THE Stormont Assembly has shut down for the 2025-6 session. How can you tell?

You can’t, because you’ll see no difference between nothing happening during the summer and nothing happening since last September.

Devolution here continues its unbroken record of dismal failure on all levels: ministerial, legislative and official.

Not only has devolution failed, it actively makes people’s lives worse – everyone’s, but not to the same degree. As always, those worst off suffer most.

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People on state salaries and in professions have more disposable income than their equivalents in Britain because housing is cheaper and they can afford to pay for medical care and their children go to grammar schools.

For the majority of people in poor districts in greater Belfast and Derry, where a large proportion of the north’s population lives – and the majority of them are nationalist – things are much worse.

Yes, the Assembly has closed until it reassembles in acrimony in September but the failure is the Executive’s, for the Executive is inseparable from the Assembly. In practice nothing goes through the Assembly without the Executive’s say-so and the Executive is frozen.

The ever-growing housing waiting list will continue to grow. One of the reasons for that is........

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