Chuckle Brothers Revisited
Listening to the first Cameron Clegg joint news conference I couldn't help thinking about our own political double acts. The jocularity (Cameron's apologies for calling Nick Clegg his "favourite joke" and suggesting they share a car to the one outstanding constituency election) reminded me of the Paisley McGuinness Chuckle Brothers era.
Of course sometimes the "Big Man" got away with putting down "the Deputy" partly because of his age and partly because Mr McGuinness was still pinching himself that Sinn Fein had managed to reel the DUP in. The chemistry wouldn't work that way with these two (memo to PM: jokes are okay, jibes aren't).
Personal chemistry is vital with political double acts. The atmosphere was often poisonous between Messrs Trimble and Mallon. I can remember a period when the civil servants tried to insist that if reporters ask the FM a question they must also address an inquiry to the DFM. Sometimes we obliged, sometimes not, But if it wasn't newsworthy the supplementary inevitably hit the cutting room floor (memo to PM and DPM: don't try to enforce starchy conventions in your bid to assert your status).
Our current double act has amply demonstrated how to do it (remember the appearance on the Stormont Castle steps alongside Sir Hugh Orde after last year's dissident murders) and how not to do it (times when they should have appeared together and that time when they argued in public after a north south meeting at Limavady).
But I am now looking forward to the first meeting between, on the one hand, the PM and the DPM, and on the other the FM and the DFM. There should be so much personal chemistry surging around the room it could set off a chain reaction.
I'm 
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