NI secretary didn't get why 'people who are nationalists don't vote for unionists'

07-09-2018 02:44PM #1

Speaking in an interview to The House magazine, Bradley said, “I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland.

“I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought for example in Northern Ireland, people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice-versa. So, the parties fight for the election within their own community... That’s a very different world from the world I came from.”

Jesus christ, get your act together Downing Street and appoint someone who has the slightest clue

bear1 · 07-09-2018 02:46PM

To be fair to her, you'd want a serious amount of homework to understand the ****e up there.

07-09-2018 02:49PM

bear1 wrote: »

To be fair to her, you'd want a serious amount of homework to understand the ****e up there.

Ah come on this isn't an american tourist or something we are talking about, you'd expect someone in this position to have far more than the most basic understanding of what's going on, which she didn't even have.

DrumSteve · 07-09-2018 02:52PM

riffmongous wrote: »

Ah come on this isn't an american tourist or something we are talking about, you'd expect someone in this position to have far more than the most basic understanding of what's going on, which she didn't even have.

Have to agree; her job is specifically to manage that part of the UK, she could have even wiki'd it. It would have taken about 2 minutes.

uck51js9zml2yt · 07-09-2018 02:54PM

Not sure what's worse.not knowing or admitting she didn't know!

listermint · 07-09-2018 02:57PM

bear1 wrote: »

To be fair to her, you'd want a serious amount of homework to understand the ****e up there.

This is the basics...

Its not the full suite of the problems.

If someone hasnt got the graps of this and is involved in British politics, well then that explains brexit.

Morons

uch · 07-09-2018 02:59PM

Gobshíte, but to be fair, I'd say millions of brits are the same

07-09-2018 03:02PM

Lyra Agreeable Cupcake wrote: »

Not sure what's worse.not knowing or admitting she didn't know!

Freely admitting even, not even slightly embarrassed by it. What's next, 'minister for brexit not ashamed he couldn't count past 10 when given job'??

Gimme A Pound · 07-09-2018 03:02PM

uch wrote: »

Gobshíte, but to be fair, I'd say millions of brits are the same

She's the Northern Ireland secretary though, so that shouldn't have any bearing.

uch · 07-09-2018 03:04PM

Mohamed Fancy X-ray wrote: »

She's the Northern Ireland secretary though, so that shouldn't have any bearing.

All I'm saying is she's not in the Minority

Your Face · 07-09-2018 03:04PM

Big wall.

per aspera ad astra · 07-09-2018 03:07PM

Your Face wrote: »

Big wall.

What about a big wall?

4068ac1elhodqr · 07-09-2018 03:10PM

Later on, possibly after being shown a map, she was shown what areas were 'colour coded' as shades of either 'green', or 'orange',
maybe she pointed to the 'blue bit in the middle' and asked "And who on earth are these people?".

"Err, that's Lough Neagh", someone else said, interjecting into the conversation.

07-09-2018 03:15PM

Being a unionist must be pretty tough these days. It's like a nice guy in love with a girl who doesn't even know he exists.

meathstevie · 07-09-2018 03:15PM

Is she not a member of the "Conservative and Unionist Party".........

joe40 · 07-09-2018 03:26PM

It is actually disgraceful that a government minister, or high ranking politician should have such poor knowledge of their own country. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and the British establishment have nothing but disdain for the area. For years, until the civil rights marches it was allowed to fester as an apartheid state, with no effort to intervene.

When the troubles kicked off the narrative for the typical British/English was just a religious war with no thing to do with them or their policies. Regardless of your views the issues in Northern Ireland are complex, this couldn't care less attitude unless there is violence is not acceptable.

dxhound2005 · 07-09-2018 03:34PM

Big Ian Paisley always claimed that he got a lot of Catholic votes.

BalcombeSt4 · 07-09-2018 04:26PM

Well if you don't understand the sh!t up there, don't get involved in the **** up there.

Britain has been involved now in 6 county politics for the last 5 decades now & pushing 6.

Nationalists don't vote Unionist because since 1966 Unionist/Loyalist paramilitaries waged a bloody sectarian campaign against them until 1999, killing close to one thousand civilians.

eyeball kid · 07-09-2018 04:32PM

She should have watched this. It would have explained everything..

zapitastas · 07-09-2018 04:38PM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Big Ian Paisley always claimed that he got a lot of Catholic votes.

He did claim that but it was rubbish. They voting patterns in the constitutency didn't reflect that. As well as that he was constantly agitating against Catholics and egging on their removal from the north so how would someone of that background vote for him.

chopperbyrne · 07-09-2018 04:45PM

zapitastas wrote: »

As well as that he was constantly agitating against Catholics and egging on their removal from the north so how would someone of that background vote for him.

Black people and women voted for Trump.

NIMAN · 07-09-2018 04:51PM

As daft as it makes her sound, it does show how silly NI politics is.

Take the latest antics of Ian Paisley Jr.

If he took luxury holidays for free withiut declaring them in the UK, he'd be dead as a politician.

But in NI, he'll get the same number of votes again when he runs. Doesn't matter he did what he did. Sure he's a grand lad and so was his da, that'll be the logic tens of thousands of people in the unionist community will have.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 07-09-2018 04:55PM

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Black people and women voted for Trump.

And?

dxhound2005 · 07-09-2018 04:56PM

zapitastas wrote: »

He did claim that but it was rubbish. They voting patterns in the constitutency didn't reflect that. As well as that he was constantly agitating against Catholics and egging on their removal from the north so how would someone of that background vote for him.

I went looking for any information on the internet, being aware that I had heard him claiming that on the radio. But I couldn't find anything. Have you got actual voting patterns for places in North Antrim for all of his elections?

More recently the DUP has claimed that conservative Catholics were voting for them, having felt abandoned by Sinn Fein's stance on abortion.

07-09-2018 05:07PM

NIMAN wrote: »

As daft as it makes her sound, it does show how silly NI politics is.

Take the latest antics of Ian Paisley Jr.

If he took luxury holidays for free withiut declaring them in the UK, he'd be dead as a politician.

But in NI, he'll get the same number of votes again when he runs. Doesn't matter he did what he did. Sure he's a grand lad and so was his da, that'll be the logic tens of thousands of people in the unionist community will have.

I don't think anyone would dispute how mad NI politics are, but it's more the fact we have someone in charge who doesnt seem to have had the most basic grasp of NI appointed as Secretary at a time when the local politics was floundering, and surprise surprise we haven't seen any progress on that front since her appointment, except for the most uninspired solution of a threat to cut wages a few days ago

BalcombeSt4 · 07-09-2018 05:16PM

joe40 wrote: »

It is actually disgraceful that a government minister, or high ranking politician should have such poor knowledge of their own country. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and the British establishment have nothing but disdain for the area. For years, until the civil rights marches it was allowed to fester as an apartheid state, with no effort to intervene.

When the troubles kicked off the narrative for the typical British/English was just a religious war with no thing to do with them or their policies. Regardless of your views the issues in Northern Ireland are complex, this couldn't care less attitude unless there is violence is not acceptable.

It's part of the UK for now.

Anyway British politicians not knowing anything about Ireland isn't anything new. I read in Peter Taylors 3 different series on on The Troubles Provo's, Loyalists & Brits.
In the Brits one Sir Frank Cooper says:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

There was a fear that you were going into an unknown mire, that you didn’t know what was there, you didn’t know what was going to happen to you when you were there, and how you got out at the other side of the bog. ..... [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] TAYLOR: Few imagined then (August 1969) that over 1000 soldiers and policemen would die.
Did you lack knowledge of Ireland?
COOPER: Oh yes. I don’t know anybody who knew a great deal about Ireland.
[/FONT]

[/FONT]

They'd be better off just getting out of Ireland altogether. Know knoweldge of the place, majority of British people have disdain for the place, they don't want to be in the place, violence could flair up again.

Yer Da sells Avon · 07-09-2018 05:21PM

She was born in 1970, so she must never have watched the news or read a paper throughout the '80s or '90s. Mind you, the north was usually item five on ITN/BBC News, so she probably would have to do a bit of independent digging to get beyond the 'IRA = baddies, British Army = goodies, Loyalist terrorists = who?' narrative.

07-09-2018 05:54PM

There's lots of selective quoting of this interview. What she actually said was:

“I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland,” she said.

“I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought for example in Northern Ireland - people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice-versa.

“So, the parties fight for the election within their own community. Actually, the unionist parties fight the elections against each other in unionist communities and nationalists in nationalist communities.

“That’s a very different world from the world I came from where in Staffordshire Moorlands I was fighting a Labour-held seat as a Conservative politician and I was trying to put forward why you would want to switch from voting Labour to voting Conservative.

Grayson · 07-09-2018 05:56PM

riffmongous wrote: »

I don't think anyone would dispute how mad NI politics are, but it's more the fact we have someone in charge who doesnt seem to have had the most basic grasp of NI appointed as Secretary at a time when the local politics was floundering, and surprise surprise we haven't seen any progress on that front since her appointment, except for the most uninspired solution of a threat to cut wages a few days ago

To be fair, feck all do. I'd say that within the political establishment there's many who haven't got a clue. And the same goes for the British people. Remember that bit where someone got them to draw Northern Ireland on a map? There were people slicing off donegal into the North. And I think at one point even westmeath got it.

At least she was honest enough to admit it.

indioblack · 07-09-2018 07:02PM

riffmongous wrote: »

Jesus christ, get your act together Downing Street and appoint someone who has the slightest clue

They can give me the job. I'm from England, [by way of Cork], and I knew more as a teenager in the 1960's. Perhaps I read different books than the minister. As a teenager, talking to my Irish relatives gave me a clue that all was not well[!]
I didn't have to agree with everything I listened to, watched or read - but at least I wasn't unaware.

SEPT 23 1989 · 07-09-2018 07:16PM

She is no Peter Brooke

NI secretary didn't get why 'people who are nationalists don't vote for unionists'

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