Great metaphor from Bob McCartney on how to boil a frog. The particular frog he has in mind is the DUP. He argues that reading the St Andrews Agreement as anything other than a minor iteration of the Belfast Agreement is bogus:
In essence, the DUP pragmatists have achieved little more than was always on offer … they have simply caved in to Peter Hain’s blackmail and carrot strategy. The DUP leadership’s decision to buy into the St Andrews road map to enforced coalition with Sinn Fein has required it to issue and spin a false prospectus to its grass roots, and then to attempt a concealment of their anger and confusion.
Aware that DUP rank and file disillusion and disbelief would somehow have to be sedated, the chosen strategy to do so has been the so-called Work in Progress concept.
And Work in Progress is, in McCartney’s book, equivalent of turning up the heat.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty