Plenty of verbal innuendo and private sparring at investment conference in North, writes QUENTIN FOTTRELL.
AS THE royal we waited for Gordon Brown, Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness and Brian Cowen in Stormont on Thursday, Gerry Adams swept down the grand staircase in a hurry and, a moment later, went back up again. He stepped out. He stepped in again. And again. He didn't look twice at the gaggle of journalists.
Sitting at the Northern Ireland Investment Conference, doodling in my notepad, I had three thoughts: Adams is clearly up to his eyeballs with the business of government; you'd need to be fit to climb those steps every day and - oh, my - isn't that a lovely ceiling. I soon realised something else: the kerfuffles on the fringes of the wrestling ring are often more entertaining than the choreographed main event. And, sometimes, what goes on in the dressing room or is hidden from view, lingers far longer than the actual match.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, for instance, could have played it low-key like Adams. He didn't. Before the press conference, he emerged Marcel Marceau-like from the wings. Whatyaknow? One hack latched on to him. Then another. And another. He was the nucleus of a swirling globule of questioners. And enjoying it. Soon, his boss was a-comin' and it was time to break it up.
Martin's last words before the globule disbanded: "We'll fight this..." I perked up. "...like it was an election." He was referring to the Fianna Fáil campaign for the Lisbon Treaty, which kicked off yesterday. It wasn't worth joining this human globule for that and rolling down the hill to the gates of Stormont, picking up others along the way like a giant snowball. Not even Paisley would throw it, like he did when he hurled one at Seán Lemass here in 1965.
But it's not only politicians who love to spar. Journalists make a living out of it. Without celebrity feuds, there is no drama. Journalists' questions are usually designed to find contradictions, seek out differences and rattle the status quo. We are like boy scouts, frantically rubbing our biros together to spark something, anything to fan the flames of a story.
There is wonderful narrative of peace emerging in Northern Ireland, and this conference, with 100 American business executives and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. But just a couple of American hacks came over for it and they were shadowing Bloomberg, who said investors need to have iron-clad confidence in political stability.
Finally, the four leaders arrived. There were the expected declarations of friendship between Brown and Cowen in this peaceable, if not united, kingdom. So far, so dull. But it was a lovely day, and I'm with Mary J Blige when she sang, No more drama. Journalists lobbed questions about corporate tax. Brown affected an imperious manner and spoke in slow, SOS-like sentences. The snowballs whizzed over his head. Nothing to see here, folks.
Cowen didn't look bored, exactly, but he didn't do Brown's nodding dog thing or radiate his sense of entitlement either. He gave his nose the odd rub and maintained a no-nonsense demeanour. I liked that. What you see is what you get. Nor was he caked in make-up.
He doesn't have Ahern's vanity or his latent boastfulness. It would be hard to imagine Cowen doing Ahern's lap of honour around the imaginary Bertie Bowl in an imaginary chariot, pulled by four imaginary white horses to imaginary roars from the crowd.
And what about Paisley, who said that he'll miss "the rough and tumble" of government? Paisley said he and McGuinness try ironing out their differences in private, and that the political situation wasn't perfect or entirely democratic. I guess that's what happens when you have no opposition and work in a circular parliamentary chamber.
Looking back, Paisley said he had negotiated the best deal for government that he could for his party. With reference to McGuinness, he added, "I suppose it is the best my friend here thinks that he has got." People laughed, but it made me uneasy. McGuinness smiled - a tight, choreographed smile - and his face reddened, perhaps glad he will no longer have to play Laurel to Paisley's Hardy.
Later, McGuinness added: "We friends have to leave for Hillsborough Castle." Given recent behind-the-scenes mallarky, both "friend" remarks seemed loaded with sarcasm. With good reason. Sinn Féin and the DUP are like two magnets, bouncing off each other if they get too close: there will forever be a space between them.
Only last week, McGuinness called on the DUP to fulfil its promise to devolve policing and justice powers and said of the IRA Army Council, "I do not know if it does exist or not." More worrying ambiguity for the visiting delegates. Americans are open and direct. We are not. There is a difference between being friendly and being open, or being direct and being passive-aggressive, and we have mastered it.
I don't know how high-flyers like Michael Bloomberg might feel about this private sparring, public chuckling or verbal innuendo. It could give them the heebeejeebees or, worse, persuade them to hold on to their wallets, and quietly slip them back in their pockets.