Newton Emerson

Despite Peter Robinson’s positioning promise of “no business as usual”, the assembly managed a relatively normal day on Monday - thereby revealing its true dysfunctionality. First up on the normal business agenda was a statement from Sinn Fein agriculture minister Michelle O’Neill on “action to address the current crisis”, where ‘crisis’ referred not to the fall of Stormont but to the fall of milk prices. Cheaper food is a bad thing when the assembly is not discussing poverty, deprivation, food banks or whatever. O’Neill began by reve[...]