Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Intellectuals Jump ShipAuthor(s): Jonathan MooreSource: Fortnight, No. 263 (Jun., 1988), p. 4Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551572 .

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BRIEFING

I Four wheels good, two wheels better I The public inquiry into the Belfast Urban Area plan opened last month. That's the good news. The bad news is that the two key developments concerned are already faits accomplis. The Castle Court city-centre shopping complex [Fortnight 250) has been the

subject of a separate mini-inquiry and a

company has already been established to promote the Docklands-style Laganside waterfront scheme [Fortnight 253).

Transport remains one of the key issues on which battle has been joined,

with many of the 2,500 objectors to the

plan challenging its bias towards the

private car. They want less money for still more roads and more bums on (less hard) seats on buses.

And the city's ardent cyclists took to the streets last month to demand

recognition of their do-it-yourself ecological transport policy. They want

cycle lanes?and less pollution.

... ..... ........0 . . . . . . . . . . . . I - .. ........ ........ ....... . . ... . . . . . . .

Intellectuals

jump ship OPINION polls in the last few months have shown growing disillusionment with the Anglo-Irish Agreement on both sides of the border. Those politicians

who still speak of it as a major step forward have begun to look as if they are

talking to themselves?an impression highlighted at a recent conference on

Anglo-Irish legal relations in London. At the conference, staged by the

Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, confidence in the accord was constantly reiterated by Alban Maginness, chair of the SDLP; the Republic's former attor

ney general, John Rogers; the Conserva tive MP William Cash; and Geraldine

Kennedy, as a representative of Dail Eireann. But this was answered by a stream of criticism from a wide variety of academic observers.

Paul Arthur, of the University of

Ulster, spoke of the common misery of Protestants and Catholics after Hillsbor

ough. Brendan O'Leary of the London School of Economics claimed there had been no progress in bringing the com

munities together. Steven Greer of Bris tol argued that little or nothing had been secured in legal reforms. Tom Hadden and Kevin Boyle, from Queen's and

Galway respectively, said that in most areas the headway made by the Anglo Irish Conference had been questionable.

And so it went on, with virtually every academic challenging the sup

posed achievements of the accord. The

negative tone of the contributions led the

statutory Foreign Office representative angrily to condemn the lack of reference to the forthcoming proposals to deal

with discrimination. Towards the end of the day the ques

tion was posed; why did the Irish gov ernment continue to support the Agree

ment, if so little was coming out of it for northern Catholics? Perhaps, surmised Geraldine Kennedy and Prof Brian Far

rell, of University College Dublin, the

major goal of the Agreement for the

Republic was not the reform of the north but protection of the south from the

province's instability. In the context of recent events, this analysis bears closer

scrutiny.

Jonathan Moore

A floating pound

sinks Northern Ireland THE BUSINESS of business is not re

garded by many as a gripping subject. Still less popular are the rather arcane

principles of macro-economics. The di

vergent schools of thought on exchange rate management have gained a momen

tary hold on the public imagination only as the 'issue' on which Nigel Lawson and Mrs Thatcher fell out.

However, the value of sterling against the US dollar and the currencies of the premier European countries is of vital?life or death?importance to our

provincial economy. Government likes to have a strong

currency. It is a sign of 'sound money' and of international approval of how the

economy is being run. Interest rates are

kept high to maintain indirect control of

borrowing, at the same time attracting foreign investment in sterling. And if

there was a Currency of the Year Award,

sterling would undoubtedly be short odds favourite for 1988.

It is the common wisdom that the

prime minister believes that high inter est rates and the 'floating' of sterling against the Deutschmark have been

indispensable in the crusade against the

infidel inflation?the scourge of Sound

Money. Last month the Sunday Times ran a story supporting this point of view.

This centred on a report by the chief international economist of Goldman

Sachs, David Morrison, which assures us that any fears we may have that the rise in the pound could lead to the "devastation of British industry" are

"totally unfounded". For fear that those

engaged in said industry have failed to

catch his drift, Mr Morrison proclaims: "People don't appreciate how dynamic the British economy has become in

comparison to West Germany." This remark, whilst not quite in the

tail-wagging-dog category, is neverthe less a little insensitive. The people who

have been injecting the dynamism into

industry tell a different story. They would say that the 'fixing' of the pound at around DM 3, up until March, was

instrumental in creating sustained trad

ing success for the economy.

Productivity has improved tremen

dously in the UK but margins remain small in most industries and are kept low

through fierce international competi tion. The rise of sterling can mean only

one of two things in export markets? lower profits or fewer sales. These may in time be offset by productivity gains but not swiftly enough to save jeopard ised sales.

The message from British business since March has been; Tf it ain't broke, don't fix it'. And companies certainly

reported better performances when Brit ain operated within the DM3 barrier.

__________Bii?^^f"' ^*%iiii____________j

Nigel Lawson?convert to intervention

Businessmen can point to performance ?rather than speculate about the impact

of changes in the rate of exchange?to support their argument.

The future of the UK as an exporting economy is synonymous with the future of the UK as a viable economic entity. Northern Ireland's economic perform ance is inextricably tied to that of the UK and recent developments in the foreign exchange markets?and within British

shipping?are a salutary reminder of the

vulnerability of an island economy. This is happening at a time when

many of our businesses have prepared a

solid base on which to build and a sub

stantial market in which to flourish by 1992, when the single European market is to be completed. Exchange rate man

agement is an essential ingredient of the

right climate for economic success.

John McDowell

Go west,

young man 'BELFAST is buzzing' goes the slo

gan?and the Castle Court and Lagan side developments will continue the

striking revitalisation of south and cen

tral Belfast in recent years. But there has been little direct benefit to west Belfast in these developments, nor indeed is the

area going to be helped by the Urban Area plan. There are signs, though, that at last the government is taking its prob lems seriously.

Talk of a west Belfast initiative took off from a recent unattributable briefing by a senior Stormont official. In the near

future the Department of Economic De

velopment is expected to announce a

sizeable economic package for the area,

possibly centred around the re-opening of an empty factory as a major training centre. However, the sums of ?50-100

million which have been mentioned in

the media seem to have no basis in fact. One reason, however, why the gov

ernment feels able to make concessions in the area of economic policy is that it

offers an opportunity to spread the phi losophy of the 'enterprise culture' into

new territory. But any package which consists primarily of supply-side meas

ures to improve the 'employability' of

individuals, or which relies on a 'trickle down' solution to economic problems, has little chance of making a long-term impact on unemployment because west

Belfast is now so far divorced from the rest of the economy.

Nearly one-tenth of all the unem

ployed in Northern Ireland live in west

Belfast, according to OBAIR?the

Campaign for Employment in West Belfast?with adult unemployment reaching 86 per cent in Ballymurphy and

4 June Fortnight

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