NLP faces a huge credibility leap

IT'S one of only two parties contesting every seat in the Northern Ireland elections it has more women candidates than the Women's Coalition and it has a plan which could defuse the impending third siege of Drumcree.

So why won't people take the Natural Law Party seriously?

Whatever the reason, party leader James Anderson is undaunted. "New ideas go through three stages ridicule, discussion, and implementation", he says. "We're moving into the second stage now."

This was not immediately obvious at yesterday's manifesto publication, when reporters had to occasionally bite their lips to avoid relapsing into the first stage.

Simply put, the NLP believes that all the world's problems, the North's included, are caused by stress. The twin track solutions are transcendental meditation for beginners and yogic flying for the more advanced. Flying is a slightly extravagant description for what, in the event, looked like mere hopping.

The NLP also claims that concentrated efforts by large groups of yogic flyers have succeeded in dramatically lowering crime rates in separate experiments in Merseyside and Washington. Moreover, it is giving serious consideration" to applying the method to events at Drumcree this July, although this would involve getting some 200 yogic flyers to spend their holidays in Portadown.

But if we do see the Drumcree Orangemen and the Garvaghy Road residents celebrating the close of the Twelfth of July with a joint barbecue we'll know where the credit belongs.