Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

We’ve had Ian McCrea’s campaign to prevent the Pope visiting Northern Ireland, Iris Robinson’s hate-filled remarks about homosexuals, Sammy Wilson’s climate change denial , Edwin Poots et al with their five thousand year old Earth and Jim Wells versus wifi . But if anyone still harbours a suspicion that the DUP might be remotely connected, by even the flimsiest thread, to the mainstream of British politics, they should examine Gregory Campbell’s contribution to a Westminster Hall debate aimed at pressuring some of the more unpleasant regimes throughout the world to abandon the death penalty. Across party divides agreement was reached that abolition should be sought in countries including Iran, China and Belarus. A rare accord, which did not include the East Londonderry MP, who rejected ‘cosy consensus’, on the basis that a ‘small number of serial killers who treat the prospect of redemption with utter contempt’ could ‘commit another crime against an innocent person’. A scenario ...