Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Jim Allister is attempting to generate something of a furore about a ‘citizenship roadshow’ at Laurelhill Community College in Lisburn, which involved a highly representative panel of no less than five DUP politicians. The Traditional Unionist leader has accused Peter Robinson and his party of ‘taking over’ the school for ‘political propaganda’ . Although I would uphold children’s right not to be subjected to the blethering of more than one DUP spokesman at a time, surely the school itself is ultimately responsible for the composition of the panel? With this in mind, it would be interesting to know who at the school organised the event, why they didn’t invite representatives of other parties, and if the organiser had any prior connection to the DUP? Certainly an unbalanced line-up of this type does smack of indoctrination when it is chosen to address young minds. And given the subject matter, were the panellists really best placed to lecture children on citizenship? After all, th...

A discussion about preferred candidates on Redemption’s Son led Ignited to suggest that the current Ulster Unionist initiative had been tried before, when Robert McCartney and others spearheaded the ‘Campaign for Equal Citizenship’ back in the nineteen eighties. I countered that McCartney had never seriously threatened to deliver an arrangement whereby Northern Irish candidates had a good chance of being elected as members of a governing party at Westminster. Undoubtedly, though, current developments do appeal to similar impulses as the CEC. If the internet had been widely available in 1986, and had I been a peculiarly politically precocious nine year old, ’Three Thousand Versts’ would almost certainly have been coloured by an integrationist hue. During the early part of that decade James Molyneaux was proud of his links with Thatcher’s Conservative Party. Under the influence of Enoch Powell, there was an integrationist bent to his politics. But the party was also possessed of ...