THE Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, has announced that the Northern Ireland Office is planning an anti sectarian TV advertising campaign in which events in Northern Ireland would be compared to those in Nazi Germany.
Speaking last night on the BBC Newsnight programme, Sir Patrick said that since the events of last summer, attitudes "have hardened and have polarised a significant minority. We are on a sharp downturn".
Sir Patrick said that it was valid to compare Northern Ireland church burnings with pre war Germany. "Some people will say `oh, that's shocking, oh, it's alarmist, it's extremist. We haven't gone as far as that'. No, we haven't gone as far as that, but I wonder how many people have, in their minds, the unspoken word `yet'?"
The NIO's director of information, Mr Andy Wood, said:
"I think we would be looking to the years just before the second World War in Germany when, everybody knows, sectarianism really had a field day."