Clear the poison from Northern politics

EVEN by DUP standards, Dr Ian Paisley’s refusal to accept the collective word of the head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning displays an incoherent political philosophy riddled with conspiracy theories.

The commission comprised of Gen John de Chastelain, the former president of the Methodist Church, the Rev Harold Good, and the Redemptorist priest Fr Alec Reid, stated that “the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA’s arsenal”

Following the decommissioning of the IRA’s vast arsenal of weapons, which should lead to the restoration of the Northern Executive and Assembly and also to a power-sharing government involving Sinn Féin and the DUP, Dr Paisley resorted to his traditional response to any threat to his oligarchic power, that of “no surrender”.