Put your house in order, Mr Smith

This craven appeasement, under the guise of a distorted approach to ‘equality’, is a calculated kick in the teeth to the majority community in Northern Ireland and a flagrant contradiction of the status of the office as a department of Her Majesty’s Government.

Stormont House is a political office, as its use in the political talks and hosting of all major political meetings demonstrates.

The ‘justification’, for example, of a portrait of IRA Commander McGuinness in Parliament Buildings is that they are political premises.

The same should apply to Stormont House, but instead we get spineless climb down.

How different the NIO’s attitude to “equality” and avoidance of offence when it comes to staff with Christian allegiance on the subject of the promotion of LGBT issues.

With no thought to the sensitivities of such staff the flaunting of LGBT lanyards is encouraged.

Once more it is evident that the view of ‘equality’ which prevails is distorted and selective.

It is time for Julian Smith to put his house in order.

Jim Allister

TUV leader