Not for the first time has a British prime minister put his foot in it when Northern Ireland is under the foot.
Andy Burnham, visiting the North, informed one and all that a referendum on Irish unity was "off the table."
Whose table?
There are many tables in Irish politics; in British politics too.
The unity question might not be on a table, literally or figuratively. But it's part of the political furniture whether Burnham likes it or not.
Burnham's remarks on the unity issue set off alarm bells in London, specifically Downing Street.
In what could have been culled from a "Yes Prime Minister" script, Downing Street quickly entered damage-limitation mode after Burnham quickly came under fire from multiple sides.
A Downing Street statement said: “The prime minister said, as we approached the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, his commitment to every part of it including the principle of consent remained unwavering."
Well, yes prime minister.
Burnham joins a long list of British political leaders whose grasp of Ireland in general and Northern Ireland in particular is, to say the least, somewhat tenuous.
Belfast is not all that far away from London, but at times might as well be on the far side of the moon.
And one thing for sure is that the former city is not, as Margaret Thatcher once proclaimed, as British as Finchley.
Burnham is still in the early days of his premiership and he is quite clearly a smart politician, at least in certain areas of political leadership.
Plenty of time, so, to bone up on "The Irish Question."
We can only hope.
