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The DUP's Jonathan Bell made a typically rumbustious contribution to the budget debate, slashing and burning his party's opponents. He hammered the UUP over their links with the Conservatives ("Tom's Tory Team" according to Edwin Poots).

Then Mr Bell attacked the SDLP for allegedly suggesting that the City of Derry Airport could be sold off to raise revenue and insisted that "no amount of fake tan could cover this up". This was a reference to last week's jibe by the SDLP's Pol Callaghan at the First Minister's rosy complexion.

When Mr Bell sat down he was followed by the altogether more diffident Danny Kinahan. The studiously polite South Antrim MLA described Mr Bell's speech as exactly the kind of contribution the public hate, full of "pathetic political point scoring". Then in an unusual exercise in self knowledge he admitted that he himself was getting "caught doing the same thing because you get trapped into it."

So I hereby nominate Mr Kinahan for the Stormont award for honesty and self flagellation.

Which reminds me that a few days back I had intended to hand out another prize to a different UUP politician. A week ago Sammy Gardiner put out a news release with the headline "Gardiner says as far as Pharaoh Sammy Wilson is concerned it is make bricks without straw time for the Ulster Unionist Children of Israel in the Health Department."

With only a fortnight left before Stormont rises, Sammy G. is the only contender for my most convoluted metaphor of this assembly term award.

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