Opinion

Dead-on-its-feet assembly staggers to a conclusion

The gatekeeper and the gate - finance minister, acting first minister and gatekeeper Arlene Foster and in/out first minister Peter Robinson. Picture by Mal McCann
The gatekeeper and the gate - finance minister, acting first minister and gatekeeper Arlene Foster and in/out first minister Peter Robinson. Picture by Mal McCann The gatekeeper and the gate - finance minister, acting first minister and gatekeeper Arlene Foster and in/out first minister Peter Robinson. Picture by Mal McCann

STORMONT'S monumental uselessness enters a thrilling and corybantic new phase today with the tantalising prospect of fresh political talks aimed at preserving the free-tea-and-biscuits assembly.

As we all know, in the well-worn double-speak of Northern Ireland politics, 'fresh' in this context actually means 'stale, and doomed to inevitable failure'.

Thank goodness, then, for the doughty Arlene Foster, who is surely all that stands between us and complete Armageddon.

This is because the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - her fellow DUP ministers Jonathan Bell, Mervyn Storey, Simon Hamilton and Michelle McIlveen - have galloped for the executive exit door.

Peter Robinson, looking increasingly like he might be the fifth horseman, has, in yet another act of selfless sacrifice, merely 'stood aside' as first minister rather than properly resign.

The net result of all this shenanigans is that Mrs Foster remains as finance minister and gets to be interim first minister for a completely uncertain length of time.

She also becomes something the DUP calls 'the gatekeeper', making her the western world's first government minister of gates, padlocks and nightclub bouncers.

Previously distinguished by her peerless ability at holding things - a skill honed by myriad photo opportunities - Mrs Foster now joins a select club of other famous gatekeepers including Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Greek mythology who guarded the entrance to the underworld.

Cerberus's job was to keep the dead trapped in the kingdom of Hades and prevent the living from getting in; in facilitating the perpetual death-throes of Stormont, Mrs Foster today fulfils a similar role for the DUP - keeping a dead-on-its-feet assembly stumbling towards oblivion while preventing new life from being breathed into the process.

That's bad enough, but Mrs Foster's justification for being left on the wrong side of the Styx is that she will be a bulwark to stop Sinn Féin ministers from going "rogue" and SDLP environment minister Mark H Durkan - a well-known "renegade" if ever there was one - from causing untold mischief.

Mrs Foster might have better explained this by saying the DUP was hanging in there to stop those sneaky Shinners pulling the sort of stroke that Martin McGuinness did when he scrapped the 11-plus on the eve of the collapse of the assembly in 2002.

Instead, she has chosen to give the impression that her gatekeeping role is little more than a measure to stop those uppity Catholics from throwing money at GAA clubs and the like, thereby reinforcing the idea that the DUP is not remotely interested in power-sharing or governing on behalf of all parts of the community... which is central to the whole political imbroglio to begin with.

It might be unpalatable but at least the idea that the DUP, now firmly in election mode, is openly pandering to the behavioural fossils among the unionist electorate still uneasy about sharing power, which has the merit of being easy to understand.

Unlike Mr Robinson's resignation manoeuvrings, that is, which are unfathomable and exemplify Stormont's dysfunctional nature.

You know you're in trouble politically when you can't explain what you are up to without the aid of an Enigma machine or the Rosetta Stone - neither of which, judging by the look on his face when Mr Robinson explained the wheeze, Jonathan Bell appears to have been armed with.

Having swatted away a succession of UUP leaders, being boxed in by Mike Nesbitt of all people must send Mr Robinson round the bend.

No wonder he resembles a man who would prefer to be on a Florida beach - the Castlereagh man from Del Monte, with the sand between his toes, a linen suit on his back and a Panama hat on his head - rather than stuck in the endless loop of yet more political talks which will yield the same outcome as the last set of political talks which also ended in a shambles...

It would be easier to be less cynical about the prospects of Stormont if it had a glittering list of achievements to its name, though the plastic bag tax is an undoubted highlight.

For example, health, solely in DUP control throughout this period of devolution, is in disarray.

When the health minister can resign and his department glibly explain to this newspaper that "normal work will continue", you begin to wonder what the purpose of having a locally-elected health minister is.

If the minister makes zero impact, which seems a reasonable way to interpret the statement, then what is the point?

That, though, is a question for the politicians at Stormont to answer. If they can get past the gatekeeper first, that is.