PETER HITCHENS:?Blue Lights was brilliant. So why has the BBC made it one more 宣伝 乗り物?

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Is there a 支配する which says that any successful BBC 演劇 must become a 宣伝 乗り物? I have pointed out here how Call The Midwife, which began as a warm-hearted Sunday evening family show, has become ひどく 政治上 訂正する.

It still amazes me that a series whose main characters are 現実に 1960s 修道女s has 繰り返して been used to make the 事例／患者 for abortion on 需要・要求する. But it is so.

Now, after a brilliant 開始 season, the same thing is happening to Blue Lights, a clever police series 始める，決める in Belfast, and so fascinatingly different from 類似の 演劇s 始める，決める on the 本土／大陸.

Police in London and Yorkshire don’t have much trouble from 現体制支持者／忠臣 or 共和国の／共和党の ギャング（個々）s, of the sort who still 機能（する）／行事, almost 完全に as 罪，犯罪 ゆすりs, in the phoney ‘peace’ which now 存在するs in the Six 郡s.

Katherine Devlin playing 新人 constable Annie Conlon in the second 一連の Blue Lights

There were traces of modish thinking in the first series, but they were muted and 第２位 to the 演劇. For instance, one of the most believable characters is a 黒人／ボイコット woman officer, Sandra Cliff, played by Andi Osho, who never seemed even わずかに out of place.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is a modern 創造 and Belfast in the 2020s has undergone 抱擁する changes. Though perhaps not やめる as 抱擁する as we are told in this show, as we shall see.

The programme is good because of its strong characters, mostly both likeable and 不正に 欠陥d, because of its shameless cliff-hanger endings to each episode, and because of the strong 現在の of rather desperate gallows humour which runs through almost everything.

You’d have thought the weird, contorted society of Northern Ireland, with its 古代の 部族の 憎悪s, its segregation and 最近の bitter memories, would furnish やめる enough for 陰謀（を企てる）s 継続している the next 30 years. So what is the need for a storyline about 補助装置d 自殺 (as it happens, 伴う／関わるing a same-sex married couple)?

This 問題／発行する, as abortion once was, is a BBC obsession so strong that they manage to broadcast arguments in favour of it almost 週刊誌. You might think, from their behaviour last week, that 補助装置d 自殺 was the only 問題／発行する ever to have been 審議d in Westminster Hall as the result of an online 嘆願（書）. In fact, this happens all the time, but I can’t 解任する the BBC 支払う／賃金ing much attention?

You can also pretty easily 位置／汚点／見つけ出す when a newly introduced character is going to turn out to be bad. He will be male, shouty and buttoned-up, in a caricatured way. Minor characters (such as a woman living with a drunken husband) を受ける personality changes, from old-fashioned Belfast wife to funky new woman, as a result of moral lectures from their 権利-on sisters in the PSNI.

In one 特に peculiar scene, we are shown a 現体制支持者／忠臣 凶漢 and ギャング（団） 長，指導者 厳しく rebuking one of his comrades because the man has a Nazi tattoo (featuring ‘戦闘 18’). The leader 明らかにする／漏らすs himself as a misty-注目する，もくろむd 愛国者, who ? にもかかわらず his own 天然のまま 暴力／激しさ and intolerance ? thinks himself vastly superior to the Nazi moron.

I am not sure if the scene was meant 本気で but, if it was, the BBC’s 宣伝 department had better work out 正確に／まさに where it stands on the large number of Ukrainian 兵士s who go about not just with Nazi tattoos but wearing actual Waffen SS badges. Just 説.

I’m sure Blue Lights will have a third series. It’s an 予期しない success and I enjoy it にもかかわらず these clumsy 試みる／企てるs to manipulate me. But when it returns, can it just be an ordinary 演劇, not a sermon?

Ireland should have stayed out of the EU?

Once upon a time, you could 飛行機で行く from London to Dublin and walk off the 計画（する） straight into the airport, as if it were Glasgow or Belfast. Nobody asked for your 文書s. This civilised 協定 was the result of the ありふれた Travel Area, a sensible 試みる／企てる by London and Dublin to 扱う／治療する each other as friends after the horrors of the War of Independence a century ago.

But, at some point I can’t identify, this ended. Now 厳しい-直面するd 移民／移住 officers 需要・要求する a パスポート. This is pointless.

A few years ago I made an 実験 and managed to travel by ship and train to Dublin, 経由で Larne and Belfast. And nobody asked me for any 肉親，親類d of 文書 when I crossed the frontier. If I were up to no good, that is the way I would go.

Dublin has, in 最近の years, made a sort of fetish of pretending that there is no land 国境 between the 共和国 and the North. The old customs points on 国境 駅／配置するs have gone. There are no 調印するs on the roads 発表するing that you are entering the 共和国, only 速度(を上げる） 限界 警告s in kilometres.

And now, thanks to Dublin’s curious 態度 to the EU, this is all going wrong. It has always fascinated me that Ireland, having fought like a tiger for independence from London, sank so readily into 存在 支配するd from Brussels. So it cannot (as once it would have done) 簡単に join in our Rwanda 計画／陰謀. Shall we now see roadblocks on the Irish 味方する, to keep 違法な migrants from 避けるing compulsory flights to Kigali? As far as I know, the first customs points in modern Ireland were 始める，決める up in 1923 by the Irish 解放する／自由な 明言する／公表する, not by London, so it would not be the first time.

I’m 現実に やめる sorry for the people of Ireland at the moment, so 不正に led for so long, 欠如（する）ing much in the way of 対立 or real 審議 in their politics. I can’t help thinking this mess would have been 避けるd if both our countries had stayed out of the ありふれた Market in the 197 0s, and Dublin had not gone soft on Sinn Fein in the 1990s.