His stand in Caledon was indeed admirable. But Currie was power hungry. When the stoops called for a rent & rates strike many of the nationalist population heeded the call. What the stoops didnât warn people was that those withheld rent & rates would eventually have to be repaid and so many, many people, and remember a lot of these people were on very low wages or benefits, saw it as a bit of a bonus and didnât squirrel it away.
When Currie became Housing minister in the Sunningdale power sharing assembly, he penalised those people who couldnât pay off the debt immediately by forcing them to pay off the debt over time and further levied a âfineâ on them as well. A low point among many for the stoopers.
When Currieâs ambition to lead the stoops was thwarted, he picked up his ball and disappeared over the border to join, of all parties, Fine Gael!!! That showed where his true affiliation lay.
Hume aside, you can see the type of characters that ran for the SDLP.
Currie didnât really campaign for civil rights, he campaigned so a catholic could be part of the ascendancy, his move to FG showed the disdain he held for the working class. Mallon was a bitter old bollocks who did his best to derail the peace process. Hume stood out on his own in the SDLP to have genuine. Lord Fitt and donât even get me started on the next generation of career Stoops like Durkan, Ritchie, Eastwood etc.
They are largely an irrelevance in nationalist politics and basically survive on unionist transfers to keep SF out.
The best of them all was Paddy Devlin. A trades unionist and socialist who made repeated attempts to establish a proper labour party in the North and who called out the stoops for their lack of left wing policies, eventually being thrown out for it.
Thatâs issue, the SDLP was all about middle class, soft nationalism. They did not really stand for much and could quite easily be bought off. I donât agree with everything Hume did but I think you can immensely credit his role in the peace process - the fact he was a lone wolf in that party in doing so pretty much tells you everything.
Myself, @Fagan_ODowd, @gilgamboa had a rugby discussion here a few weeks ago about various journeyman Ireland internationals from the 1990âs in which Tweedâa brief Ireland rugby career got a mention.
Why did you commend Chelsea FC for covering up for their paedophile youth coach and buying the silence of the victims?