Topical question AQT 1654/22-27

Topical question by Mr Trevor Clarke on 13 October 2025.

MLA: Mr Trevor Clarke
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 13 October 2025
Type: Topical question
Assembly reference: AQT 1654/22-27
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5175615

Text

Mr Clarke asked the Minister of Justice, after, like other Members, condemning outrightly what happened outside her house last week, which, although not the first attack on a politician, demonstrated that things have stooped to a new low, to state, in light of the fact that quite a lot of Members are starting to receive correspondence from police officers about this year's pay rise, when the negotiations are likely to conclude.

71 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Follow-ups by the same MLA in the Chamber

These were assessed together with this record:

13 October 2025 – I thank the Minister for her answer. I note from her answer that, unlike the other Departments, your Department set…

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.07 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.86).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.68).
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.04	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.02	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.04	No
Controversy escalation	0.11	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.86	Yes
Overall judgement	0.07	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.68
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.32
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.84
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.07
Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism	0.04
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.03
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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