Another grim day
Once again the Assembly began its proceedings on a sombre note - yesterday party leaders condemned the murder of the two soldiers in Antrim. This morning the politicians' stood for a minute's silence in memory of Constable Stephen Carroll.
Perhaps because of the evident sense of public revulsion, and perhaps because it was easier for a republican to side with the PSNI than the army, there was no delay or equivocation in Sinn Fein's response. That lent an impressive degree of unanimity to the proceedings.
More important in symbolic terms, the First and Deputy First Ministers (whose joint appearances have been thin on the ground in comparison to the "Chuckle Brothers" era) appeared side by side outside Stormont Castle. Just behind and hetween them stood the Chief Constable.
Martin McGuinness called those behind the Craigavon murder "traitors to the people of Ireland". Peter Robinson vowed that the politicians would win the "battle of wills" with the gunmen. The Chief Constable said he had no intention of asking the army for "routine military support".
Within the last hour the First and Deputy First Ministers have visited Constable Carroll's widow. Their meeting lasted around twenty minutes. It had been thought they would attend the funeral but after the home visit they have now resumed their plans and are due to fly to the USA tomorrow.
At Stormont the parties are playing down their differences in the realisation - in the words of Ian Paisley Jr. on Stormont Live - that "we swim together or sink together".
However the difference between, say, John O'Dowd and David Simpson when questioned on the Nolan show about the potential role of the army remains. More outspokenly Jim Allister has called for the SAS to be deployed, something which would antagonise not just Sinn Fein but probably the SDLP too.
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