Crocodiles and dinosaurs.

Dinosaur

This is a dinosaur and on many occasions Sinn Fein politicians and other republicans have described unionists as dinosaurs.

Some years ago on Radio Ulster, Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly, who is a convicted bomber, said that Gregory Campbell of the DUP was a 'dinosaur'.

Then during the 2015 general election Michelle Gildernew, the outgoing Sinn Fein MP in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, described her Unionist opponent Tom Elliott as a 'dinosaur'.

Such comments are part of the cut and thrust of political life and I am sure that neither Tom nor Gregory got particularly upset about it.  I know I didn't get upset when Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA prisoner and now an independent republican, described me as a 'DUP dinosaur'.

Crocodile

This is a crocodile and recently Arlene Foster said of Sinn Fein, that, 'If you feed a crocodile, it will keep coming back for more.'

That remark provoked a lot of 'faux outrage' and apparently republicans were appalled that anyone would dare use such an expression.

Now both dinosaurs and crocodiles are reptiles and yet while Sinn Fein can use the reptilian phrase, somehow it is wrong for unionists to use a reptilian phrase, indeed one that is a variant of a statement made by Sir Winston Churchill.

Just another example of republican 'double standards'.  Don't do as I do, do as I say.'