The Spectator's notes | 23 March 2017

We keep being incited to find it heartwarming that Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley were known as the Chuckle Brothers. But what were they chuckling about? Their shared success at outwitting the British state. Both, though for opposite reasons, had made their careers out of harassing Britain, and both, in their later years, had acquired money, power and status by doing so. In the case of McGuinness and his gang, Britain greatly underplayed its hand. Having militarily beaten the IRA, successive British governments could have marginalised them, but instead they accepted them as authentic representatives of the Irish people who had to be included in any settlement. The process for doing this systematically disadvantaged the moderates and bigged up the thugs. It created arrangements which virtually guarantee that Sinn Fein and the DUP will permanently carve up (‘share’ is the wrong word) government between them. So Martin and Ian’s collusive chuckles were at the expense, not only of Britain, but also of the non-sectarian people of Northern Ireland.