Alliance justice minister Naomi Long plans to increase sentences for anyone who assaults “any person who is providing services to the public, performing a public duty or delivering a public service.”

Her announcement follows a spate of attacks on police over Christmas. However, the description she gave of her proposed legislation appears to cover all frontline workers in the public and private sectors. If that is not the intention, perhaps it should be: there was a 50% increase in attacks on retail workers in Northern Ireland last year.

Or perhaps this is all beside the point. Judges across the UK can already impose significantly higher sentences for attacking public sector workers. Targeting such victims is an aggravating factor under existing laws and guidelines on assault.

But courts also have to consider the pathetic circumstances of most attackers, leading to reduced sentences. Incidents are often driven by the drug and mental health crises that are overwhelming the criminal justice system and where sentencing has little or no deterrent effect. A new law would not fix these problems.

A tale of two new year messages - and one load of claptrap

Stormont is not working and the SDLP needs to stop going it alone

Governments in London and Edinburgh have still considered it worth passing laws against attacking frontline workers, in order to send a message. But there is scant evidence the message has been received. Stormont should give serious thought to trying different approaches.

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The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has advised the Department of Health to let people change their legal gender by declaration, without requiring a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Known as self-identification, this was the Conservative Party’s approach when it began considering the transgender issue a decade ago. It took the essentially libertarian view that a person’s gender identity should be as little of the........

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