Good to see the standard of political rhetoric remains as high as ever. At a weekend speech to the DUP's South Antrim Association, Peter Robinson launched an attack on Jim Allister suggesting the MEP "may live in a parallel universe with a brown paper bag over his head divorced from all the unpleasant realities of political life". Jim hit back, insisting "it's not me who has the penchant for strange headgear, but the balaclava brigade who are now his partners in government".
I think we shall need to appoint a Millinery Commissioner to sort this one out.
No, not one of the eleven new super councils. Instead I am thinking of commenter Susie Flood's 12th council, the one still ruling the IRA. Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, writes in his book, serialised in today's Guardian, about the PM offering to talk to the masked men of the IRA Army Council. Gerry Adams would always say the "time was not quite right, and maybe we should do it later".
Hard not to wonder whether the main reason for avoiding such face to balaclava talks was that some of the muffled voices might have sounded awfully familiar to the PM?
Jonathan Powell is not naive. He also writes "of course we knew some of the people we were talking to as Sinn Fein leaders were also leaders of the IRA". But he adds "the two organisations were different. There wasn't a complete overlap in their membership and their political imperatives were not the same. Some in the physical force republican movement were not politically subtle and some in Sinn Fein were not engaged in physical violence."
So, in offering to meet the IRA Army Council, was the PM simply covering all possible bases, or buying too much into the notion of "hawks and doves" within the republican movement?
I'm 
