The current outbreak of humour about the lovelife, times and queer finances of Iris Robinson (Sample: Why is Iris like IKEA – one dodgy screw and the whole cabinet falls apart) are a mere diversion from some core issues.
To wit: both London and Dublin recognised in Peter Robinson the one man who might just possibly drag the Calvinist core of the DUP kicking, screaming and psalming into the realisation that cross community government, however unpalatable it may be to tender Presbyterian consciences, is the only game in town for Northern Ireland. “Forward to the past” may be a big hit in paisleyite homes but it’ll never outsell “Back to the future.” Ever.
If Robinson falls, the remaining minnows will never be able to deliver the final piece of devolution. Curious to think of Paisley’s chief strategist as a putative statesman, but cometh the hour etc. And if policing and justice fail, then the whole DUP/Sinn Fein experiment will fall, too.
And who’s to say that it isn’t about time? Not the principle of cross community governance per se, but who would deny that the current crop have long since gone stale, nay rancid. It is now coming to light that Iris Robinson’s dealings with Fred Fraser, the now conveniently deceased “developer” who covered much of the local government district of Castlereagh (a Robinson fiefdom for many years) in housing extend far further than tapping him for 25K for start up capital for her lover’s business.
And our local politicos are rushing to assert that, whilst any investigation – for which read “knifing” – of the Swish Family Robinson is absolutely “essential”, they are keen to ensure that any judicial or public inquiry should not, nay never, extend its smutty, inquisitive remit into other local and national government areas – deep and murky pools from which may emerge, covered in the slime of nods and the grime of winks, a veritable orchestra of whistleblowers.
Frankly, I couldn’t give a damn. Nor could a fair percentage of the long-suffering population of Northern Ireland and the equally maligned British taxpayer. For at the same time as the Iris and Peter show was getting the headlines, a Catholic policeman, a representative of the new, improved Police Service of Northern Ireland, a fluent Irish speaker and GAA player, lost his legs in a booby trap planted under his car.
And how was this made possible? In the week in which the UDA finally decommissioned, fifteen long, weary and frankly unnecessary years after their “ceasefire”, our politicians were once again engaging in the game of brinkmanship was kept them in well-paid jobs for a generation or two. All enabled by the implicit blackmail that if the London and Dublin governments would not listen to their petty bleating, then the men of violence were lurking in the background and they would be much, much harder to handle.
And whilst our pols have played one side off against another or gone running to Big Daddy in DC every Paddy’s Day, they have comprehensively blown out the window of opportunity which the ceasefires and the 1998 Agreement created.
They have given the dissident republicans time to re-arm and recruit the next generation of gullible youth who believe that killing and dying for a vague concept called “Ireland” is a great and glorious thing. They have prevaricated, thinking only of their own breadbasket and have diluted and poured away the trust of their electorates.
No doubt they will all get very upset by this proposition. And there are honourable and hard-working MLAs. I have seen them in action and a good job they try to do. But lest they accuse me and my sort of cynicism, I have also seen MLAs indulging in petty points scoring which would disgrace any kindergarten – and in front of well-travelled overseas guests who were bemused, then puzzled and finally appalled by what they had seen.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it is you who have behaved cynically and dishonourably. It is you who have hidden behind the hard men of all your parties and who have failed to lead but have capitulated to threats. It is you who have failed to spell out the reality of power.
And the reality is that you and your kind and over 40% of the NI workforce are financed by the Treasury – to the tune of £8 billion last year, I believe. Now that the international bond markets and the rating agencies have forced some financial steel into the Chancellor’s backbone, one of his first belated cuts might be to look very, very closely at your cosy little world.
And he might conclude – he might very well conclude – that you, and the 26 local councils which represent the equivalent of the population of Birmingham, are a luxury without which HMG could well live, especially in these straitened times.
And who’s to say that he’d be wrong? Not I, nor my fellow exporters, who are busting a gut to provide, in however little measure, employment and revenue for both parts of Ireland. You think you have a tough job? You think you are well paid to take abuse? How many of you have had to clear a bar at Saturday night closing or had to deal with the consequent injuries in A&E at 2 am on Sunday morning?
What goes round has now come round. To quote Cromwell, appropriately enough to the Rump Parliament:
“You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
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