Heffer may be right but let's not turn this into party politics

Simon Heffer is bound to stir up some controversy with his piece in this morning's Telegraph that refutes the fact that Northern Ireland has ever been at peace.

Whether you agree with him or not what makes this worse is his turning it into a party political argument

In its spin-driven pursuit of triumph, Labour pronounced the problem of Northern Ireland as dealt with. It was lulled into this by an IRA "permanent" ceasefire: not realising, or not wanting to realise, that a ceasefire was only as "permanent" as the criminals in the IRA who so graciously decreed it.