Blue Lights, Dark Orange

Tomorrow’s return of Blue Lights is the most serendipitous piece of the BBC scheduling since House of Cards in November 1990.

Far from a line’s having been crossed at Drumcree, the point is that a line has not been crossed. Who are now The Men Behind The Wire?

Although it has aged dramatically, the Orange Order has survived 29 years without this parade, marching at hundreds of other locations. This one did not seem to commemorate anything especially important.

But the murder of the Quinn brothers, in particular, hung over it, and not from the distant past or with disputed facts. Its revival would have been sheer bad taste. It still would be. Why do this now? To what end?