WASHINGTON DELEGATION:Osborne's plan for the UK economy took the gloss off an otherwise successful US visit
SARAH JESSICA Parker, the American star of Sex and the City, sat in an armchair in the lobby of the Willard Hotel, waiting with a minder to walk over to the White House for an appointment with President Barack Obama to discuss his arts programme.
Members of the Irish community, who had just attended a breakfast celebrating the research and development partnership between Northern Ireland, the Republic and the US, and a second event promoting the Northern Ireland aerospace industry, asked the blonde actor for her autograph and had their photographs taken with her.
Meanwhile, leading members of the Northern Ireland Executive – Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and Reg Empey – stood huddled in an intense discussion of the spending review, scarcely six feet from the glamorous film star, so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t see her. “They wouldn’t have noticed if she’d taken her clothes off, despite her high-charisma wattage,” said an Irish lawyer at the scene.
The spending review cast a shadow over what was otherwise a successful trip to Washington.
“We’re presently analysing what was unpleasant news from the phone call that we received from Owen Paterson very early this morning,” Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said as he left the aerospace promotion event.
“Our Department of Finance and personnel are at the moment analysing it and will give us a read-out. We’re having a meeting of our Executive on Friday, when we get back.
“What we have learned from Owen Paterson is that there appears to be cuts in the region of 6.97 per cent each year over the course of the next four years,” McGuinness continued.
“The issue of the £18 billion (€20.4 billion), we’re still holding the British government to the commitments they made. We believe that the treasury, when they involve themselves in processes like this, can be involved in smoke and mirrors, so we’re trying to work out what’s the smoke and what’s the mirrors and what’s the reality.
“They’re saying things like giving us access – but not just us, Wales and Scotland also – to end-year flexibility, which this year is in the region of £300 million. But we have to ascertain how long that is. It’s hard to make an assessment at this stage.”
McGuinness said the 7 per cent cuts are current expenditure and have nothing to do with the capital budget of £18 billion. “That’s separate,” he said.
“We’re still holding the British government to that commitment which was made by Gordon Brown. We have to discover the full implications of how they are going to impact on that £18 billion. Because we are not satisfied at this stage that we are going to have the type of access that we need to commitments that were made by Gordon Brown.”
Speaking earlier at the event celebrating the US-Ireland research and development partnership, First Minister Peter Robinson said: “The current economic climate makes support of innovation all the more critical as we move ahead.
“There is some indication that the impact of the budget on Northern Ireland is not good news. In current expenditure it is worse than we expected. In capital expenditure it is as bad as we expected. We have to examine our priorities. We have put growing our economy front and centre.”