Solo Runs and Shaking Heads
The body language experts have had a field day with yesterday's McGuinness Robinson interchange at the north south meeting at Limavady. personally i don't buy the theory that this was a carefully prepared ambush by the Deputy First Minister. If that had been the case he surely would have fired his Exocet at the First Minister earlier in the proceedings. As it was the joint presser began with the standard statements, and I managed to get a first question in about the impending crisis at Stormont, which once again elicited predictable responses.
In fact as the ministers spoke our Newsline 1.30 programme was going on air so I had to leave the proceedings to regale the audience with the news that they had expressed varying degress of hope and determination. By the time I strolled back to the news conference, though, the mood had changed with Peter Robinson shaking his head as Martin McGuinness took him to task about "solo runs".
I am no expert on "suppressed aggressive arousal" (the description one body language specialist gave Good Morning Ulster when asked to describe yesterday's news conference). But it's now hard to imagine the DUP and Sinn Fein chuckling about any date for the devolution of justice this Christmas. Although British and Irish officials will be doing their best to forestall this, it seems likely that early next month Sinn Fein's Ard Comhairle will be pondering their options, deciding how to make good on Martin McGuinness's warning of "deep trouble". Both on and off the record republicans are avoiding putting much flesh on the bones of what exactly "deep trouble" might mean. They prefer to perpetuate their current destructive ambiguity, rather than to let the DUP know exactly what they have in mind.
I'm 
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