Mitchel McLaughlin - Sinn Fein - politely declines Andrew Neil's traps

Andrew Neill questions Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein on the Irish economic situation, baiting some rather obvious elephant traps in his questions.

McLaughlin, like all Northern Irish politicians, has lived through more challenging times and situations than any British politician has ever seen, and almost disdainfully swats away a mere UK media commentator's 'Ladybird Book of Politics' simplistic analysis.

But in the process, he politely explains some fundamental things about Ireland - north and south - and says things of relevance of all of us.

It wasn’t the Euro, the EU or national identity that did this to us–it was global finance and incompetent UK, US and Irish governments

It wasn't the European Union that did this to all of us - it wasn't the Euro, it wasn't nationalism - it was rampant unregulated amoral gambling by global financiers and bankers, allied to the incompetence and failure of vision, foresight and nerve of US, European and UK governments.

Labour and British banks did it to the UK - the Irish government and Irish banks did it to Ireland - the US government and Wall Street banks did it to America, and compounded it for the rest of us.

Reflect on this before sneering at Ireland and allowing schadenfreude to cloud your judgement, and mouthing cheap Labour sound bites about the failure of Celtic Tigers and the Arc of Prosperity.

Labour are the guilty party - the incompetent Conlib Coalition are now compounding the error in their misconceived programme of cuts, attacking public service, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable.

Only the Scottish Nationalist Government stands between the people of Scotland and this economic incompetence and social lunacy, but they are limited by the lack of full fiscal autonomy.

Saor Alba!