BY OUR GESTURE POLITICS CORRESPONDENT, KEVIN STREET

The following is a statement from the IRA:

“DEAR SIMON HARRIS,

better late than never. We used to consider you a sniveling little West Brit desperate for anything to distract from your Government’s abject failures, but your recognition of the State of Palestine has gained our respect. As you know, we have been close allies of the Palestinians for decades, when it wasn’t popular, when their Palestine Liberation Organisation were the world’s devils, template terrorists, hijacking airliners left, right and centre. Some of us were actually with them in Beirut in 1982 when Israel’s proxies, the Lebanese Christians, ran amok in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. You wouldn’t be old enough to remember that. No one lifted a finger. Now you talk with the PLO and it is the official Palestinian representative at the United Nations. The hypocrisy is beyond description. But we can forgive that, too. Here’s hoping you’re free to give the annual Bobby Storey memorial speech next year. Allah U Akbar.”