Guy, the permalink to this post is broken.

How about: they've already achieved a police state over there. Calling for one would be redundant - and, worse, might draw English, Welsh and Scots attention to just how ineffectual a police state is.

seems to work for me, Alisa.

The government doesn't want bad news from Northernm Ireland getting over here. Makes the peace process look bad.

Where Tony Blair beats Bush, Cheney, Sharon & Co. is in his capacity to roll-in iron-willed “security reforms” reminiscent of the Halcyon days of comrade Joe Stalin: widespread wiretaps, mandatory ID cards, arbitrary detention, the use and abuse of MI5 and Scotland Yard to combat ghostly “urban Mohammedan insurgents”... etc. it’s all coming soon to a New Labour theater near you.

Yes, it's fine now - thanks:-)

It's that the government considers Northern Ireland "Foreign Affairs".

Could the word "condemn" be removed from political discourse and reporting? It could be replaced with ". . . say they will do nothing about it."

Apparently police and rioters "exchanged fire". What on earth does that mean? One can suppose that the rioters involved were poor shots, but the police? What were they aiming at?

There were no reports of any arrests. Were there any?

I'm only sorry that that sad piece of shit Woodward has managed to get his sorry ass into the government. Another bad piece of news for the people of Northern Ireland. Yet another English dud sent over to lord it over them like a white bwana.

Findlay,

Shooting at people is quite easy; hitting them in an open firefight is quite difficult. (Even where the shooter manages to overcome the revulsion against killing that armies struggle to expunge.) If your target is within a few feet, being held down at the time, and you are not yourself under fire, you can still miss some of the time.

I think Gary Munro was closest to the mark here. The government (and BBC, etc) have studiously ignored the continuing violence by Republicans - just because it doesn't involve bombs or firearms (usually) - for the sake of bodging together a picture of success for the peace process.

So for them to play down the latest problems is no surprise, even though I thought there was still more coverage and noise than would have emanated were the incidents not triggered by "Unionists".

If a riot involving firearms, grenades etc had broken out at a Moslem march, we would see a very calming response by Bliar on the BBC, bottom lip a-quiver, as he prattled on about the need to understand the peace-loving followers of the medieval death cult.
This would be simultaneous with dawn round-ups of suspected BNP supporters and a whole new bill to 'combat Islamophobia' being rammed through using the Parliament Act

I've just come back from holiday to see that nothing ever changes in my part of the world. They get angry at not being allowed to walk down a section of road ,where they would normally get lynched anyway, and then they burn out their local shops and sit wondering where thay are going to get a chinese takeaway now. Peace process my ass. They have ceased attacks on the military and most of the random cross community murder. Kill your own and turn to rascism against all immigrants. Police state, yep there have been laws in place prohibiting the grouping of more than two individuals in public since I was a kid. That's pretty draconian if never enforced very often.
Sh1tting on their own doorstep, clever or what?