​Editorial: In asking for more cash from the government, unionists are helping push the republican case of UK meanness

The press conference by the Stormont leaders yesterday about financial pressures reflected the deep dysfunctionality of local politics.

​Emma Little-Pengelly tried hard to make the best of an appalling situation.

While Michelle O’Neill, graceless and truculent as ever, blamed the shortage of funds – which is almost wholly the fault of the assembly – on ‘the Brits’, her DUP deputy first minister tried to tread a more nuanced path.

Ms Little-Pengelly has been in an impossible position, but is popular not least because of the way that she soldiers on regardless of Sinn Fein behaviour, such as their boycott of the US president and thus the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington DC. The DUP and Ulster Unionist ministers filled the vacuum to promote Northern Ireland and the story of the Scots Irish who helped build America.

Yesterday, Ms Little-Pengelly joined the first minister Ms O’Neill in saying that there was not enough money from London to operate core services. She then made the case of a joint approach of further monetary support from the Treasury alongside transformation of services.

The problem however is that unionism, in particular the DUP, has rather tried to ride two horses on this. It has for more than a decade – for example when the Tories were elected in 2010 – of joining Sinn Fein in saying this place does not get enough cash, despite funding from London under both main parties that is so lavish it is a key argument for staying in the UK.

Unionists have inadvertently helped make the republican case of UK meanness. Also the DUP has been woefully slow in pushing the radical reform that is so urgently needed to get more efficient use of the enormous sums that are spent here by governments of the world’s sixth largest economy.