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| Need to strike a tough deal? Here’s how to channel your inner Arlene Foster | Need to strike a tough deal? Here’s how to channel your inner Arlene Foster |
| (11 days later) | |
| History is full of great dealmakers: Harry Truman at the Potsdam conference, the banker from Deal or No Deal, not Donald Trump, that guy who sold London Bridge to that American who thought he was buying Tower Bridge and then got it home and he was, like, “Aw, this bridge is boring, I wanted the one that goes up in the middle, phooey”... the list goes on. This week we add another name to that list: Arlene Isabel Foster, the leader of the DUP. | History is full of great dealmakers: Harry Truman at the Potsdam conference, the banker from Deal or No Deal, not Donald Trump, that guy who sold London Bridge to that American who thought he was buying Tower Bridge and then got it home and he was, like, “Aw, this bridge is boring, I wanted the one that goes up in the middle, phooey”... the list goes on. This week we add another name to that list: Arlene Isabel Foster, the leader of the DUP. |
| Foster secured a scarcely believable £1.5bn deal for Northern Ireland from the Conservative government despite the DUP’s limited power, likability and general understanding of science (I’m fairly sure the DUP MP Sammy Wilson thinks of those taps that can go both hot and cold as “an unholy matrimony of the temperatures”). You’re probably asking yourself how you could make yourself more like Arlene Foster, maybe minus the homophobia and rampant sectarianism. Well, ask no more! | Foster secured a scarcely believable £1.5bn deal for Northern Ireland from the Conservative government despite the DUP’s limited power, likability and general understanding of science (I’m fairly sure the DUP MP Sammy Wilson thinks of those taps that can go both hot and cold as “an unholy matrimony of the temperatures”). You’re probably asking yourself how you could make yourself more like Arlene Foster, maybe minus the homophobia and rampant sectarianism. Well, ask no more! |
| 1. Compromise is a sign of weakness | 1. Compromise is a sign of weakness |
| Never ever, ever give in until you get exactly what you want, even if that means destroying the country to make it happen. Some people might argue that the DUP probably should have compromised a tiny bit, given that the country was without a government during the start of Brexit negotiations. Foster would have slapped those people with the bloodied hand of Ulster, screamed “No surrender!” at the top of her lungs and tried to choke them with a Union Jack. | Never ever, ever give in until you get exactly what you want, even if that means destroying the country to make it happen. Some people might argue that the DUP probably should have compromised a tiny bit, given that the country was without a government during the start of Brexit negotiations. Foster would have slapped those people with the bloodied hand of Ulster, screamed “No surrender!” at the top of her lungs and tried to choke them with a Union Jack. |
| Who cares if the country is quietly collapsing around you? Do not budge. You have to stay stiller than a set of fossils planted by evil scientists to test our faith in God. Foster has form in this area. In January she refused to step aside, even temporarily, as head of the DUP following the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, to the point where Sinn Féin pulled out of power-sharing and the entire executive in Northern Ireland collapsed. Northern Ireland has now been without a government for six months, and the deadline for creating a new executive looms. And if that fails the country, reverts to direct rule just days before the commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne, when riots usually break out … but what’s the other option? Compromise? Like a Lib Dem? Pfft. | Who cares if the country is quietly collapsing around you? Do not budge. You have to stay stiller than a set of fossils planted by evil scientists to test our faith in God. Foster has form in this area. In January she refused to step aside, even temporarily, as head of the DUP following the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, to the point where Sinn Féin pulled out of power-sharing and the entire executive in Northern Ireland collapsed. Northern Ireland has now been without a government for six months, and the deadline for creating a new executive looms. And if that fails the country, reverts to direct rule just days before the commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne, when riots usually break out … but what’s the other option? Compromise? Like a Lib Dem? Pfft. |
| 2. Do not answer the phone | 2. Do not answer the phone |
| According to reports, DUP members refused to pick up the phone for 36 hours at the most crucial stage of the negotiations. This could have been for many reasons: Sammy Wilson might have suddenly realised that telephones were unholy, relying as they did on satellites, or as he refers to them, “the Devil’s floating sky woks”, while Nigel Dodds, the DUP MP for North Belfast, probably got his phone stuck on airplane mode. But most likely it’s because Arlene wanted to make them sweat harder than Jon Snow watching re-runs of Glastonbury. | According to reports, DUP members refused to pick up the phone for 36 hours at the most crucial stage of the negotiations. This could have been for many reasons: Sammy Wilson might have suddenly realised that telephones were unholy, relying as they did on satellites, or as he refers to them, “the Devil’s floating sky woks”, while Nigel Dodds, the DUP MP for North Belfast, probably got his phone stuck on airplane mode. But most likely it’s because Arlene wanted to make them sweat harder than Jon Snow watching re-runs of Glastonbury. |
| Not answering your phone makes you appear cool, enigmatic and complicated. Let them call. After 12 hours, she’ll get Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire leaving an answerphone message where he’s trying to sound chilled. After 24 hours, it will be David Davis, huffing and puffing angrily like he’s struggling to get out of a particularly deep chair. And after 36 hours, Foster will get Theresa herself, sobbing down the receiver and singing Orangemen of Crossmaglen while tossing back shots of Bushmills. | Not answering your phone makes you appear cool, enigmatic and complicated. Let them call. After 12 hours, she’ll get Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire leaving an answerphone message where he’s trying to sound chilled. After 24 hours, it will be David Davis, huffing and puffing angrily like he’s struggling to get out of a particularly deep chair. And after 36 hours, Foster will get Theresa herself, sobbing down the receiver and singing Orangemen of Crossmaglen while tossing back shots of Bushmills. |
| 3. Publicly needle your partners | 3. Publicly needle your partners |
| In the weeks it took to get a deal – yes, weeks – Foster was not above provoking her negotiating partners, saying that the DUP couldn’t be “taken for granted”. That warning is a lot more ominous coming from her than it is coming from, say, Nick Clegg. It’s the political equivalent of standing up in the middle of a restaurant and shouting “This date is going terribly. I am not having a good time!”. As a tactic, this can backfire – on the one hand, your date may up their game; on the other, they could spend the rest of the evening firing mashed potato shaped like Michael Gove into your hair, and you could be asked to leave the restaurant. Nine times out of 10 it leads to the latter – or rather, you get asked to step down pending an investigation – but the one time it works, you get £1.5bn. | In the weeks it took to get a deal – yes, weeks – Foster was not above provoking her negotiating partners, saying that the DUP couldn’t be “taken for granted”. That warning is a lot more ominous coming from her than it is coming from, say, Nick Clegg. It’s the political equivalent of standing up in the middle of a restaurant and shouting “This date is going terribly. I am not having a good time!”. As a tactic, this can backfire – on the one hand, your date may up their game; on the other, they could spend the rest of the evening firing mashed potato shaped like Michael Gove into your hair, and you could be asked to leave the restaurant. Nine times out of 10 it leads to the latter – or rather, you get asked to step down pending an investigation – but the one time it works, you get £1.5bn. |
| 4. Do not negotiate on a Sunday | 4. Do not negotiate on a Sunday |
| This is less an Arlene rule, more a Godrule – many of the DUP MPs are Sabbatarians, which is a phrase that derives from the Latin for “reduced Sunday trading hours”. On the surface, this doesn’t appear to be a problem – how many deals really need to be made on a Sunday? Except that 90% of Northern Irish politics is making a deal (the other 10% is waving flags, and the other 10% is gutting education so people forget how percentages work). If you take away Sundays, you’re effectively cutting down the amount of work you can do by a seventh. As such, it’s a risky business, but it can be an effective tool. | This is less an Arlene rule, more a Godrule – many of the DUP MPs are Sabbatarians, which is a phrase that derives from the Latin for “reduced Sunday trading hours”. On the surface, this doesn’t appear to be a problem – how many deals really need to be made on a Sunday? Except that 90% of Northern Irish politics is making a deal (the other 10% is waving flags, and the other 10% is gutting education so people forget how percentages work). If you take away Sundays, you’re effectively cutting down the amount of work you can do by a seventh. As such, it’s a risky business, but it can be an effective tool. |
| A full day off from negotiations, especially one where TV is so bad Channel 4 gives up and let Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer say whatever they want for three hours in a purgatory kitchen, is enough to make anyone slightly desperate. Come the stroke of midnight on Monday morning, your opponent will be banging down your door, stuffing money through your letterbox and screaming “make Simon stop talking about Liverpool! Please! It’s not good television!” | A full day off from negotiations, especially one where TV is so bad Channel 4 gives up and let Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer say whatever they want for three hours in a purgatory kitchen, is enough to make anyone slightly desperate. Come the stroke of midnight on Monday morning, your opponent will be banging down your door, stuffing money through your letterbox and screaming “make Simon stop talking about Liverpool! Please! It’s not good television!” |
| 5. Go up against Theresa May | 5. Go up against Theresa May |
| Now you might be reading this so far and thinking that this is all terrible advice. In fact, it kind of sounds like Arlene Foster is a horrible, stubborn negotiator who makes catastrophically bad decisions all the time. For example, the RHI scandal, the one she probably should have resigned over, led to a £490m black hole in Northern Irish public finances. | Now you might be reading this so far and thinking that this is all terrible advice. In fact, it kind of sounds like Arlene Foster is a horrible, stubborn negotiator who makes catastrophically bad decisions all the time. For example, the RHI scandal, the one she probably should have resigned over, led to a £490m black hole in Northern Irish public finances. |
| It’s kind of weird she’s patting herself on the back for this deal – it’s sort of like smashing your car into your friend’s house and then offering to pay for the repairs as a birthday present. But reader, you haven’t considered the final piece of the puzzle that turns this blunt instrument into the British Henry Kissinger, the Henry Snogginger if you will. If you want to get a great deal, the answer is simple: go up against Theresa May. | It’s kind of weird she’s patting herself on the back for this deal – it’s sort of like smashing your car into your friend’s house and then offering to pay for the repairs as a birthday present. But reader, you haven’t considered the final piece of the puzzle that turns this blunt instrument into the British Henry Kissinger, the Henry Snogginger if you will. If you want to get a great deal, the answer is simple: go up against Theresa May. |
| This is a politician who said she was going to make a deal with the DUP within hours of losing her majority. That’s like telling everyone you know that there will definitely be a clown firing soda at your guests with a supersoaker at your birthday party, and if there isn’t, you’ll resign from your job. Guess what – that supersoaking clown can charge whatever he likes now, because he’s got you over a large, soda-filled barrel. If you hadn’t over-promised, you wouldn’t be paying a totally mediocre clown £4,500 for one freaking afternoon’s work. (I know this sounds a lot like I’m speaking from experience, but I’m not, OK? I’m not.) | This is a politician who said she was going to make a deal with the DUP within hours of losing her majority. That’s like telling everyone you know that there will definitely be a clown firing soda at your guests with a supersoaker at your birthday party, and if there isn’t, you’ll resign from your job. Guess what – that supersoaking clown can charge whatever he likes now, because he’s got you over a large, soda-filled barrel. If you hadn’t over-promised, you wouldn’t be paying a totally mediocre clown £4,500 for one freaking afternoon’s work. (I know this sounds a lot like I’m speaking from experience, but I’m not, OK? I’m not.) |
| This is why Foster can be this brutal. This is why it appears as if she’s a good negotiator, when in fact she’s just a clown who’s spotted an opportunity to bleed a wounded politician dry. This is why she’s found herself with £1.5bn for Northern Ireland instead of out on her ear, like she should have been. Theresa May is beaten and embarrassed. But thankfully, at least it’s over. I mean, it’s not like there’s another negotiation she has to do in the near future, right? | This is why Foster can be this brutal. This is why it appears as if she’s a good negotiator, when in fact she’s just a clown who’s spotted an opportunity to bleed a wounded politician dry. This is why she’s found herself with £1.5bn for Northern Ireland instead of out on her ear, like she should have been. Theresa May is beaten and embarrassed. But thankfully, at least it’s over. I mean, it’s not like there’s another negotiation she has to do in the near future, right? |
| Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to leave a very angry TripAdvisor review for a London-based clown. | Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to leave a very angry TripAdvisor review for a London-based clown. |
| Democratic Unionist party (DUP) | Democratic Unionist party (DUP) |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Northern Ireland | Northern Ireland |
| Conservatives | Conservatives |
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