In my own defence also I used the words ‘if’ and ‘suggests’ but then offered practical evidence for the way the party’s behaviour was in line with my interpretation of that speech.

Haven’t you read the comment policy? More seriously though: to play the man means you have to take your eye off the ball!

But taking your eye off a Tory means they drink the blood of children. The ball can wait until their head is lopped off. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about driving a stake through the heart because there isn’t one there.

What I find tortured is trying to squeeze any real meaning out of a couple of speech excerpts, fluffy political speeches notorious for lots of vacuous nonsense and niceties that have little relevance to what actually happens or even what the speaker truly believes. So now the DUP is genuinely interested in representing everyone equally (did Iris get that memo?) while Sinn Fein just wants to be big fish to the SDLP’s little fish? Entire political strategies and viewpoints can be teased out from those few words?

You really ought to get out more. You’ll be throwing the kitchen sink next!

Believe me, I need away from this desk at the moment. You are still a Tory. I mean that as a term of abuse.

You really ought to get out more. You’ll be throwing the kitchen sink next!

It helps deactivate ‘de udder side’. If you secretly (in the confines of ggn’s closet so to speak) think that the other lot are better than your own, there is a greater likelihood, not that you will switch sides, but that you’ll stop turning up for the ‘electoral matches’.

The intepretation is two sentences long. It can’t be that tortured, surely? If you think it’s fundamentally mistaken, tell us why?

The problem, from a nationalist perspective, is that the tribe is not only coming up short on numbers but, after forty years of protracted and bloody war against their Protestant neighbours, there is little acquiescence amongst those beyond the home tribe for a transfer of sovereignty.

Electorally, there is no crisis. Except for the fact that Sinn Fein’s separatist strategy is close to ‘maxing out’ on voter take, just as Unionist confidence begins to show tentative signs of lifting.

If the limit of Sinn Fein’s ambition (as suggested by McGuinness’s speech) is to simply to be the bigger fish in the smaller of two Northern Irish ponds, then adopting a Millwall-like “Everybody hates us and we don’t care attitude”, may be sufficient to get its short term troubles over policing and justice and assorted other ‘house-keeping’ matters pertaining to the past.

Yet it will not take nationalism over the win line on the one issue that apparently matters most. For that they will need willing Protestant votes from willing Protestant people.

There is no shortage of intention on this. In last year’s interview of Martina in An Phoblacht, she sourced the progressive end of unionism as the ones most likely to peel away from the Union first. However, the one big set piece that should have won that section over was the education debate on which the DUP were exposed over the poor record of kids in the lower level of the education system.

Instead it went down the faction fight route, and jamming itself further back in to the old public narratives of victimhood and oppression, instead of opening up new ones. As I say, that’s ultimately a choice for the nationalist leadership (distributed as it is between SF and the SDLP). But if you engage in faction fighting, my view is that you’ll ultimately sacrifice the dream of a politically united island. Then again, maybe that will turn out to be the better thing?

Diplomacy (a better term than EI) is a useful skill for any politician.

But it does not follow that diplomacy or ‘outreach’ will decide the constitutional question.

Fancy words often obscure plain facts.

Uh…what does that actually mean? And to use your analogy of unionist views of Sinn Fein five years ago, what practical effect did that have? A sneaking regard for someone’s ability to be a canny bastard isn’t the same as liking them, or “not voting against them”.

“Those two interpretations give away a lot about where the two projects are at the moment. One is planted (forgive the pun) in post conflict ‘shared future’ territory whilst the other suggests a ‘separate but equal’ paradigm. It remains to be seen which is the more potent offering in the long run.”

Some very tortured interpretations at that. The strategic visions of unionism and nationalism can now be divined through a single line each in two flowery speeches? Hell, there are probably enough instances on the Sinn Fein site where the words “shared future” appear? Given the low threshold for quality evidence here, does that count as proof that republicans also believe in a shared future? And like Kensei says, what does “shared future” even mean? In the past (I know, we’re not allowed to go there now) it has usually been code for “drop everything you believe in and be more like us.”

Since Ken is now newly convinced I’m a Tory

Not newly convinced. I occasionally read Brassneck, when I can stomach it. I know that the other commentators on there make you look like Michael Foot, but still, it’s all very Cameroonian. I was most disappointed to discover it.

“Voters do not need the Tories to tell them what to think of Labour. What they want to hear is a clear, coherent and consistent idea of what Conservatives stand for

Really? Because Republicans in the US have got very good at telling people what to think about Democratic candidates.

You don’t have to to see the implications though. It’s easily tested. Look at SF’s performance in the Referendum debate. Clearing out the old, and bringing younger, more emotionally intelligent young voices works.

Since Ken is now newly convinced I’m a Tory, Michael Gove is worth quoting from a Spectator article back in April 2003, when things were looking impossible for his party:

“Voters do not need the Tories to tell them what to think of Labour. What they want to hear is a clear, coherent and consistent idea of what Conservatives stand for.”

Getting into a dark narrowing place is not the same as losing the long term argument. But to get out of it, you need to first need to recognise where you are.

Those two interpretations give away a lot about where the two projects are at the moment. One is planted (forgive the pun) in post conflict ‘shared future’ territory whilst the other suggests a ‘separate but equal’ paradigm. It remains to be seen which is the more potent offering in the long run.

Well, you could read it that way, but it would be stretching. A bit like Pete did.

But in fact, in any case it says less than you think. The DUP have always wanted a “Shared Future”. They’d like a “Shared Future” in education, by getting rid of all the Catholic schools. They’d like a “Shared Future” in football, by stripping Nationalists of the right to play for the Republic. They’d like a “Shared Future” in government, but moving to voluntary coalition and stripping Nationalism of its veto. And so on – they would like a “Shared Future” in a lot of things. Really what they want is a shared Northern Irish identity. Robinson’s speech was suggesting by dint of support of the institutions, that we were already there.

Nationalism really wants a shared “Irish” identity. In fact, it spent a long time pretending that the Unionist one didn’t exist. When they acknowledge it does exist and should be respected, they are then berated for engaging in apartheid. Can we fucking win? Apparently we can’t.

Personally, I never take Bertie Ahern’s words too seriously.

“If it is done by any means of coercion, or divisiveness, or threats, it will never happen. We’ll stay at a very peaceful Ireland and I think time will be the healer providing people, in a dedicated way, work for the better good of everyone on the island. If it doesn’t prove possible, then it stays the way it is under the Good Friday Agreement, and people will just have to be tolerant of that if it’s not possible to bring it any further.”

As has already been pointed out, the constitutional future of NI will not be decided by internal actors but by external forces.

All this talk of emotional intelligence is just fluff.

But IMHO, the aim is less about converting Catholics to unionism that to (in the first place) disincentivising nationalists from always voting against them.

Nationalists who vote will always vote against unionism. Despite all the elaborate language, unionism vs nationalism is by definition a zero-sum game.

The point about Donaldson may be more important perhaps than it may seem at first. Not least because no one was doing that job before. Changing the profile of unionism in the south is critical, not least because of SF’s serial threat to ditch their own indigenous deal in Northern Ireland for a version of ‘Joint Authority’. If nothing else it makes it harder for them to paint the DUP as still being unreconstructed intransigents of the past. And, as I have argued before, it gets them a hearing where previously there was only a willingness to pin the blame on ‘stubborn northern Prods’.

It’s also indicates that the party finally understands the need to build a civilised engagement with opponents and political opposites, as the obverse of war. According to Michael Longley that mimicks the language of poetry rather the stately arts of negotiation: “peace is the absence of war: the opposite of war is custom, customs, and civilization. Civilization is custom and manners and ceremony”

To that extent the DUP’s ‘outreach’ to the Republic should (if only in the long term) make it easier to communicate without the customary ‘cultural interferences’ of mutual ignorance with their nationalist neighbours in Northern Ireland. But IMHO, the aim is less about converting Catholics to unionism that to (in the first place) disincentivising nationalists from always voting against them. In the last year I’ve heard nationalists express a sneaking regard for the DUP, in quite the way that Unionists did five years ago of Sinn Fein.

And this is where Robbo’s speech comes in. At the time Pete picked out a point in each man’s speech (ie, the FM and the DFM) and pointed out how although they used similar forms of words their meanings diverged significantly:

“I hope that the sons and daughters of the Planter and Gael have found a way to share the land of their birth and live together in peace.”

“I share that hope and as joint First Ministers, the new First Minister and I, as the leaders of the Planter and the Gael, are charged with the responsibility to lead the way on behalf of the Executive.” [added emphasis by Pete]

Those two interpretations give away a lot about where the two projects are at the moment. One is planted (forgive the pun) in post conflict ‘shared future’ territory whilst the other suggests a ‘separate but equal’ paradigm. It remains to be seen which is the more potent offering in the long run.

“The Conservatives support all cultural activities inclusing the use of the Irish Language for those who wish to do so.”

What is sullen or begrudging in that statement – Support means Support. If you are asking how much money are they are going to invest at a point in the future, it is still a little time away before they will be in a position to take any decisions.