
Why should graduates give back to universities that seem to hate them?
It is now a given of Northern Ireland issues that mainlanders cannot be expected to understand them. (Arguably, it was ever thus.) So we know that late on Monday night the DUP was finally persuaded to take part in governing Northern Ireland after a two-year gap, but we still do not really know what it will involve. The agreement is treated by most London-based media as good news, because that is always how any concession by Unionists is treated. Boredom and obscurity allow the case of Northern Ireland to be used by our main political parties, officialdom, the Republic, the EU and the US administration as the exemplar of virtue.
