Bush enters the Northern Ireland fray

The front page of the Guardian this morning focuses on a truly remarkable intervention by former President Bush in Northern Ireland.

Pleading to David Cameron amid widespread concern in the US about the Tories' new electoral pact with the Ulster Unionists,the paper reveals that in a late night phone call last week.

George Bush has made a direct plea to David Cameron to support the Northern Ireland peace process,asking him to use his influence to press his unionist partners to endorse the final stages of the 15-year search for a settlement.

It is an extraordinary intervention,perhaps no more than it shows that George W has alreday decided who is going to win the next election but perhaps more importantly as the same paper's editorial says

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, also needs to face up to what is at stake here. Mr Cameron has put a lot of commitment into restoring the electoral pact between his party and the UUP. He has encouraged the Marquess of Salisbury's reactionary romantic attempt to bring the Tories and the two large unionist parties back under one political roof. As a result he now finds himself simultaneously the leader of a party which began and backs the Northern Ireland peace process and the partner of a party which seems determined to prevent the final cornerstone of that process from being put into place today. This is not a cost-free contradiction in terms, as the US government and bipartisan congressional groups have now made clear. American economic investment in Northern Ireland as well as security are at stake.

Austerity on the way-look to Ireland

Staying on the subject of budgets, the Mail warns that Alistair Darling is preparing an austerity budget in two weeks time.

With drastically reduced Government revenues in the recession, the Chancellor may have to raise fresh taxes and cut back public spending.

reports the paper adding that

Treasury officials say Britain is in a 'V' shaped recession in which the downturn is unusually steep and no one knows where the bottom is.

Maybe it mightg be prudent to turn to Ireland which yesterday brought in its own austerity budget as an indicator of what the future might bring.

The country's second budget in six months saw large rises in taxes and severly slashed spending as the country fights to contain a burgeoning budget defecit as it forecasts an 8 per cent drop in growth this year

Guido make one good point tough comaring the two countrys.

Irish politicians rightly feel they need to share the pain - pensions for serving politicians are to be discontinued and allowable expenses cut by 10% across the board. The Irish President Mary McAleese has already announced that she will be taking a 10% pay cut in light of the current budgetary troubles. The finance Minister Brian Lenihan and his ministerial colleagues took a 10% wage cut last year. The opposition leader has instructed his party’s parliamentarians to take a 5% cut. The governor of the Irish Central Bank and Financial Services Authority has volunteered to also surrender 10% of pay. The state broadcaster RTÉ’s top six executives are taking a “significant reduction” in pay.

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Heffer may be right but let's not turn this into party politics

Simon Heffer is bound to stir up some controversy with his piece in this morning's Telegraph that refutes the fact that Northern Ireland has ever been at peace.

Whether you agree with him or not what makes this worse is his turning it into a party political argument

In its spin-driven pursuit of triumph, Labour pronounced the problem of Northern Ireland as dealt with. It was lulled into this by an IRA "permanent" ceasefire: not realising, or not wanting to realise, that a ceasefire was only as "permanent" as the criminals in the IRA who so graciously decreed it.

Northern Ireland back in the news

The overnight news from Northern Ireland will bring back memories of the troubles and for the Irish people worries of a return to sectarian violence.

The province has been on a higher security alert with rumours of renegade republican groups trying to destabalise the peace process and cause embarrassment to the devolved assembly.

Political leaders are being quick to emphasise that this is merely a dissident group and in no way will this not get in the way of a successful peace process.

The attack came only a day after Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said undercover soldiers had been called in to carry out surveillance operations on dissidents.