Letter: It was remarkable that Chris Heaton-Harris singled out Sinn Fein pair for praise

This past week we have, shamefully, been treated to a stream of people saying entirely predictable things and then the same being passed off as ‘news’. This was all the more disgraceful because of the significant sum of public money which was spent on the event.

The fact that the Belfast Agreement jamboree at Queen's coincided with the purda period leading up to the local elections seems not to have concerned local broadcasters. That will come as no surprise to anyone who looks at the editorial line adopted by almost every current affairs programme broadcast by the mainstream media in Northern Ireland.

But if one does look at the event at Queen's without process glasses I believe there were many ironic things about it. We had a lecture from Tony Blair on peace building – the man who took the UK to war in Iraq on the false premise that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes – a claim which lead one tabloid to run the headline ‘Brits 45 minutes from doom’. The man who did more than anyone to sell the Iraq war to the press – Alastair Campbell – was naturally an honoured guest at this peace lecture. We had the Clintons who naturally delivered a lecture on how immoral it was for unionism to use its influence to veto an executive which would be required by law to do something which no American would accept in their own country – impose foreign laws over which the people have no say.

One of the highlights of the week was our Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris, who put in a surprise appearance as a history lecturer. He singled out Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams for their "courage and leadership". Whatever one thinks of the Belfast Agreement it is quite remarkable that the secretary of state should single out the two leading lights of republicanism thoughout 30 years of terror for such praise.

Samuel Morrison, Dromore Co Down