Calm Before the Stormont?

After the Walt Disney inspired fairytale of Tuesday, it was interesting to see that the remainder of this week in Stormont has passed without a resumption of traditional hostilities. But despite today's mitigated success by the Executive in, at least temporarily, removing the scorge of water rates, as easily as turning off a tap, are the brooding clouds of ancient divisions again beginning to gather?
Realistically there were too many cameras and people of importance around on Tuesday for the masks of cooperation to slide and spoil the big day, and there was minimal scope for insults to ricochet around the chamber on Wednesday as the MLAs divvied out the chairs and vice chairs of the Assembly’s 11 committees under the D’hondt principles. In fact,the niceties of procedure dictated that those MLAs who showed up could be in and out of the chamber in less than 20 minutes, with an inflated pay cheque to match their new role.
The unionists continued to respectfully bite their tongue as each Sinn Féin MLA used every available opportunity to throw in a smattering of their native tongue. To a hardened veteran of Lisburn City Council, such as myself, this stood apart from the usual reaction of unionist politicians who normally greet the use of Irish with a, ‘here we go again with the Leprechaun language’ groan, but in Stormont, each time an Irish phrase was spoken there followed an impeccably observed moment’s silence from the unionist benches.
The week’s feel good factor was further enhanced as the odd couple of Ian and Martin hosted their first official reception in Stormont's main hall. It was a party to celebrate the growing wealth of ethnic diversity in the North, whose presence is surely a measure of our slowly maturing society.
Not content with enjoying his week’s great love-in in the confines of Stormont, a number of its ministers took up the mantle of roving ambassadors for the power-sharing government on Wednesday - most notably Edwin Poots.
Poor Edwin was left wishing he had picked any ministry other than Arts and Leisure as he showed why he won’t ever threaten Keith Gillespie’s place on the wing for Lawrie Sanchez’ team of world beaters at a photocall event with a local football team. Fair play to him, for unwilling to come across as a spoilsport he gamely tried in vain to juggle a football - hopefully he can juggle the finances of a department which is traditionally the first to endure cutbacks, better than he can a size five.
This week witnessed another notable event with the inaugural meeting of the government’s Executive in Stormont Castle, just a stone’s throw away from Parliament Buildings. As the Ministers shook hands and took their places at the round table beside King Arthur Paisley and his beloved Guinevere McGuinness, the now expected banter continued unabated between the various MLAs, before the cameras and reporters were banished for the closed session.
By the time the meeting came to a close the elctorate’s favourite gripe of water rates had been put on the long finger as Ian Paisley waved away the issue for another year.
Apparently another key issue, that of the peace dividend, was also broached by the mnisters. The round table Executive is keen to wrestle more funds to help bed in the new Assembly, but the magical money from Gordon Brown could prove more difficult to obtain than removing the legendary Excalibur from its stone.
It is not worth speculating whether behind closed doors the Ministers continued to get along as well as they did in public, but since they were approaching the various issues on the table from a unified position, it is feasible that they may have.
The constitutional issue however remains the destabilizing point. Whether Gerry Adams was just being mischievous when, in the course of paying tribute to the out going British prime Minister Tony Blair, he threw in the comment that his successor would be the last PM to have an input into the North, is unclear. However his sentiments were met by a sharp rebuttal by Ian Paisley that Adams would not see a united Ireland in his lifetime.
Okay, so this was hardly an all-out war of words, but it could be the warning shots which signal a cooling of newly forged relationships. Another perennial stumbling block which could further test Stormont’s now legendary love-in is the old flags issue. Those more observant than I spotted a Union flag (I only noticed the EU's flag) on top of Parliament Buildings on Wednesday, probably to mark some momentous royal event such as an anniversary of the death of one of Princess Anne’s horses. Whatever the reason for the flag, temples began to throb accordingly in republican quarters.
The symbolicsignificance of flags and emblems to representatives across the political spectrum cannot be over esstimated, but hopefully through the impending storm clouds, all sides will recall the recent successes and good will generated by consensus politics.
Long live the Stormont love-in.