It is generally acknowledged that the Government are running, in the Maze prison, one of the most liberal and humane prison regimes anywhere...What hunger strikers are asking for-the one who died last was in fact a murderer; let us not mince our words-is political status by easy stages. They cannot have it. They are murderers and people who use force and violence to obtain their ends. They have made perfectly clear what they want. They cannot and will not have it.