Sticks and Carrots?
Just as Peter Hain managed to play his cards over water charges, rates, local councils, PPS14 and academic selection in a way which pressurised our politicians to do a deal over devolution, are we seeing the creation of a similar mixture of sticks and carrots in relation to the transfer of justice powers?
Today Paul Goggins confirmed the lowering of the age of consent to 16, in the face of opposition from the majority of MLAs. The implicit message is that if they would like to do things differently they could take the responsibility themselves. So that's a stick, then.
Earlier this week we had the Ashdown report on parades - something of a carrot to entice the DUP to sort out the policing log jam.
Could other carrots - say the handover of more security bases - be added to the mix? It's something Peter Robinson raised with Gordon Brown at Prime Minister's Questions today.
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Mark why don't you get off your chair and start asking some hard questions. Sitting doing nothing is like the MLA. Go and ask he politicians about all the issues that people want answers to.
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In line with my usual habit of ignoring the main point of the original blog and concentrating on two or three words that Mark used to illustrate his main point, I am going to talk about the age of consent.
This is a perfect example of head in the sand syndrome from our MLAs. If they think that under the current law a 16 year-old with a chance of a fumble is going to stop and think, "Oh no, can't do this because it's against the law", they probably also think the law is a useful way to prick the conscience of 16 year-olds who want a drink, or 15 year-olds who think it's time they started smoking.
They should maybe consider a law that prevents anyone under 18 buying fags and how to effectively enforce it, rather than fooling themselves into thinking they can control the sexual urges of those for whom said urges are almost uncontrollable.
I smoked for 10 years and I can tell you it didn't do me any good and I don't remember enjoying many cigarettes. On the other hand, even the bad sex was good.
The teenagers need to be taught how not to spread disease and cause pregnancies, rahter than be taught sex is bad when it quite clearly isn't.
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