A Hollow Threat

The day Gordon Brown calls an election there will be dancing in the streets and a 21 gun salute fired in Hyde Park.  Evidently he has warned Unionists that the government will call snap Assembly elections in  Northern Ireland if they fail to reach a deal with Sinn Féin to hand justice and police powers to separatists,  and move right along the road map to a united Ireland.

The Ulster Unionist party (UUP) leader, Sir Reg Empey, said the prime minister intended to hold elections rather than suspend the assembly if the Democratic Unionists (DUP) rejected a compromise aimed at transferring policing and justice powers to Northern Ireland.

And just look at the words used by Shaun Woodward in the House of Commons today (never mind the meaning, there isn't one):

 “Considerable progress has been made. Patience is required, but equally we must be careful not to try people’s patience to distraction.“Unfair failure to make progress would not be rewarded, and I don’t mean by any particular process now, but by the people of Northern Ireland,” he said. “We have changed their lives by the peace process, we have secured it in the political process. It is right to make progress but we do indeed now sit on the edge."  So that's 3 for 'progress'; 3 for 'process'; and 1 each for 'it is right', 'peace' and 'rewarded' in 5 sentences and well under 100 words.

New Labour, new progressive post-democratic governance.

In the United Kingdom as a whole, au contraire, Angels wouldn't be a bit surprised if  Brown suspended Parliament rather than hold elections.