But they’re all people who recognise that we need to start thinking like one Northern/northern Irish people and they’re all committed to the GFA which is our undertaking that whatever we decide on the union question we’re deciding it together.

It’s interesting that once people leave the unionist parties and set themselves up as independents (Jim Allister excepted) they don’t seem to need to bang on about their unionism any more. If they’ve the right background (not sure about your ethnic suggestion btw – are the people attending Wesley, St Andrew’s and Dublin High still Huns or is it a northern phenomenon?) like Sylvia it just gets taken for granted. I think these people are clever enough to get the balance right.

Sylvia, Trevor, David, John, Basil……all these progressive, liberal, inclusive ex and potentially ex UUP ronin need a home or at least a support structure.

Except instead of calling it the People’s Party of Northern Ireland what about the Northern Irish People’s Party – the party for Northern Irish people!

And you’d have to let people designate until we replace designation with something better – just let it be an individual rather than a party matter so that it doesn’t take over the party agenda.

This certainly looks sensible. It’s timely again as RPA rumbles on and as the south moves to a model of county councils and municipal districts. Have you projected council votes into these areas? If you have how did the votes breakdown? What happens to Belfast? I wonder would nationalist parties be able to accept your proposed boundaries for Belfast? There certainly wouldn’t be much credibility to accusations of gerrymandering but the symbolism of a balanced or nationalist Belfast might be more important than bureaucratic tidiness. .

As you say NI wide decision may be needed for contested matters such as flag flying but if we want to move onto bread and butter issues at council level we need to trust them with some bread and some butter. We have 7 PSNI areas, 6 regional colleges, 6 Health and Social Care Trusts. We clearly keep reaching similar decisions across departments concerning economies of scale, effective areas and spans of control so why not establish oversight at the same level?