EU and Ireland insist that a special status has been agreed for Northern Ireland, while the DUP insist the deal doesn't mean any such thing.  Or to put it another way, the DUP have seemingly decided to "explain" a sellout to their own voters, rather than oppose it.  I'm not sure that's sustainable, but if the DUP leadership do try to hold the line, they could quickly find themselves facing the same fate as David Trimble and Reg Empey.

And what of Scotland?  It seems to me there is one answer, and one answer only, to the question of why Scotland can't have the same deal as Northern Ireland.  That answer is "because it would create a border on the island of Great Britain".  But the moment the Tories actually say that out loud, the unionist population of Northern Ireland will hear the message loud and clear that a border is being created between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the DUP leadership will be toast.

There are two political parties that are suddenly in a pickle today - and the SNP isn't one of them.

A statement from the Irish Prime Minister on the British Isles riots

This just in from Enda Kenny -

"The events of the last few days have collectively shamed us as an island people. It has been suggested to me that we in Ireland should in some way distance ourselves from what has been happening in order to protect our tourist industry, and indeed some have even suggested that events which are confined to English cities are self-evidently nothing to do with Ireland. I find that as incomprehensible as I do disgusting and petty-minded.

Yes, the riots may be confined to the territory of England, but the underlying causes are not. Are cities an "English" or a British Isles phenomenon? The latter, obviously, and moreover they are an exclusively British Isles phenomenon. There are no cities in France, or in Panama, or in Indonesia. Are inner cities and disaffected inner city youth "English" or British Isles phenomena? The latter, clearly, and moreover they are exclusively British Isles phenomena. There are no inner cities or disaffected inner city youth in Germany, the United States or Russia. Are social divisions, unemployment, poverty, hopelessness, criminality, greed, etc. "English" or British Isles phenomena? The latter (duh), and moreover they are exclusively British Isles phenomena. There is no social division, unemployment, poverty, hopelessness, criminality or greed in South Africa, Turkey or Brazil. These are very specifically British Isles sicknesses, and to try to somehow get Ireland an exemption card from them is to run away from our very character as a people.

Last month we showed our solidarity with the people of Norway by saying "we are all Norwegians now", but that is simply insufficient for a tragedy that involves our fellow islanders. What we must say this time is not "we are English", but that we are Irish, and that these are Irish riots. The fact that they aren't taking place on Irish soil and don't involve Irish people is a mere technical detail. And am I prepared to sacrifice the Irish tourism industry to speak that truth? You bet I am. British Isles solidarity demands nothing less, and I shall not be found wanting."

This has been an exclusive report from a parallel universe occasionally visited by contributers to the website Labour Hame.

Allowing married priests would be a good first step for the Vatican

Having followed some of this year's Irish general election campaign, and indeed to some extent the 2007 campaign as well because I happened to be on holiday in Donegal at the time, I'd never have thought Enda Kenny was capable of delivering a speech that would make anyone's blood run faster. He certainly proved me wrong last week with this devastating attack on the Vatican -

"...for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an Inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago.

And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism...the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.

The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'.

Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict's 'ear of the heart'......the Vatican's reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.

This calculated, withering position being the polar opposite of the radicalism, humility and compassion upon which the Roman Church was founded."

The Vatican later recalled its ambassador to Dublin, and issued a statement that expressed surprise at certain "excessive reactions". Personally, I'd have said the Taoiseach's comments marked the end of a decades-long under-reaction. But will the church now be shamed into getting its house in order at last? It's highly unlikely because of two basic aspects of the nature of the institution -

1) Catholics can't reform their own church. I know from my own experience that there are many liberal Catholics out there (my mother is one), but unfortunately their combined voices count for absolutely nought. Their function in the church is not to stand up for what they believe in, but instead to listen and understand why they are wrong, and then to shut up. That's the case both at micro-level (individual parishes) and at macro-level. It's the quintessential self-perpetuating hierarchy - the Pope appoints Cardinals who agree with him, and the Cardinals elect a Pope who agrees with them, and nobody else has any power at all. This lack of accoutability isn't supposed to matter, because the appointments are really "made by God". Well, frankly you don't have to disbelieve in God to recognise that for the self-serving mumbo-jumbo that it is. Probably the only way anything will ever change for the better is if someone "does a Kinnock" - ie. gets elected as Pope on the basis of traditionalist views, but then turns out to be a reformer.

2) Priests have to be both male and celibate. Now, there's nothing wrong with being either male or celibate (indeed I've had a degree of involuntary experience with both over the years), but it does mean you're selecting from a very narrow gene pool. The fact that such a disproportionate number of priests turn out to be abusers leads to the obvious suspicion that a certain category of person is being attracted to a celibate "profession" for the wrong reasons, and if that's the case surely the first thing you need to do is urgently broaden recruitment. OK, female ordination probably isn't going to happen for centuries (if ever), but given that married priests are already allowed in certain limited circumstances it really is hard to understand why the retention of the requirement for celibacy is such a red-line for the Vatican.

Eurovision 2011 prediction : the final

Welcome along to my fourth annual attempt to predict the result of the Eurovision Song Contest final. Now, as I may possibly have made reference to once or twice before, I successfully picked the winner in 2008, 2009 and 2010 - and for good measure I got the top three in the correct order last year. So what does that tell you? Yup, that's right, it tells you that the law of averages is about to kick in and as a result I'm going to fall flat on my face. But am I deterred? Pah! Not a bit of it.

To my mind the three class songs in the field are France, Germany and Hungary. The fact that 50% of the vote goes to juries comprised of musical professionals should mean that the cream has a fair chance of rising to the top this time, but even so I think we can safely rule Hungary out of contention. Kati Wolf's vocals have been a wee bit shy of perfect, and in any case dance tracks have such an atrocious record in the public vote that I'm not sure even a good placing with the juries will be able to save her.

As I mentioned when I ventured my pre-rehearsals prediction a few weeks ago, I think the puzzle at the heart of this Eurovision is whether France will win by a country mile, or won't win at all - I don't think there's going to be a middle way. I'm not really any closer to solving that puzzle, and if younger televoters don't go for the song, it wouldn't completely surprise me if France finished well down the leaderboard. But the next question is "if not France, then who?", and having watched the semi-finals and seen some of the rehearsals, no-one is really leaping out at me. The obvious answer a couple of weeks ago might have appeared to be the UK's Blue, but the general view is that they've been underperforming. Jedward are clearly going down a storm for Ireland assisted by some inspired staging (and also by the fact that the "backing" vocalists are doing the singing for them), but it's hard not to feel that the juries will mark them less favourably than the public. So, almost by default, I'm plumping for France as the winners, but without a huge amount of confidence. Here is my top five...

Winners - France (Sognu - Amaury Vassili)
2nd - Germany (Taken By a Stranger - Lena Meyer-Landrut)
3rd - Ireland (Lipstick - Jedward)
4th - UK (I Can - Blue)
5th - Denmark (New Tomorrow - A Friend in London)

Possible dark horses - Austria, Estonia

Of the obvious favourites, I've left out Azerbaijan simply because I don't think the song is strong enough, although it certainly can't be discounted altogether because it's beautifully staged and choreographed. I changed my mind at least five times about whether to have Denmark or Austria in fifth place - Austria have the better singer and a more favourable draw, but I think the anthemic Danish song is slightly more memorable.

I have Lena of Germany pipping Jedward to second place for a couple of reasons - we know from past experience that she'll nail the vocals on the night, and she'll probably be preferred by the juries. But for all that and everything, Taken By a Stranger is such a laid-back, offbeat, ice-cool entry that I just struggle to see it winning Eurovision outright. So I suppose what I'm saying is that if France do falter, Jedward may find themselves next in line for victory, which is...well, a startling thought.

With Ireland, France and the UK all in genuine contention, tonight's result could have some significance in the overall history of the contest. If either France or the UK win, they'll move clear of the other and of Luxembourg to become the second most successful country in Eurovision history with six victories - just one behind Ireland. But if Ireland notch up their eighth win, they'll move three clear of the others once again. One curiosity is that six of Ireland's seven victories to date occurred in the 1980s and 90s, whereas the most recent of France's wins was as far back as 1977 - although to be fair they couldn't have come much closer in 1991, losing to Sweden on the countback rule.

One prediction that is an absolute banker for this evening is that the UK public will want to award twelve points to Ireland (although whether the UK jury will play ball with that is another matter). And Ireland may even return the compliment, although I must admit that when I heard the Icelandic entry the first thought that went through my head was "douze points from Ireland".

Staines pronounces that black is white once again

I've been enjoying RTÉ's coverage of the Irish general election off and on today, and the following points have been made repeatedly -

1)  The centre-left Labour party is heading for its best election result ever, surpassing even the "Spring Tide" of 1992.

2)  The well-to-the-left Sinn Féin is heading for its best election result ever.

3)  Many left-wing candidates standing as independents or for smaller parties are also likely to be elected.  For instance, Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party looks set for a return to the Dáil, having been defeated in 2007.

4)  It seems overwhelmingly likely that Labour are heading into government, having successfully checked the Fine Gael bandwagon in recent days by reminding the electorate of the importance of a broad-based administration.

Put all these facts through the 'Guido filter', and what do you get?

"The Irish election results...show that left-wing parties failed to make the breakthrough"

"Adding the Fianna Fail vote the parties of the centre-right got 51%"

The latter point might make some kind of sense if it hadn't been for the fact that a) Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had a majority between them in every single election in history in which both have stood, b) 51% is an unprecedentedly low combined share, and c) Fianna Fáil are political untouchables at present, so any theoretical parliamentary majority that includes them is fairly academic.

But Staines' analysis gets yet more exotic -

"This will stiffen the resolve of George Osborne to persevere with spending cuts"

Unfortunately for us all, I'd suggest he already had plenty enough "resolve" for that endeavour.  I'm not sure where this stunning showing for the Irish left really comes into it.

Come back, Dustin the Turkey, all is forgiven

In the light of the BBC's decision not to allow the public any say in the selection of this year's UK Eurovision entry for the first time since 1987 (indeed I believe it's the first entirely internal selection ever), I thought I might as well make sure I voted in this year's Irish national final - UK residents were able to vote by mobile phone, thanks to the dedicated numbers for Northern Ireland viewers. For slightly complicated reasons I had to watch the RTÉ webcast with the sound down, so I could only guess at what was going on at various points. However, Cheryl Baker's presence on the panel - love her though I do - didn't exactly inspire confidence that the people of Ireland were being offered the most up-to-date advice on how to go about winning Eurovision. It could, of course, have been worse. It could have been John Barrowman.

Anyway, having listened to the five songs in advance, I decided to vote for Nikki Kavanagh's Falling. It wouldn't have been the most inspiring entry, but when I tell you that her main competition was Jedward - I'll say that again, JEDWARD - you might understand my thinking a little better. In my naivety I had thought the 67/33 split in the voting between juries and the public probably meant that sanity would just about prevail, but...well, see for yourself. I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for Dustin the Turkey.

Your breasts are a deadly weapon, Ljubica

Well, actually that's a line from the Serbian song that qualified on Tuesday night, but it could also very aptly apply to the Armenian singer, whose performance tonight bizarrely started with an extreme close-up of her bosom. It evidently did the trick. A more (well, even more) wholesome highlight of the evening was Niamh Kavanagh's amazing performance for Ireland - the song has improved out of all recognition since the national selection, but she could have been singing the Dublin telephone directory and it would still have sounded fantastic. She's certainly the class singer of the field, as she was all those years ago in Millstreet. I can't believe that some people on the forums are denouncing her performance - pulling out of the last note slightly early hardly negates the whole of the previous three minutes.

The only other standout performances from my point of view were Romania and Turkey. My general impression is that it was a weaker show than Tuesday's, which is peculiar given that it had a larger concentration of the generally favoured songs. Israel and Azerbaijan may have made it safely through, but I'm not sure either are really looking like potential winners anymore. So where does that leave us? If the bookies are to be believed, the next most likely winners are Germany, Armenia and Turkey. With all due respect to Armenia's Eva Rivas, I'm not sure her bosom (or even her apricot stone) is quite that dangerous, and while I love the German song, I'm not sure how well it's going to translate on stage. So my gut feeling at the moment is that Eurovision might just be Istanbul-bound for the second time in seven years. But the great thing is that - unlike the last couple of years - it looks very open and unpredictable for Saturday night.

As for my prediction...well, eight out of ten wasn't at all bad given the two shocks that very few people seemed to anticipate - the failure of both Sweden and Croatia to qualify. Bizarre though it may seem, I actually voted for Israel and the Netherlands - if I'd been voting 'honestly' I would of course have gone for Ireland, but as I've mentioned in previous years, I have a personal rule of only voting for entries sung entirely in a language other than English. As ghastly as the Netherlands' song was, I thought they deserved some reward for an endearing performance, and for doing what I never thought they'd do again - singing in Dutch!

Dustin's Demise is Down to his Diabolical Diction

The TV commentary box isn't necessarily always the first port of call for incisive analysis on the Eurovision Song Contest, but its occupants did make one telling point last night, right after Dustin the Turkey posed the poignant question "did I win?". Caroline Flack observed "I didn't understand a word of that", to which Paddy O'Connell replied "well, I heard something about a wig." This was surely the rather fundamental flaw in Ireland's approach from the word go - what's the use of a joke entry if hardly anyone can actually make out the jokes? Thinking back to when I first heard the track two months ago, I had to resort to the text of the lyrics before I could understand about two-thirds of what Dustin was saying - and I'm a Scot. What chance has your average Azerbaijani got?

Prediction for first Eurovision semi-final (Tuesday)

In no particular order, here are the ten countries I think will qualify for the final tomorrow night -

Greece
Romania
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Israel
Norway
Finland
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Russia
Poland

I've based this partly on the songs, partly on what I've seen and heard of the rehearsals, and partly on the familiar political voting patterns that I still expect to have a huge impact in spite of the new format. Probably the biggest call I've made is that I don't think Ireland's temptingly edible representative will quite make the cut, but that may prove to be more wishful thinking than anything else.

And the question I don't hear you all asking - who would I vote for? (This is hypothetical, because living in the UK I don't get a vote until Thursday). You might assume Norway, given the way I've been championing Maria over the last few days, but unfortunately I have my own personal rule that I only vote for countries that sing entirely in a language other than English. I suspect that would lead me to vote for San Marino - more in hope than expectation, as you can see from the list above!

A post about Macedon...well, you know, that country Skopje is the capital city of

You know you've got an international dispute of some seriousness on your hands when even the lyrics of a novelty pop song form part of the battlefield. Ireland's Eurovision entry Dustin the Turkey has been forced to drop all mention of what I can only describe as 'a certain country in the Balkans', because he inexcusably referred to it as Macedonia, a name Greece does not recognise. Dustin tried to smoothe things over by pointing out that geography wasn't his strong point, and that he hadn't set out to offend any "Greeks or Macedonians". But surely the sensibilities of any right-thinking Greek will have been even more outraged by this calculated insult disguised as an apology? He singularly failed to say he didn't mean to offend any "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonians".