I have to admit I never had the Greens down for being fans of pearls – that most middle-class symbol of those at ease with their wealth and comfortable, verging on extravagant, lifestyles. The opulence they represent stands in stark contrast with the manacles (if that kind of gendered language hasn’t been outlawed by them yet) of those enslaved to working conditions that make the rich even richer – precisely the kind of thing that could easily consume hours of Green Party conference debating time.

Obviously I was wrong, as Maggie Chapman once again set out to prove the maxim that it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool.

Her target this time – the polis, and more specifically the decision to send a couple of hundred officers from Scotland over to assist the PSNI with the expected policing operation following the incendiary and frankly reckless decision of the Parades Commission to permit an Orange march through the Garvaghy Road.

Now Maggie wasn’t alone, as a tedious stream of right-on radicals took to social media to demand answers. The premise – that the Scots were obviously heading over to help batter some papists. Quite the take.

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A scintilla of critical thinking might have suggested that forcing a parade down the Garvaghy Road, with all the consequences that would have for the residents, Northern Ireland and the perpetually fragile Stormont itself – before even considering the tsunami effects in........

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