Marchers should be charged for their carnivals of intolerance

Everyone's being unreasonable on the matter, and Theresa Villiers' parades panel won't do much to solve the endless row

Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland secretary of state: accused of caving to unionist threats. Picture: Pacemaker Press

Mark Twain said: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Last week the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Theresa Villiers opened her mouth.

I’m not quite sure what she said. There was a jumble of words including “parade”, “Ardoyne” and “panel”. But there was little sense.

At the start of the summer, unionist parties walked out ...