Victims and Black Holes
I started the day at the La Mon Hotel attending a DUP briefing on their new private member's bill which will seek to change the definition of a victim to rule out the perpetrators of violence. The bill looks a bit like a pre-emptive strike on the new Victims Forum, which was holding a residential meeting today at an Edinburgh hotel and which is meant to be advising on the definition. Of course, the Victims Forum includes a former IRA prisoner who unionists would not regard as a victim.
The DUP is launching a consultation on how they should deal with grey areas - what about a paramilitary who renounced violence but was later injured in an entirely unconnected attack? Jeffrey Donaldson argued that the proposal might stand a chance of success if the SDLP can be persuaded to give it a fair wind.
However the SDLP's Alex Attwood kicked the bill to touch, insisting that his party wouldn't back it. He argued that the Victims Forum should be given space to develop a new definition. Predictably the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness also promised to block any attempt to rewrite the current definition.
Apart from La Mon and Stormont, I also got to Newtownards today where the TUV leader Jim Allister was welcoming two independent unionists to his party. Both George Ennis and Terry Williams have been openly sympathetic to the TUV for the past couple of years but their formal move into the party gave Jim Allister the chance to boast that they wouldn't be the last to rally to his standard.
Both the SDLP and Sinn Fein argue that the DUP's move on victims is evidence that the party is looking over its shoulder at the TUV. No doubt the DUP would deny that, but certainly the mood music between the DUP and Sinn Fein isn't good.
Most of those I have spoken to around Stormont seem sceptical about the chances of justice being devolved before Christmas. Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness are off to see Gordon Brown in London tomorrow about the financing of policing. At the DUP breakfast, the message appeared to be that the Heywood committee which has been examining funding possibilities for the government had not got anywhere near the figures which local politicians are talking about.
Talking of figures, the Ulster Unionist David McNarry became the 2nd politician in two days to estimate the black hole in the Executuve budget at £2 billion. Declan O'Loan came up with the same figure yesterday. I'm afraid I missed the UUP news conference on this point but Mr McNarry and Sammy Wilson had a rumbustious exchange on "Stormont Live" over the accuracy of the sums. As someone who struggled over one of those recent sample transfer test papers, I am not going to try to put either of them right.
I'm 
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