With Stormont heading for the rocks, unionism’s strategy is hard to fathom |
During this week next year, if Assembly elections go ahead as scheduled, everyone with an interest in the political process would normally be fully engaged in analysing the results and assessing the permutations involved in the incoming Executive.
Instead, there is no guarantee that the cross-community institutions will still be operating then, and, if they do endure, large sections of the public will be entirely and understandably apathetic about the selection of new ministers.
It is fair to say that Stormont’s reputation has never been at a lower level, even when the structures were in one of their many periods of suspension, and it is deeply frustrating to see the way in which the range of opportunities offered by devolution are being squandered.
The indications are that, while the public has just about been able to stomach the upheavals associated with a long list of previous crises, the unlikely phenomenon of culture wars has brought us increasingly close to the end of the line.
Noel Doran: With Stormont heading for the rocks, unionism’s strategy is hard to fathom
There was much to consider in the latest European Movement Ireland (EMI) poll last week, with one of the most striking findings that the level of trust for the European Union in the north, at 28 per cent, is more than five times the derisory five per cent........