My favourite place is my home office. It’s my safe space as well as being my creativity hub. A riot of coloured walls, I am surrounded by tens of thousands of words on heaving shelves.
The room is covered in photos of family, friends and random acquaintances. Some famous - some only known to me. All equal.
There are posters and poems from Maya Angelou to Martin Luther King; the Dalai Lama to Yeats. Even Kipling makes it. Some are framed - others cling to the wall with Blu Tack. It’s an eclectic mix of strange bedfellows.
Each day as I unfold the keyboard, my eyes meet two scripts.
One is the prayer of St Francis of Assisi. Anyone who ever served as a credit union director (as I did for 25 years) said this invocation before every board meeting.
I cut my copy from the 1998 Newry Credit Union annual report (Yes, I throw nothing out). It calls on people to make themselves instruments of peace. My political viewpoint is very much framed by those sentiments. So too was the work of my late friend, Brendan McAllister, who had peace building in his DNA. Peace building is not static. It needs constant vigilance against naysayers, wreckers and political vandalism.
On the other side of my desk sits a copy of the Serenity Prayer. It too has a strong message and is often used by those who are in recovery from addictions. But the sentiments of the Serenity Prayer are for everyone - not least those with the responsibility for governing.
Politicians are elected by people. They have three primary responsibilities: to lead; to represent; and to serve.There is probably a fourth. To carry out their duties to the highest standards required for a life of public service.
Watching events unfold at Westminster last week I was minded of both the prayer of St Francis and more so the Serenity Prayer.
The British government successfully steered its Windsor Framework through Parliament.
Westminster politicians are clearly weary of unionist instrangience. They have moved on. The result was an overwhelming affirmation that Brexit is finally leaving the stage as an issue for all sides in British politics.
Nigel Farage with his ‘newish’ Reform Party (formerly the Brexit Party) has resurrected political has-beens in a vain attempt to recreate relevance. That ship has sailed.
The DUP, as ever, looked isolated.
Those Conservatives who followed them into the 'no' lobby included two failed and discredited prime ministers, a calamitous former Tory leader, and such luminaries as Chope, Bone, Cash, Bridgen and Rees-Mogg. Mark Francois of a much diminished ERG led the charge of this very, very light brigade into an inglorious and embarrassing defeat. This was the death rattle of zealot Tories who stopped listening to anyone.
As Quentin Letts of The Times opined: “The accusation of technical prowess has, however, seldom been thrown at Comrade Francois."
Hitching their opposition to the NI Protocol with their resistance to the restoration of devolved government was a monumental mistake for the DUP. They compounded their problems by playing tag along with the TUV and tuning into the echo chambers of fringe loyalism.
The issues around the NI Protocol were always above the pay grade of the Assembly and competence of the Executive. It was a matter for the sovereign UK government and the EU. Compromises were inevitable. Only a knave or a fool would have thought anything else; 515 Ayes to 29 Noes for the Windsor Framework was sovereignty in motion.
But back to the Serenity Prayer.
To the DUP: “Grant them the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, the courage to change the things they can and the wisdom to know the difference..." And not to forget another line in the same prayer: “Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace."
The heavy lifting done by others in 1998 now rests on the shoulders of the DUP leadership.
