Less laughs expected as one Chuckle Brother exits stage

ANALYSIS:Expect a more brittle relationship between the DUP and Sinn Féin in the post-Paisley era.

WE CAUGHT a glimpse of how post-Paisley politics could look in Northern Ireland yesterday and it must cause some concern to the British and Irish governments and everyone else who wants the powersharing dispensation to safely bed down.

The talk at Stormont and in west Belfast yesterday was of mutually destructive vetoes from the DUP and Sinn Féin which has the potential to paralyse politics if the politicians, as they say up here, don't wind in their necks. We're a long way from crisis but nonetheless in the effective interregnum between Paisley bowing out and, which seems most likely, Peter Robinson taking over there was a sour, familiar note to politics yesterday.

The cheerful relationship that Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness have enjoyed has caused concern to some unionists, particularly those on the hardline wing of politics, but generally out on the streets the Chuckle Brothers routine has worked.

The fact that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister could surmount all the bad history between them and, whatever about their true inner feelings about each other, display a cordial willingness to work together illustrated to the general public the positive political possibilities.

The current spat revolves around the failure of a special Assembly committee to agree how and when policing and justice powers should be transferred to the Northern Executive.

It was generally known, despite Sinn Féin protestations, that the St Andrews Agreement May target date for the devolution of justice powers would not be met because of DUP opposition.

So, no surprise there. But the assertive and rather triumphant manner and tone of how Nigel Dodds celebrated the DUP blocking the transfer of these powers annoyed not only Sinn Féin but more middle-of-the-road nationalists as well, if that term can be used. "Devolution of policing and justice cannot occur until the DUP say so," he said in a statement, on radio, on TV, during a Stormont press conference. He threw in for good measure what appeared gratuitous comments about confining to the "dustbin" the Irish Language Act, which was also proposed in the St Andrews Agreement.

DUP politicians regularly have made the point too that there will be no reform of education without their "say so" and, while DUP politicians in the Lisburn area, want the proposed new stadium at the Maze the broader party is resistant to the Maze project because it could encompass what many of them describe as a "shrine" to the hunger strikers and what others characterise as a museum. You also have the prospective next First Minister Peter Robinson pointedly looking forward to a day when there is government in Northern Ireland without Sinn Féin.

On the flip side you have Sinn Féin attempting to hold a commemoration in the Long Gallery of Stormont to IRA member Maireád Farrell, who was shot dead 20 years ago in Gibraltar. You have Sinn Féin councillors pushing the issue of parity of flags, emblems and symbols in council offices: if green and republican iconography is not displayed to the same measure as unionist and Orange symbols then there must be no displays at all. You have Martin McGuinness wishing he had could have gunned down every British soldier in Derry after Bloody Sunday.

DUP politicians boast these days about how they can veto every proposal of Sinn Féin if they so wish, just as they vetoed a proposal to devolve policing and justice to the Executive. Gerry Adams meanwhile warns that the power of veto is a double-edged sword and he too can play that game.

Moreover, some of the Assembly debates, particularly in relation to the past, have been sterile and poisonous. You get that worrying sense that the favourite tune of the politicians is: "To hell with the future/long live the past/may God in his mercy/look down on Belfast."

The Ulster Unionists and the SDLP complain that this is mere chest thumping by the DUP and Sinn Féin, and to a degree it is something of a sham fight. But language and tone matter.

Constant sniping plays badly with the public, most of whom just want politics to get real work done.

But it won't be done if each side is threatening vetoes and pulling stunts and, generally, being miserable to each other.

Hitherto, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness managed to be above all that negativity, creating the impression of a fresh start, of politicians at least attempting to be conciliatory to each other. But now some of the old stresses are manifesting themselves again, and the worry is that they could lead to more worrying problems if DUP and Sinn Féin politicians fail to remember where they've come from and that politics is the art of the possible. After all, this delicate project is just over 10 months old, and it took us decades - some would say centuries - to get here.

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Gerry Moriarty is Northern Editor