On the duplicious art of boiling of frogs…

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.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.