Arlene Foster's mask slips to reveal all the old hatreds

“If you feed a crocodile, it will keep coming back for more.”

ONE of the primary duties of a political handler is to ensure that the face, the mask their master presents to the world, is fixed. The mask-cum-face, like every other mirror in a politician’s armoury, must stay on message. It must not deviate. It is part of a contrived image built to reassure and cajole. The face-cum-mask must sometimes conceal difficult truths. It must, more usually, radiate collegiality. A good political handler ensures the mask-cum-face almost never slips.

Equally, a masterful handler, a PJ Mara, a Peter Mandelson or a Steve Bannon, understands that if the carefully crafted mask does slip it must be for a very good reason. There must be a dividend for revealing your hand. A calculated moment, a flourish on a metaphorical Lambeg drum must achieve something, maybe reach a constituency once taken for granted but thought to be wavering. This is especially true ahead of a difficult election, brought about by your own hubris. Only Democratic Unionist Party leader and erstwhile First Minister of Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster, or her handlers know if her statement ruling out the possibility of Stormont legislation to support Irish was a slip of the mask or a considered call-out to the fringes of her party.