The boys are back in town

And now the long-overdue moment of truth as to whether the despicable Shinners are serious about keeping order in Northern Ireland. For if they are - and there isn't a lot of room for Gerry Adams to wriggle and parse - the Real IRA monkeys responsible for killing two soldiers on Saturday and the Continuity IRA boys who killed a policeman last night will quickly be apprehended and subject to due process.

Sir Compton recalls - though does not agree with - the words of the late, great Alan Clark, albeit spoken in relation to the Provos: "The only solution is to kill 600 people in one night. Let the UN and Bill Clinton and everyone else make a scene - and it is over for 20 years."

Quite so, though 600 in one night would be overdoing it slightly, there being rather fewer members in total of these dissident groups.

It is to be hoped that Adams/McGuinness do what is necessary - people surely don't want to go back to 1968-98, do they? Even the Mad Dog variety of Loyalist can't want that. No, just let the extremists on both sides get on with their gangsterism and the vast majority of decent people in the middle live quiet, ordinary lives.