New Year Message

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Informer on Tue 14th Jan 2003

I have a fresh perspective on British politics after spending New Year with in-laws in Northern Ireland.

My introduction was a black cab tour of Belfast, through the Shankhill and Falls Road estates.

The communities have become totally segregated. An awesome dividing wall has outlasted the Berlin Wall. The streets are covered in sectarian flags and pavements marked red white and blue or orange and green to define territory. Murals depict paramilitary heroes - many of them murderers - and martyrs. Police stations are defended like mediaeval fortresses.

The province is officially 'at peace' but we saw armed police raiding the home of a paramilitary gang leader and the Sinn Fein souvenir shop was selling knick-knacks glorifying the IRA.

On a trip to prosperous, rural, Antrim we were reminded where we were by a newspaper in which the local MP (Ian Paisley) was liberally dispensing gloom and doom.

Despite all that, my in-laws swear by Northern Ireland. As refugees from Mugabe's Zimbabwe they see it as a haven of peace and stability. Houses are affordable (English people are moving in to take advantage). Schools and health services are excellent by UK standards. Roads and buses are first class. There are good leisure facilities; my son went ice-skating and had the choice of two nearby rinks.

Pity about the people, you might say. But at the New Year celebrations, where I was almost the only person over 20 in a crowd of thousands, there was no tribal divide, no violence and no trouble. It was difficult not to feel a sense of hope.