Stoned!

Michael Stone is an idiot.

His attack on Stormont today will result in one thing - his licence as a freed paramilitary being revoked, and his return to prison. Add to that possible charges from the weapons he was allegedly carrying, plus his scuffle with security staff, and his days of swanning around London as an "artist" - piss or painter - will be over for some time.

It seems his attack was motivated by his opposition to the current political process in Northern Ireland. When the Unionists stop stalling this will see the Rev Ian Paisley as First Minister and Martin McGuiness as his Deputy. Yet this is exactly the same process that Michael Stone himself signed up to in 1998, when he was one of the UDA prisoners Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam went to see in The Maze.

Where did Stone think that process would lead to, other than a Loyalist led Assembly at Stormont, but with significant Republican representation?

How could it have led anywhere else?