The Spectator’s notes | 20 June 2013

When he arrived for the G8 in Co. Fermanagh, President Obama told the people of Northern Ireland that those living with conflict in far-flung places are ‘studying what you’re doing’ and that ‘You’re the blueprint to follow’. If they really were studying it, they would be less confident of the blueprint status. It is not true that the Belfast Agreement meant that, as the President put it, ‘clenched fists gave way to outstretched hands’. What happened was that the roughest major grouping on each side — the Paisleyites and Sinn Fein — saw that they could crowd out their more moderate rivals and divide the spoils of office between them. If hands are outstretched, it is more for public money than for peace. The undoubted benefit has been that it is not currently in the interest of anyone important to kill other people. But there has been no burying of past antagonisms and no serious contrition.