Republicans and unionists are united by an antipathy to progress

THE biggest surprise this week was that people were so surprised when the Belfast gathering to announce a breakthrough in the peace process turned into a fiasco.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern were on hand for the announcement that was never made. They were there last April too and they even invited US President George W Bush to witness what turned out to be a similar fiasco. "Fool me once, shame on you," Eamon de Valera used to say. "Fool me twice, shame on me."

Unionists have sought to upstage just about every Anglo-Irish agreement on the North. They may proclaim their Britishness but history has taught them to be as suspicious of the British Government as of the one in Dublin.