The DUP bloc vote
Anyone out there remember the old "Not The Nine O'Clock News" sketch when the Trade Union bosses end their meeting and try to decide whether to have tea or coffee. The punchline ran along the lines of "So that's seven votes for tea, and 1.5 million votes for coffee".
Watching the vote on the Stormont motion calling on Sammy Wilson to reverse his opposition to the "Act on CO2" climate change advertising campaign felt a bit like that. 48 backed the motion, 30 voted against. And so, under the Assembly's cross community voting rules, the motion fell.
I have been scratching my head to work out why climate change is of particular relevance to one community or the other. The only precedent I can come up with was the heatwave of June 2007 when nationalists took their jackets off and unionists sat on stoically. Do unionists and nationalists react differently to temperature changes? Several academic research projects could be sustained on this topic alone.
I'm 
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