Alex Kane: Nothing at all funny about wretched pantomime at Stormont

It was an easy fit for them. Pantomime requires furious ad-libbing, preposterously unfunny jokes, outrageous characters, an indecipherable plot and an audience gullible enough to suspend disbelief while custard pies fly over their heads and the performers just abandon the script and make it up as they go along. To be honest, it’s the usual run-of-the-mill stuff for the Assembly. That said, Alas In Blunderland was, and by a very considerable margin, the unfunniest thing I have ever seen.

Regular readers will know that I have devoted many columns to the issue of reforming the structures and machinery of the Assembly. During the recent hiatus (which was as lengthy as Sherlock Holmes’ after the Reichenbach Falls) I suggested the parties put together a working group to consider changes which might make it easier for them to work together and lessen the likelihood of future collapses or serial crises. Yet the tumble back to office in January (because the DUP and SF didn’t want an election that might see more evidence of the Alliance ‘surge’) came in the absence of the necessary reforms.

Which is why I had no particular sympathy for the complaints about the DUP’s use of the cross-community vote to veto the majority view of the SDLP/SF/UUP/Alliance. That mechanism was built-in to protect the specific interests of a unionist or nationalist minority. But the terms and conditions of when it could be used were never fully defined, meaning it could be used when a party – with the numbers – chose to use it. So, unless the DUP had clear evidence that unionists would be more disadvantaged than nationalists by the regulations agreed by the other four parties, then it strikes me that the DUP misused the cross-community vote.

But the fact the DUP were able to deploy the tactic is down to the collective failure of the entire Assembly to agree (and let’s not forget they’ve had years to do it) to define the terms and conditions for using it. As they have similarly failed on a raft of other things. Which means it will be used again.

Meanwhile, the three smaller parties blame the big two for this latest farce. The big two blame each other. Even the ‘agreement’ they reached on Thursday was a bit of a dog’s dinner: supported by the DUP/UUP/Alliance, with SF voting no and the SDLP abstaining. And just for the sheer fun of it the SDLP and SF, and UUP and DUP are having their own separate spats. So it seems a fairly safe bet that when it comes to reviewing the restrictions – as they will have to, particularly those relating to pubs, hotels and restaurants – we’ll probably be subjected to another round of confusion, briefing against each other and teetering on cliff tops like drunk lemmings.

At the top of my Twitter account (@AlexKane221b) is an email address for those who want to contact me. Most weeks it’s usually manageable, maybe 20-30 messages a day. Over the past few months – and especially last week – I have been overwhelmed with messages. The bulk of them come from health providers (management, consultants, nursing staff, cleaners, porters), educationalists, small business owners, big business owners, hotel owners/management/staff, pub owners, and all other walks of everyday life. And 95% of them ask a variation of the same question: Even during a pandemic is the Executive capable of pulling together and moving in the same direction?

I understand the sheer scale of the difficulties the Executive faces. Every government (democratic, authoritarian, coalition or single party) in the world has faced the same difficulties. Yet it’s hard to escape the conclusion that in Northern Ireland there is still an element of the same-old, same-old dimension to how decisions are made. Crucially, I don’t think the Executive has the slightest idea of the sheer scale of public anger and discontent at the moment: nor any real sense of the damage done to its reputation over the past few months.

Sinn Fein supporters have been keen for everyone to ‘call out’ the DUP for last week’s veto, but they were remarkably silent when it came to calling out SF over the Storey funeral. DUP supporters were cheering the veto, yet deaf to the avalanche of noise coming from the hundreds of thousands of people who just want clarity as they prepare for Christmas and the new year. And while I’m on the subject of clarity, I’m still waiting for news of a Plan B in the event the transfer tests are cancelled in January (my column, November 2).

Every one of the five parties chose to join the Executive in January. They joined knowing that coalition governments, to be successful, must compromise for the collective good and work together rather than in separate silos. Ironically, that should have been easier at a moment when we were all in the same boat, so to speak. We all faced the same problem and would all be affected by the same restrictions and responses. Yet somehow, as I noted earlier, there has been a lamentable failure by the Executive parties to collectively rise to the collective challenges,

I wonder if there some sort of local equivalent of COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A), where senior members of the cabinet, government and administration prepare the responses to emergencies. One of the commonest complaints I have heard is from key players across civic/business/health/economic et al sectors who believe they have been left outside discussions and denied input. A very senior businessman told me on Thursday: ‘I pick up more from the timeline of journalists and commentators than I do from anywhere else’.

There will be another crisis point when the Executive has to revisit the latest agreement (which two of the parties didn’t agree to) within the week. Is it too much to hope that they will hear from all the key players and influencers in the meantime and reach a thought-through decision, rather than just putting on another sticking plaster to keep them going for another week or so?