10 May 2007

Dear SD,

I’ve just been watching the opening of Stormont - This is what peace looks like, or so they say. This is what we are supposed to live with. This is supposed to be the future made tangible.

The appearance is that there’s nothing wrong with it – for today at least. Although predictions of the future could not be based on today's smiling faces I have a terrible fear that they might pull it off and that we would have to live permanently with the charade. 

The appearance has nothing to do with reality.   Paisley is still Paisley.  The DUP is still the DUP. Stormont is still Stormont.  Right at the moment people are willing to submit to Blair nailing everything in place and saying its for our own good.  The bribes and repression seem better than what went before.

In my view the very promise of an eternal and unchanging coalition is the undoing of the assembly.  Things change.  Its inability to change will see it fall and the chance for a genuine settlement of the Irish question.  That gives me my foothold of hope.

Yours,

Colin Lee