Parliament Buildings at Stormont outside Belfast 04 May, 2021 03:00 Brian Feeney THE notoriously outspoken Alan Clark, who was a minister in Thatcher’s cabinet, came up on two different occasions with his ‘solution’ to the north’s apparently intractable problems. His first proposal was “to take out and shoot 600 IRA suspects”. His second plan, articulating the exasperation of many British politicians and which many secretly agreed with? “Arm the Prods and get out.” Obviously he wasn’t aware that both plans had already been tried and failed disastrously. Essentially partition, which really only became enforceable in late 1921 after Craig managed to re-mobilise the Specials, was Clark’s second proposal.