Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

From the moment Ian Junior announced his intention to stand for Westminster in North Antrim the die was cast . The media would inevitably portray the battle for the seat as a two horse race between the man set to inherit the Paisley family’s electoral silver and Jim Allister, former hardline Paisleyite, turned thorn in the DUP’s flesh. There are clear and consistent signs emerging from the constituency, however, that conventional wisdom is about to be turned on its head. Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice has failed to capture the public imagination in this unionist heartland. And, confounding expectations, the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists electoral pact is performing better than expected. In candid moments TUV canvassers have admitted that their estimates are being substantially revised, downwards. And the Conservatives and Unionists are increasingly confident that they can mount the main challenge to Paisley in North Antrim. Irwin Armstrong , the Conservative party member an...

On Monday last I posed some questions about a letter, issued on behalf of Ian Paisley Senior, which marked his retirement as MP. The document was distributed with a very prominent picture of Ian Paisley Junior, the DUP candidate for North Antrim, posing with his father. I observed that there is a strong argument that the photograph constitutes campaigning, particularly because, by the time it hit doormats in the constituency, the election had been called. Over at the North Antrim Local Interest List, Nevin develops the theme . The letter, which is dated mid March, was not distributed until the 6-8 April. Why the delay? Nevin notes the striking coincidence that Paisley's correspondence is dated from the very day the election was called. It appears that the letter was not printed on official Commons notepaper, but undoubtedly the portcullis livery which it carries is intended to give the impression that it is distributed by Ian Paisley in his capacity as MP, rather than in his ...

Sadiq Khan, a Labour transport minister, is to be subject to a Conservative complaint , after he used House of Commons stationery and prepaid envelopes to write to constituents lauding his record. The Tories consider his actions an infringement of parliamentary rules which prohibit the use of such resources for campaigning. Last month, to mark the end of forty years representing North Antrim, part-time, at Westminster, Ian Paisley sent a letter , on stationery headed by House of Commons livery, to his constituents. It doesn’t feature the word DUP and although it is deeply self-valedictory, it is possible to argue that the text does not represent campaigning. Included in an envelope with the document we have a photo of the ‘Reverend Doctor‘, or whatever his fawning acolytes like to style him, posing with ‘óg’, ‘Junior’, ‘Baby Doc’, a chip off the old block. If the DUP used its communications allowance to fund this piece of electioneering it could constitute a breach of rules. ...

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...

Ian Paisley Junior clearly isn't on his hols yet (or at least the DUP press office is still at work). Christmas Eve morning witnessed a press release on the party's current most pressing preoccupation - its rival's internal candidate selection procedure. The website only features a truncated version, but its is the unabridged text which provides the authentic Junior pyrotechnics (ho hum!). The Labour tendencies of leading members of South Belfast UUP are well-known. Does this explain the Tory insistence on imposing a blow-in upon the local UUP Association? The Tories are now insisting that all who refuse to subscribe to their views must be purged from consideration as UUP candidates, as has been demonstrated by the Tory intolerance towards the UUP’s solitary MP. The UUP is being hollowed out at the behest of a party who when they last contested an election in South Belfast got 108 votes. Experienced veterans are being pushed aside in favour of a bunch of Notting Hill lib...

The media has already established its angle on the North Antrim general election contest. It’s all about Jim Allister and whichever Paisley is nominated to rebuff his challenge. To a degree the preoccupation with the DUP / TUV contest is understandable. After all, in 2005 Senior romped home with more than 25,000 votes and Ulster Unionist candidate, Rodney McCune, was beaten to second spot by Sinn Féin. However, four years have elapsed and Northern Ireland’s electoral landscape looks rather different. Conservatives and Unionists will hope to improve their vote share considerably in the constituency. The TUV’s irrelevance to Westminster politics is manifestly obvious, and the Paisleys‘ reputation has been tarnished, even within their traditional heartlands. If voters in North Antrim need any reminder of the venality which caused the family’s downfall, they need only glance at a whopping £500,000 advice centre in Ballymena. Of course, if UCUNF is to benefit from a fragmented DUP v...

David Gordon played his own part in ‘The Fall of the House of Paisley’ by providing the print media’s most comprehensive coverage of the political dynasty’s links to property magnate Seymour Sweeney, and reporting other scandals which rocked the DUP during 2007 and 2008. Indeed the journalist brought to popular attention a number of the important scoops which underpin his new book’s narrative. It should be acknowledged, however, that a local blog , with its relative lack of resources, doggedly matched the Belfast Telegraph for detail as the extent of cronyism in the Paisleys’ North Antrim constituency became apparent. The book’s blurb describes its contents as ‘the slow demise of a powerful political dynasty’, but the actual succession of events which precipitated the departure of Ian Paisley Junior from government, and subsequently resulted in the resignation of his father from the First Minister’s office, unfolded relatively quickly. Gordon’s book moves the story along with suit...