Hain to bring energy to PM’s hands on approach?

Or so he said yesterday on his SoS’s ritual walkabout in Belfast yesterday. But how willing are the main players. Sinn Fein say yes, the DUP is hedgeing its bets. But we’re unlikely to see the innummerable rounds of ‘political chicken’ of the recent past. With both the DUP and Sinn Fein well dug in for the new game of ‘advice centre politics’, the new Secretary of State could have problems getting either side out again to ‘talk turkey’ about the resumption of local democracy – for some time to come.

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