Now that the UUP has established official links with the UVF, and the DUP has still failed to explain its unofficial links with the LVF, an intriguing possibility arises: could the next loyalist feud involve a shoot-out in the Stormont chamber? Also, if this results in the death of four unionist MLAs, will Peter Hain ignore that as well?
Reg Empey's failure to notify his party's only MP of the David Ervine deal, let alone consult with her in advance, will be the hammer-blow that really drives the last nail into the Ulster Unionist coffin.
Lady Sylvia Hermon simply cannot remain in a party that treats her – and the voters she represents – with such staggering public contempt.
She must resign the whip, defect to the Alliance, or challenge Reg Empey's 'leadership'.
If you think the David Ervine deal shows that the UUP has no shame, think again. Outspoken campaigner Raymond McCord, whose son was murdered by the UVF, has accused the UUP of offering him a 'job' running a new victim's group in return for not speaking out any more. So apparently the Ulster Unionists are ashamed – albeit in a breathtakingly shameless manner.
Raymond McCord has also alleged that the Ulster Unionists approached two other assembly members to get their assembly numbers up before finally resorting to David Ervine. So much for Sir Reg Empey's claim of a courageous long-term strategy to bring loyalists in from the cold.
Of all the things Portadown Orangemen have ever done, is putting down references without notifying the referees really the worst? How is this even wrong in any way, let alone grounds for a witch-hunt?
"Both Don MacKay and David Burrows have been found out falsifying the details on their application forms," Sinn Féin MLA John O'Dowd says. Nonsense. No details on their application forms were falsified – the references simply hadn't been cleared in advance.
Media attention surrounding the Invest-NI scandal has focused on former board member Teresa Townsley and the "extensive conflicting relationships" between herself, her husband and their various companies.
But it was the task of Invest-NI director Dr Alan Neville to ensure that conflicts of interest didn't conflict to this extent – and he has merely been "suspended" from his position, because the one iron law in our lawless quangocracy is that nobody ever gets fired.
Now the Commons Public Accounts Committee has bluntly asked the NIO to "provide details of the disciplinary action taken". An interesting conflict is bound to follow.
Ogra Shinn Féin is not exactly a mass movement.
The Gerry Juniors held a series of hunger strike vigils in town centres across Northern Ireland last weekend, but support was rather thin on the ground.
Only 11 people showed up in Belfast, just 12 showed up in Strabane and the Omagh event only managed seven with the help of two passing schoolgirls.
At last, Sinn Féin has revised its current planning policy to bring it into line with its former planning policy.
Two years ago the party called for a crackdown on one-off houses in the countryside.
Two months ago, when the issue actually started to mean something, the Shinners adopted precisely the opposite position. Last week, party rural development spokesperson Michelle Gildernew MP said the impact of new planning restrictions would be "devastating".
This week, she said: "We need to look at this in the round." Doesn't she mean the full circle?
The £26 million makeover for central Belfast announced by social development minister David Hanson this week is, of course, great news – but alas it includes £500,000 for "a new piece of public art to help stimulate pride in the city", which will have to be neutral, inoffensive, 'cross-community' and so on.
Prepare yourselves for a 400-tonne bronze sculpture of two doves towing an iceberg under the bridge of hope.
