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Queen and Martin McGuinness to meet

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jake-the-peg | 16:05 Fri 22nd Jun 2012 | News
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/...hern-ireland-18552221

Wow!

I think this just shows how far we've come!

Bet this will blow a few blood vessels tho!
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It's at times like this that I feel sorry for Her Maj, considering some of the pratts she has to be polite to.............
Politely put, craft
That's her job
I was under the impression that royalty had some powers still, and presumably could opt not to vist that part of her realm if she wished. Still, although it initially seems distasteful I'm suspecting that, as Jake says, things have moved on and it is preferable to support the progress made so far.
Second or third that, crafty.
For the Queen to meet the instigator of Bl00dy Sunday is indeed a huge step. I hope those still performing acts of terrorism now see that the "war" is over.
Oh well, at least she's just had a winner at Ascot..............
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We'll there will be a fair few in Ireland who think he shouldn't be meeting the titular head of armed forces who shot unarmed civillians in the streets of Northern Ireland!

But as I say it's a sign of how far we've come

I'll raise a glass to Tony Blair and Mo Molem for that!

If we were back with Maggie's approach we'd still have actors voicing Martin McGuinnesses words
No Doubt John Major won't mind Blair building on his work.
fourth it !
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True moonrocker the Downing Street declaration was the start.

But I don't think any Tory PM could ever have got through the concessions needed for the Good Friday agreement.

Not from any personal failing but just because of the entrenched positions of their back benchers - A change in Government was required for that
Well won't that be nice for them both- can't imagine either will be personally overjoyed, but it's a good job that they can both rise above their personal feelings for the greater good.
"...But I don't think any Tory PM could ever have got through the concessions "

Yes I guess it took someone like Blair to surrender fast enough!
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Yup that's the attitude he was fighting

Brave wasn't it to offer such concessions to win peace knowing that he could be sacrificing a second term

with all the entrenchment who didn't have the vision to see past

Them 'n us

It's a war

Win and lose

It's not a surrender when everybody wins
Yes Moonrocker

what a terrible thing Major and Blair did

How much better the world would be if there was still large scale killing and maiming in Northern Ireland

Oddly enough, according to all the opinion surveys, most of the people of NI have been brainwashed into thinking things have somehow got better, just because the chances of their children being shot or blown to pieces have reduced. How dare they?
MoonRocker it was a war you were never going to win, it would have just gone on and on for generations getting more and more barbaric and sophisticated in it's execution. I don't care who lost what, who ' surrendered' or didn't- now we have a semblence of peace, which if you had grown up there at the height of the troubles you would know is a wonderful thing indeed- and for the record there are plenty of dinosaurs like yourself on the Republican side too who think it was a sell out-but at the end of the day not many of us with the brains to think about it care as long as it's safe for future generations.
"I'll raise a glass to Tony Blair and Mo Molem for that!" [presumably the so-called “peace process”]

“Brave wasn't it to offer such concessions to win peace”

If you think, jake, that there is peace in Northern Ireland, think again. I have friends in Carickfergus, just outside Belfast. I visit the Province from time to time and I am in regular contact with my pals. People in Belfast are still being “kneecapped” for being of the wrong religion. Parents still have to walk their children to school by circuitous routes as they cannot go by the shortest route for fear of violence. Housing estates are still fiercely divided along Sectarian lines and the authorities cannot use their housing stock flexibly as violence would erupt if they mixed the "wrong" people together. Yes, the “Troubles” are by no means as severe as they were. But this is mainly because most people among the majority who wanted Sinn Fein (and by association the IRA) to play no part in their government have resigned themselves to the fact that they have been sold down the river. But “peaceful” it ain’t.

The “brave concessions” you mention made by the Blair government were nothing short of appeasement to terrorists secured under the threat of murder and extreme violence towards innocent civilians. That administration would have secured so-called peace at any price as it provided them with, in their view, their legacy. But the legacy for the two-thirds majority in Northern Ireland who wanted the status quo to remain is that they are governed by an assembly which contains convicted terrorists and they are still suffering threats of violence and indeed actual violence as the minority will not allow the majority view to prevail.

So now we face the prospect of Her Majesty the Queen shaking hands with a man convicted of possession of huge sums of explosives and ammunition but who now has become respectable after being afforded high office by means of violence. Nice.
I don't suppose the ascent to high office of Her Majesty's family was achieved with any violence?
Mo Molem, wonderful women IMO.
#Brave wasn't it to offer such concessions to win peace knowing that he could be sacrificing a second term #

Why #could be sacrificing a second term # I would say the reverse was the case, most people in the UK think Ireland is a pain in the A*** and, as was suggested to me on one occasion it's a pity it can't be floated out into the Atlantic and sunk.
For myself I don't care what they do, they can take their petty religious prejudices with their hypocritical clerics as far from the UK as possible.

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