A Heath Robinson constitution

摘要

So the people of Ulster are to get a new assembly. If it helps to bring them peace, hallelujah. But in the matter of goyern-ment, it has been noted that you can occasionally have too much of a good thing. Ulster's Easter settlement will not just add one new assembly to Britain's rapidly multiplying layers of government. There will also be those cross-border councils, empowered under the agreement to discuss, inter alia, animal and plant health, water quality and waste management, plus other issues of pith and moment including "relevant European Union programmes such as SPPR, INTERREG, Leader n and their successors", whatever that may mean. All over the United Kingdom, no doubt, political reporters like Bagehot are gleefully packing their notebooks and sharpening their pencils. And how they must be looking forward to covering the meetings of the proposed British-Irish Council, with its promise of lively debates to promote "the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands".