"We hand this woman, Margaret Thatcher, over to the Devil, that she might learn not to blaspheme. And O God, in wrath take vengeance upon this wicked, treacherous, lying woman. Take vengeance upon her, O Lord."
You can't be more Unionist than the King. You just can't. The case for the Windsor Framework is the case for the whole of the United Kingdom to be back in Thatcher's Single Market, and that is why I have no more time for it than have the literal and political heirs of Ian Paisley the Elder, so to speak. But you can't be more Unionist than the King. You just can't.
The DUP thinks that it is still in a confidence and supply agreement. But this Government has a majority of 80. It is questionable exactly what constitutes membership of the ERG, but no more than 50 MPs, and perhaps as few as 40, could in any way be so described. The seven of them in the Cabinet have no intention of resigning for anything. All in all, an absolute maximum of 60 votes against what the Government had proposed, but more like 50, one in 13 members of the House of Commons. If that. A rebellion of, at most, around one in seven Conservatives. Who cares?
For its annual £200,000 of public money, all paid into one account, what research does the European Research Group produce? Three years after Brexit, research into what? As for the Democratic Unionist Party, it would lose its deposit in any seat in Great Britain, and it would struggle to get onto the ballot in most of them, but far from having decommissioned any weapons, Ulster Resistance has never even declared a ceasefire. Is that what this is really all about? Yes. Yes, it is. Tell me again about the bullet dodged at the last two General Elections.
Ulster Unionism bewildered most people even when Great Britain was much more homogenous. If you took out Don't Cares, then by far the largest body of opinion has always been Irish Nationalist. The DUP is now only the second largest party in Northern Ireland. Being the second largest party in Northern Ireland does not give anyone the last word on anything. Both parts of Ireland have the same largest party these days. Guess who? But most people over here would respond to that with, "Who cares?" And always would have done.
If you get more three or more DUP politicians in a room the first item on the agenda is the split. Donaldson doesn’t want to be lundied. But the longer this goes on the weaker he looks as a leader. Sammy and Ian on one side Jeffrey and Gavin on the other. Appointing a eight member panel to make the most important decision on your behalf is not the actions of a true political leader.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Can you imagine Dr No doing that?
DeleteIf power sharing does return to North the two people holding the top office jointly will have something in common both have fathers who served time in jail for their contributions to the conflict from 1966-1998.
ReplyDeleteWhen it was Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, then they were not a generation's remove.
DeleteI’m sure MI5 have some interesting information on most of the players in the DUP. What happened to Robinson and his wife didn’t happen by accident I hear some journalists at the BBC had a rather good dinner with some of Smileys people in a Belfast restaurant.
ReplyDeleteBut anyone in politics in Northern Ireland is like anyone on the Corbynite Left, and possibly anyone on the Brexit and culture wars Right these days. "Of course I have a security file the size of an old-fashioned telephone directory, but that is a badge of honour."
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