Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

So that's the Robinsons'  rehabilitation completed  then.  More than a year after it was begun.  Policing and Justice devolved, Peter Robbo and his mates preserved.  All is well in Northern Ireland.  Sleep well.

It might be premature to talk about 'the fall of the house of Robinson', but David Gordon has updated his excellent book on the Paisleys to account for recent events. As the Political Editor for the Belfast Telegraph it's impressive that he managed to find the time! The original review if here . Details of the new chapter from the publisher: The Iris Robinson sex-and-money scandal forms part of the crumbling of the Paisleyite movement in Northern Ireland politics’, a new version of an acclaimed book argues. First published in autumn 2009, The Fall of the House of Paisley, by Belfast journalist David Gordon, charted how Ian Paisley's time as Northern Ireland's First Minister came to an abrupt end in 2008. The new version, published this week, has been updated to examine the impact of the scandal surrounding Iris Robinson which broke early in the new year. Gordon's book received highly positive reviews and repeatedly made the non-fiction best-seller lists du...

Greed, money, sex and sleaze. The Iris Robinson affair stank of each. First Minister, Peter Robinson was clearly implicated, but there was no smoking gun. The absence of any specific proof of wrong-doing seems to be enough for the DUP. It has limped along with its discredited leader and even managed something of a revival as the Labour government sought to bolster its position. Now, however, the BBC has produced further seedy revelations . Remember the Robinson's property developer friend, Fred Fraser? He was one of the men from whom Iris procured £50,000 for her teenage paramour, Kirk McCambley. It transpires that he also sold the Robinsons a valuable piece of land, worth at least £75,000, for the grand total of £5. A generous chap, I'm sure you'll agree! During the height of the property boom its value sky-rocketed, before the pair sold it, again for the princely sum of £5, despite its market value now topping £220,000. The lucky recipient was another property d...

In today's Belfast Telegraph I comment on Peter Robinson's six week leave of absence. When Peter Robinson announced his intention to step aside from the First Minister's role for six weeks yesterday he chose to prolong a crisis of political leadership at Stormont. Mr Robinson hopes to use the respite to answer allegations raised by a sensational Spotlight investigation into financial arrangements which his wife Iris struck with a 19-year-old businessman. But his absence will leave the Assembly in limbo at a crucial period. Peter Robinson's increasingly desperate attempts to safeguard his own career could compromise Northern Ireland's political future and damage the electoral prospects of his party. It has been a traumatic couple of weeks for the DUP leader in the aftermath of Iris's withdrawal from public life. Seamy revelations about her relationship with a teenage entrepreneur have been accompanied by wider concerns over the Robinsons' financial affairs....

The latest information suggests that Iris Robinson will step down from her political roles next week. A general election is due, in May, at the latest. But, as at least two people have helpfully pointed out, the time restrictions involved in issuing a writ for a Westminster by-election renders it unlikely that there will be an early poll in Strangford. So Iris Robinson's constituents will effectively be without an MP for anything up to four months. The DUP will want to co-opt a councillor in order to replace Iris in Castlereagh Borough Council, but Robinsons' unionist opponents, justifiably, are likely to demand that the public be consulted. Expect at least one by-election, and a strong challenge to the DUP's supremacy, within weeks, rather than months.

Well the text jokes are coming in thick and fast, but most of them are unrepeatable. Although the notion that Kirk McCambley's favourite song is 'sure it is old but it is beautiful' is rather a good one. The best spoof so far, though, is this version of Mrs Robinson which has found its way unto Youtube with indecent speed! Enjoy.

They say that truth is stranger than fiction. Certainly, in the film, the young lover Mrs Robinson chose to seduce was at least old enough to have left university. And Anne Bancroft, we must remember, was only in her mid-thirties when ’The Graduate’ was made. Northern Ireland’s real life Mrs Robinson turned sixty last September. Her paramour was a nineteen year old butcher’s son from Belfast, for whom she abused her position in order to secure £50,000 of business start-up capital! Last night’s Spotlight programme unfolded a torrid tale , which, had it not involved Northern Ireland’s most high profile political couple, would have been perfectly at home on the Jeremy Kyle Show. For the tabloids, the headlines write themselves. A First Minister made cuckold by a boy! An aging seductress called Mrs Robinson! But beyond prurient interest in the seamier details, the political connotations are grave. On the basis of Spotlight’s allegations, Iris Robinson is clearly guilty of serial im...

If I’m honest, there was a moment when I wondered whether an article I'd written for yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph, criticising Peter Robinson’s conduct after Cardinal Daly’s death, might not have been rather badly timed. Watching the television broadcast, during which the First Minister issued a statement about his wife’s affair and subsequent suicide attempt, was a disconcerting experience. It felt like an intrusion on personal trauma. It was difficult not to react, instinctively, with sympathy and pity. For the time being, the public mood, and media reaction, has swung, predictably enough, in the Robinsons’ favour. But the truth is that the about turn hasn’t been as dramatic as one might expect and neither has it been universal. There remains a degree of cynicism about the timing of these revelations and the sequence of events which led to the First Minister’s statement. The curious formulations which Robinson used to respond to financial allegations did little to dispel ...

In today's Belfast Telegraph, I argue that sympathy for Iris Robinson's depression should not obscure the unpleasant reality of her politics. Even by the DUP's standards, Mrs Robinson's politics comprise an unpleasant concoction of bigotries, seasoned with a predictable dash of ethno-religious fanaticism. This unpalatable dish is served up with a sizeable side-dollop of spite, epitomised by Iris's triumphant nine-finger salute which taunted Tory MPs after DUP votes had secured a Government victory on 42-day detention, or by her serial "unparliamentary" harassment of the Health Minister, Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey, for which she attracted official censure. It is possible, of course, to elicit human sympathy for Robinson in light of the mental illness which has forced her to step back from her duties. Perhaps the condition might even permit a kinder interpretation of the extremity of some of her outbursts. But the sum total of hatred and intolerance ...

More to follow on Iris Robinson's departure. However it is worth quoting a snippet from Clive Aslet at the Daily Telegraph. I don't know whether to accept that the Northern Irish MP Iris Robinson's stated reason for quitting politics – depression – is the whole story. A row about the fact that she and her First Minister husband employ four family members on their staff may have also been a contributory factor. But I welcome the attention she has drawn to the issue of mental health, which remains too little understood. Stigma surrounding mental illness has certainly dissipated, but it is still a very real issue. Whether one accepts that Iris Robinson's decision to give up her public role is an uncomplicated health matter, or not, she has performed a useful service by owning up to her condition. Assessing her contribution to Northern Ireland's politics is, of course, an entirely different matter.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has finally published its report on MPs’ expenses and allowances. The BBC has a PDF of the full ‘Kelly Report’ and a useful synopsis for the impatient or time restricted reader. Some of its recommendations will send a chill up the collective spines of Northern Ireland’s MPs, particularly those within the DUP. It is worth remembering that the conduct which the report recommends is best practice which MPs should have abided by in the first instance. Recommendation 40: The practice of permitting a Westminster MP simultaneously to sit in a devolved legislature should be brought to an end, ideally by the time of the elections to the three devolved legislatures scheduled for May 2011. Which is augmented by the following observations in the introduction, 16 out of 18 Northern Ireland Westminster MPs are also members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Five of them currently hold ministerial positions there. The only other example of dual mandates i...

You’ve got to admire Peter Robinson’s audacity. Sorry, strike that, start again. You’ve got to deplore Peter Robinson’s mendacity. After the DUP declared itself confident that it had nothing to fear when the Daily Telegraph investigation touched upon its expenses, the First Minister has defended £30,525 (thirty thousand five hundred and twenty five pounds only) claimed for food bills, submitted over a period of four years by he and his wife. Peter claims that this equates to an average of about £73 per week. How did he arrive at this estimate? Three Thousand Versts has investigated, and can exclusively reveal that if one divides £30,525 by four (the number of years which the claims cover), then fifty two (the number of weeks in the year, for slower readers) and then further divides the resultant figure by two (for the number of Swish Robinsons in the House of Commons) one arrives at the princely sum of £73.38. It’s good to know that Robbo went to such extravagant lengths to acc...

Even Jacqui Smith had enough decency to appear chastened on this morning’s Today programme, as she attempted to explain away her expense claims. Though clearly she still believes her worst sin is failing to account for a tenner invested in blue movies, rather than spending the nation's taxes on furniture for her family's house. Gordon Brown may be taking a second home allowance, despite being housed in the most famous residence in the country, courtesy of the public purse, but at least he has made some placatory noises about scrapping the payment which he currently pockets. This contrite mood has clearly not yet reached Northern Ireland, where the First Minister reacted to suggestions that his family are receiving extraordinary quantities of taxpayers’ cash, with an aggressive rant which targeted the Conservative and Ulster Unionist parties. Naturally Tory and UUP representatives were quick to deny disseminating a story that was carried, over the weekend, in two of the mos...

When Iris Robinson made objectionable statements about homosexuals, I remarked , “It is not her right to express these views which should be attacked, but her suitability to hold public office, or to represent the public, part of which she volubly accuses of being ‘disgusting’, ‘loathsome’ and so on.” I am puzzled as to why gay rights campaigners are protesting against an entirely justifiable decision by the PSNI not to press charges against the MP. It is possible to hear outdated, offensive remarks on almost any talk radio programme on a daily basis. No-one would suggest that contributors to the Nolan Show etc. should be routinely prosecuted. Mrs Robinson is a public representative, of course, and we are entitled to expect more from her. That is a matter which pertains to her employment, however, and not to criminal law. Her comments were undoubtedly wrong, but they were never likely to constitute ‘incitement’ and an offence before the law. Protests against the content of Robins...

Albeit a little nausea inducing, courtesy of Mark Devenport. Some nonentity from Hollyoaks has expressed his disapproval of Iris Robinson's anti-gay comments in a celebrity magazine. Mark's headline - " Iris in 'Heat' ".

Iris Robinson discussing abortion on Radio Ulster’s Nolan programme moments ago: ‘It’s the government’s responsibility to uphold God’s law’. DUP Shariah?

I have refrained from too much comment on the Iris Robinson controversy as I believe that her remarks speak for themselves, and indeed are indicative of the strain of condemnatory Christianity which infests the DUP. A couple of bloggers’ thoughts are worth reading however. Brian Crowe on Burke’s Corner argues from the perspective of more mainstream Christian churches that Robinson’s hate filled rant is aberrant to genuine Christian teaching. I am in no position to comment on Brian’s contention that, “the Christian tradition has a responsibility and obligation to act with respect towards gay people - a responsibility and obligation that flow from foundational Christian beliefs with regards to creation and redemption”, but it does confirm to my mind that Robinson’s Christianity is of a particularly virulent strain, and although she does not belong to the Free Presbyterian Church herself, that organisation, which still exercises a hugely influential role in the DUP, is characterised by...