Groundhog Day: why another Northern Ireland election looks like insanity

The Edward Carson statue at Stormont, which has not functioned for four of the past six years. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Northern Ireland is about to test the dictum that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity.

Political deadlock triggered a forthcoming assembly election that is expected broadly to replicate the result of an election last May and produce the same deadlock. That it will take place in winter underlines the sense of Groundhog Day, except it is an entire region of 1.9 million people reliving the same experience.