Brains on Walls

Some malign and ungodly agency has put up a poster in the middle of Belfast, which not only suggests that Protestant values may be something other than decent, tolerant and forward-looking, but also blatantly implies the presence of cerebral matter inside the skulls of certain slogan-spouting bigots. This insult to Democratic Unionist phrenology has enraged at least one councillor, who has reported it as a hate crime. The Democratic Unionists, of course, have shown their commitment to nuance and tolerance on any number of occasions; not least when they accepted a taxpayer-funded bribe to prop up a prime minister who regards her own policies as the Will of the People, her opponents as citizens of nowhere, and the Good Friday agreements as a minor inconvenience to be casually thrown aside in the interests of prosecuting a holy war against Brussels. Whether, as a principled gesture against hate speech, the DUP would now be prepared to forego the next round of bribes and the concomitant privilege of pulling Tumbledown Tessie's strings at Westminster, remains as yet unclear.