You impressed by one crisis after another?

Like any game, the political game has its winners and its losers.

The winners are those who’ve got themselves elected. The losers are the rest of us. It’s a pity to take such a cynical view, but it’s increasingly hard to avoid. We’ve been driven to it by sheer exasperation. Stormont’s predilection for one crisis after another has done immense damage. Instead of vision or forward planning we get stalemate and stand-off. Then, when we’ve been sucked into the latest drama and the temperature has reached fever pitch, suddenly, it’s time for a deal. The prospect of politicians losing their own jobs seems to concentrate their minds wonderfully. Political jobs have be saved even if it costs other people’s jobs.

“I’m away home to see if Stormont has survived or if civil servants have taken over yet,” said a friend one afternoon during the latest budget crisis. It’s sad when we’re taken in by every phoney drama. It had been obvious for the previous 24 hours or so, that a deal was on the cards.

“They love their crises at Stormont. It’s what they live for. Last week they took the institutions to the precipice once more only to pull back in time-honoured fashion at the last minute. A budget agreed. Another crisis averted,” is how ex BBC man Jim Fitzpatrick described the latest drama. We’re allowing ourselves to be exploited by these sham fights. And, the latest crisis was only the latest in the series. By Christmas, Santa may well have brought us another big bag full of crises. It’s a soap opera.

Leaked reports say the DUP will bring a Welfare Reform Bill to the Assembly. It’s designed to force Sinn Féin into either accepting welfare cuts or getting the blame for direct rule from London. It has to be a risky strategy for the DUP. Don’t you think that some of these days their brinkmanship could go too far? Unionists have much more to lose than nationalists. If devolved government can’t work then this place remains the failed political entity it always was. Apart from that, shouldn’t budget cuts be planned as far as possible in advance and not left to the last minute? Here, in the constituency with the highest unemployment of all Westminster constituencies shouldn’t we expect more in the way of longer-term strategic government?

Then, there are always parades, flags and the past lurking in the background. So, plenty of scope there for a few more crises! Isn’t that what happens when flags are more important than economics?

Meanwhile, a different crisis is looming in the south. Water bills are due out in January but popular protests are gaining traction. There’s a tipping point. When protests pass that point, politicians ignore them at their peril. Water charges could do for Enda Kenny what VAT on children’s shoes did for John Bruton or the Poll Tax did for Mrs Thatcher. So, we’ve enough crises to see us through to May 2016. Then it’ll be count the Catholics and count the Protestants time, again. It’ll be Sinn Féin versus the SDLP and the DUP versus Mike Nesbitt and Jim Allister in the semi-final game, so to speak. The winners will then go through to devise a new series of crises for the final at Stormont. You impressed?