The truth in Ulster

After the murders in Ulster and the disgraceful display of irreverence to the Anglican Regiment I am pointing all readers into the path of an excellent article by the Telegraph journalist Simon Heffer. I have taken one passage to whet your appetite and sit back in inglorious satisfaction of knowing that I have been saying precisely this since I last visited the Province in 1989.

Because of the humiliation to moderate Unionists of the endless stream of concessions – which amounted to the de-Britannicising of the province, and the inclusion of supposedly retired gangsters in local government – the Official Unionists were all but wiped out. So too were the SDLP, the constitutional nationalists, because they could not match Sinn Fein's success in extracting these concessions from a Chamberlainite government. This left politics polarised between the bigots of the Democratic Unionists and the terrorists of IRA/Sinn Fein. That, too, was a massive achievement of this Government. Then, unlike in any other part of the Kingdom, there is local administration by power-sharing. If it is so good, why isn't it tried at Westminster? Why isn't Mr Cameron deputy prime minister? Why isn't Mr Clegg in the Cabinet?