Fine Gael's blue shirts will out

I see that a Google newsgroup which circulates to newspaper folk in Ireland and Britain picked up on yesterday's post which has led to a sharp increase in traffic to this quiet corner of the internet today. And expect our solitude to be disturbed again now that Nigel Dodds, DUP MP for North Belfast, rose in the Commons yesterday to berate the British Government for taking planning notices from the Irish News et al and placing them in the Andersonstown News Group and the rest of the local press in Belfast.

An interesting alliance developing there.

But even more interesting is the decision of FIne Gaels's five MEPs to vote against the European Parliament motion yesterday backing the Spanish government's decision to make peace with ETA. Flawed and all as it was, the motion garned the support of almost every thinking member of the parliament but Enda Kenny's troops couldn't bring themselves to back the pro-peace motion.

There were all sorts of excuses put forward for Fine Gael lining out behind the reactionaries and warmongers of the Spanish right but in reality it was a case of 'sciordann an dúchas tré shúile an chait". I'm not sure what the English for that proverb is but essentially it is that nature will always out from the eyes of the cat.

The Blueshirts who founded Enda's party were also fond of the Spanish right. In fact they sent a legion to Spain to help the Fascist Franco forces in the civil war. So Fine Gael's stance yesterday was a case of back to the future.

Martxelo Otamendi (pictured), the great Basque editor and community leader who was tortured by the Spanish authorities in 2003 (and whose case has been taken up by Amnesty and the UN Rapporteur on Torture who excoriated the Spanish Government) must be shaking his head in bewilderment that any Irish political party could oppose the peace process in Euskaid. After all, the Irish peace process is the inspiration for its Basque equivalent and Fr Alex Reid is the common denominator in both. But Martxelo, who hopes to travel to Belfast next month, should be aware that Fine Gael has also been lukewarm in its support of the Irish peace process. In fact, Enda's predecessor John Bruton singlehandedly dereailed the peace process in the mid-nineties.

Focal scoir/Signing off: The Robert Ballagh exhibition at the RHA is now being taken down after attracting more visitors than any other exhibtion in the history of the prestigious gallery. Not bad for a guy who the Blueshirts tried to put out of business many times. Any reviews I saw were fawning in their admiration of Ireland's best-known artist but Robert tells me there was at least one "Angry from Dublin 4" review penned by a wannabe artist who a few years back turned up at Robert's door asking for help with his college thesis. Robert and his wife Betty duly took in the whaif and gave him tea, hospitality and advice to help him on his way. In return, he churned out an anti-Ballagh diatribe for Sir Anthony. I suppose when you can't make it as an artist you have to do something to put bread on the table but...