Are all marriages involving an ethic minority suspect?

Nuptials disrupted due to police "mistake"

When the state clamps down, it's general done in an all embracing way and that's not a romantic embrace at all. A few years back a store in Sparkhill, Birmingham was raided by the Border Agency Brigade. Armed officers burst into this bakery and apprehended all about them. They suspected illegal immigrants were working there. Unable to determine for themselves who the likely suspects were, everyone on the premises had to be detained for questioning. Including very pasty-faced Brummies. Political correctness would have it no other way.

Now, in Northern Ireland, police have apologised to a couple whose wedding in Londonderry was mistakenly stopped on suspicion it was a "sham marriage". Neil McIlwee and his pregnant fiancee, Yanan Sun, were about to get married at the Guildhall on Tuesday when police entered the building and arrested them. So here is a sort of reverse thinking. Londonderry guy marrying a woman from the Orient? Can't be right. So in storms PSNI armed with an anonymous letter and some paperwork faxed through about two hours earlier and stops the wedding.

In both cases the innocent suffer for the guilty. But with lots of these cases happening over the months it would be nice to think that the police did a bit more thinking instead of just doing.

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Queen visits Ireland today

Queen opening hospital wing in Londonderry 2009

Her Majesty The Queen is making a state visit to the Republic of Ireland today. This is not her first visit to Ireland, but it is her first visit to the Republic of Ireland, or Eire as my prep school Geography master from Lisburn called it. The BBC is keen to be telling us that this is "the first time a British Monarch has set foot on Irish soil since independence from British rule", which is a bit of a twist on history.

Ireland was, as a whole island, fully part of the United Kingdom from 1st January 1801 until 6th December 1922, when the south of Ireland assumed independence within the Commonwealth. It was called the Irish Free State and the King of Ireland became the King in Ireland. The Free State ended in 1937 and the Republic was formed, with no king in or out!

The BBC seems to forget that the Free State was what many Irishmen wanted. They do not mention it. They have mentioned the Irish who fought in the Great War and were inconveniently forgotten, which was a disgrace. However, the majority of the Irish people supported and voted for complete severance, and that is what seems predominant. We may be getting a similar run of political manoeuvring in Scotland, although Alex Salmond is a very much a creature of 2011 and not a back of the hay trailer tubthumper of 1911.

I hope the Queen's visit goes well. It seems most Irish people are at ease with the relationship between the Republic and the UK. We need to put enmity aside, if enmity there is and enjoy our common heritage and blood ties, for there are many of those.

Queen in Northern Ireland 2009

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Ian Paisley to quit as First Minister

Ian Paisley, scourge of all things Catholic but with a catholic taste for political intrigue (he must have been in talks with nearly every political hue and cry!), whether in the open or behind closed doors. Enoch Powell once said that all political careers end in failure. I don't believe that and in Paisley's case, it's ended on a high! He will continue as an MP and MLA. If he stands for Westminster at the next election, he could end up as Father of the House!

I remember the younger model of Paisleyism the night he contested Captain Terence O'Neill's Stormont seat in 1969. Paisley, ever the one with a barb in the message, boomed to the crowd "Tonight Cap'n O'Neill is a MINORITY candidate!". This was because O'Neill had secured less than 50% of the poll, even though he won. However, in many ways he lost. The Anglican/Etonian landowning gentry were about to be swept aside by a mixture of savvy middle class Unionists and a working class vote that was disillusioned with being Ulster Unionist ballot fodder. Paisley's DUP was the tonic they desired.

I wish him well in his "retirement". I haven't always liked his trenchant views, but he's nobody's fool. He's managed to be working pals with Martin Maguinness (Gerry Adams is another matter) and he has obtained the respect and, for a lot, the friendship of colleagues in the House of Commons, irrespective of party.

Enigma may be a word to use for Paisley. He's certainly turned out a lot different from what you mind read in old cuttings 30 years ago!

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Shaun Woodward's £70,000 luxury taxpayer-paid trips!

Remember Shaun Woodward? He's the former Tory MP for Witney (the seat now occupied by David Cameron), the former TV producer of That's Life, which made Esther Rantzen famous, and the former Bristol boy made good. Somehow the Tory party became too much for him. Far better the vulgarities of New Labour.

When Woodward left Witney in a huff, the New Labour machine parachuted the turncoat into the safe seat of St. Helens. Woodward had never been to the place. It took him over a year to find a house in the constituency. A terraced house into which he somehow managed to install three new bathrooms. Then there was all the joking about whether he could get his butler into the house as well.

Woodward is a man who has done well since he left his modest background of Bristol behind him. He married into the Sainsbury family and never looked back. He lives in a house his constituents only dream of when they fill in their lottery coupons!

Why mention this man? Because he spent £70,000 of taxpayers' money on three short trips to America. He flew first-class and stayed at some of the grandest hotels in Washington and New York, including the Four Seasons in Manhattan, where the cheapest rooms cost £350-a-night. Outrageous, when you think that those who elected him are having to endure hikes in utilities, council tax, and groceries. Ulster Unionist Lord Laird of Artigarvan said using public money in this way was "completely alien". I'd say so.

Of course, the Northern Ireland office backs him up, but as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what exactly does he do that the Chuckle Brothers don't do?

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