'Such sectarian behaviour would not be tolerated in any other part of the United Kingdom'.

I wish I could agree. However, we have both Republican and Loyalist flute bands in Liverpool. Mostly there's not much trouble - usually because the numbers are so small. There's been something of a running feud, however, this year between Republicans and the English Defence League in Liverpool surrounding parades organised by the James Larkin Society. There are links on Youtube if you want to look for them.

My in-laws live in Lancashire and some years ago I was working in Southport. My in-laws wanted to meet my wife, my daughter and I in Southport on my mother-in-law's birthday - which happens to be the 12th of July. Needless to say, the wife's mother got something of a shock.

What was very striking for my wife and child, who got the train out to Southport to meet us, was the behaviour of the people travelling up for the parades - middle-aged women pissed out of their minds at 11am, swearing at their kids and then belting them and then talking about defending their 'culture'. Later that day they had to stop trains on the line back to Liverpool on account of the same people throwing up in the carriages.

What worries me is that there is a generation of young people growing up on both sides who have no memories of their own of how bad things were in the 70s and 80s and who are being groomed by their parents to be the next generation of bigots.

And it's not all on one side but it seems to me that 'Loyalists' have done pretty well out of the Good Friday Agreement - most Republicans have essentially accepted partition for the time being at least and even many Catholics in the North aren't in any hurry to join a failed state that has surrendered what little 'independence' it has.