We know what people think of politicians. As a group they’re down there with journalists and lawyers. But how about the other way round? How do politicians regard the public.?
Well, there’s the famous comment of one Dick Tuck, after having been defeated by none other than Richard Nixon: “The people have spoken…the bastards”. In a sense it’s natural that politicians should be fearful of and resent the people, since the people are their bosses. It’s easy for us the public to forget that. We employ them, we pay them.
But sometimes politicians are so fearful, they play to the lowest common denominator. There’s a recent report in The Ballymoney Times, for example, where a unionist councillor is rightly expressing his outrage that a union flag was taken down, stolen from a pole in the area (No, Virginia, there’s no mention of whether it was a street-light pole or a flag-pole, but you can probably guess). He calls on the Sinn Féin councillors in the area to condemn such actions. Which is a bit like a goal-keeper placing a ball on the penalty spot and then going round behind the goal to have an energy drink and a sit-down.
Both Daithi McKay and Philip McGuigan of Sinn Féin do as requested. They condemn the theft of the union flag, an act which it was claimed had heightened tensions in the town.
Here’s McGuigan: “I have no difficulty speaking out against the removal of a flag in Finvoy or anywhere else for that matter. No one should be engaging in any activity anywhere in this Borough with the intention of causing offence, raising tensions, or fuelling sectarianism.”
And here’s McKay: “Hate crime from any quarter must be condemned outright. The attack on Ballycastle Orange Hall does not represent the people that live there.”
But they both go on to show that local councillors are failing to show leadership. Tyres were burnt, election posters of Sinn Féin councillors were burnt, the Irish tricolour was burnt on bonfires in the area. Yet the police took no action and the councillors, according to McKay and McGuigan, kept schtum. The Sinn Féin councillors – rightly – condemn these actions as hate crimes: they engender a hatred of the people whose image is burnt, and they show contempt for the people who see the tricolour as their national flag.
Did the unionist councillors know what was happening? You betcha. Did they denounce these nasty, hate-encouraging actions? Not on your life. Were someone unfamiliar with our twisted little story to be told that the police knew in advance these crimes were to be committed but did nothing about them, they would scarcely believe it. Blatant sectarianism, nasty coat-trailing and the cops do nothing? Hardly credible. Just as it’s hardly credible that a councillor would get upset over a stolen Union flag and yet feel no call to speak out against illegal tyre-burning, poster burning of local republican councillors and the burning of the national flag of Ireland. Why didn’t they speak out? Very probably because they figure it’s better to pander to the lowest common denominator rather than risk alienating a few knuckle-dragger votes at the next local election.
None of the Ballymoney councillors, to the best of my knowledge, is French. But they might well feel a sense of identity with the words of the 19th-century French democrat Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin: ”There go the people – I must follow them, for I am their leader.”
To say though Jude that refusal to condemn Hate Crime by Unionists is pandering to the whims of a few knuckle-draggers, is perhaps in my view a little lenient for want of a better word. Certainly, playing to the lowest common denominator, but arguably on a much larger scale than placating a few vocal Red Necks who are punching above their weight in influence.
When you have institutions like the KKK/Orange Order dictating to Protestants the Perils of learning the Irish language, imbued with a divisive Sectarian Ethos that is bereft of any redeeming values save the Edicts of Evangelical Judge Mental ism, and I only skim the surface of their endemic ethical deficits when I assert they should be proscribed in law as fermentors and facillitators of Sectarian Hate Crime” then there is a serious problem that goes to the Heart of the matter in “acceptible Unionist Culture.
Behind the international wall on the Falls, KAT was emblazenened at several junctures along the inside of the Unionist side of the “Peace Wall”. I didnt find it strange as the other murals were largely lacking in depth also. When a culture refuses to look inside and gag at a five year old child with the acronym representing Kill All Taigs face painted on her forehead. When it refuses to see how a Gallows and Corpse on a bonfire with a Bouncy Castle beside for the “Childer” is fostering Hate and a probable new generation of Confict with Catholics Murdered because they are Catholic, then Knuckle Draggers are in a Clear and unchecked supremacy in the wider Unionist Constituency……..To quote That Bastion of Mainstream Unionism and Respectability, John Taylor MP (since made a Lord), in Peter Taylors Documentary on Loyalism,- “there has always been sneaking regard for Loyalist Paramilitaries among the mainstream od Unionism….” to do the Lord’s work in Unionism, one Does Not have to be too Sneaky does one Johnny T, the writing from a very young age is very much plainly on the wall……
As I say Jude, methinks with sorrow aplenty that Hutchie et al are not too far from the mainstream of Unionism…..this does not auger well and the cycles of Violence and injustice inflicted by these paragons of sagacity at all level in the Unionist Pyramid, have a propensity to erupt n Ireland at regular intervals……this History has Confirmed and we have no Reason to be over optimistic about the future right now…..thankfully there are many Unionists who would be genuinely appalled at the Orange Order and Loyalist Sectarianism in General, but for many Reasons may feel a little timid about challenging the Beast, fearful perhaps that Billy Boy Hutchie and his Confederates in the Mainstream may be leafing through the Letters Columns…….Unionism has yet to produce a De Clerk, let alone a Parnell to Lead them out of this Cul De Sac…….for now but the dog may shake some day and the Fleas Scatter…….
It’s difficult to tell the difference between the toxic stench of burning tyres and the toxic stench of unionist hypocracy.
What did Nationalists/Republicans get for our co First Minister holding his nose and shaking England queens hand…..nothing.
Not an ounce of respect,not similar gesture of friendship,not even basic good manners.
“What did Nationalists/Republicans get for our co First Minister holding his nose and shaking England queens hand…..nothing.”
It just showed that the queen is a ‘Lundy’.
Such is the loyal loyalty of loyal loyalists.
It is somewhat discouraging that none of the unionist councillors from Ballymoney were available for comment on local radio stations to denounce the ‘nasty, hate-encouraging actions’ mentioned but, in fairness, going forward, at the end of the day, or, indeed, the beginning of same, there may be a p. reasonable explanation.
Perhaps they have been booked already to appear on the fearless Morning Ireland show and that would explain their Cistercian-like vow of silence. No better broadcaster than the civilised Cathal Mac Coille, RTE’s own resident rotweiller, to coax the condemnation out of them. No giolla/ghillie he, when it comes to rowing with the reluctant.
My b. money – for what it’s worth – is on that perfectly r. explanation.
And remember, it is from the most disarming, or at least, the most seemingly disarming interviews on radio or television that the public has been allowed to get a glimpse of the truth, that is, the truth AS WE KNOW IT. (Always wanted to use that phrase so beloved of hacks. GRMA, Esteemed Blogmeister, for affording me the opportunity).
During the coarse course of the Dirty Thirty Year W.O.W. in the Wee North perhaps the nearest that that truth was glimpsed was in the course of an interview which the distinguished broadcaster with an intercontinental reputation, Sacha Baron Cohen conducted with the d.politician with an i.r., one Samuel ‘Sommy’ Wilson. (The ‘Sommy’ is pronounced as in ‘Somme Enchanted Evening’, his theme song as Lord Mayor as he was at the time of the interview, one recalls).
Incidentally, the W.O.W. stands for War Of Words and is not to be confused with another WOW which was more orgasmic than organically orange. Besides the second WOW ! was togged out in an elegant exclamation mark by the House of Rocha.
The disarming yet searching interview by Sacha Baron Cohen was part of his series entitled ‘Cultural Gleanings of Most Enlightened State of Norn Iron to make Benefit Glamorous Nation of Khazakstan’
SBC: So, let us get this straight: you is Lord Mayor of Belfast?
SW: Ach, ‘y.
SBC: And Belfast is in Ireland.
SW. Ach ‘y – and no. Norn Iron.
SBC: So, you is Irish?
SW: Ach, no: I’m British.
SBC: Ah, puzzled foreign reporter no longer puzzled.
SW: Ach, ‘y.
SBC: You is a ….tourist.
It ought to be pointed out that this landmark interview was later broadcast on TG4 in the language of the Leprechaun to which SW has a particular attachment, under the title: SBC ina Shui’.
The succinct yet profoundly telling replies – his ‘Ach, ‘y’ mantra, of the then Lord Mayor of Laganside ranged all the way from the the A to Y of the political alphabet.
And therein lies the problem, perhaps.
The Z has not yet been reached. Specifically, Z for Zoology.
Now, the Warbeck name is synonmous with animal-rights activism – hence the Do Do in the family escutchon, so if Perkin may be so bold as to pursue this line of inquiry and thread where no else has t. before. In the honorable interest of Outreachery.
Regard the banner most visible during Orange Parades, the one featuring the resplendent King William , astride his noble white steed. How many from the Other Side know the name of that steed? As many, one imagines, as know (1) who will win the Epsom Derby in ten years’ time; or (2) know the sad whereabouts of Shergar’s last resting place.
For the record, it was Sorrel. Now, scarcely, a baker’s dozen years after the B. of the Boyne good King Billy was on his morning gallop across Hampton Court astride his noble steed when, alas, Sorrel stumbled on a molehole and the king was thrown.
Hence the loathsome Jacobite toast: ‘To the wee mon in a vevet waistcoat’
(One is thankful,btw,l to PW’s lastest research assistant, Eunan the Trade Unionist for lending an O’Halpin hand, as it were, pursuing his trade as a ferreter out of unconsidered trifles of historical import).
Though good King Billy only suffered an initial breaking of his collar bone, it was to lead, sadly to fatal consequences. In his post mortem report the legendary Court Physician, Professor Emeritus John E. Murphy (no relation, no honoris causa, but the real deal) wrote as follows: ‘Due to the royal collar bone being connected to the royal breast bone, being connected to the royal hip bone, being connected to the royal back bone, being connected to the royal thigh bone, being connected to the royal knee bone, being connected to the royal – erasure – bone, being connected to the royal ankle bone, being connected to the royal foot bone, being connected to the royal toe bones, it was the king and not the horse what died. Listen to the word of the Lord’.
And indeed it was as a result of this very detailed royal post mortem that the Professor Emeritus John E. Murphy was conferred with a Lordshipment on the occasion of the next royal birthday. Not destined, alas, to be that of the late King William but rather his successor.
Two points to be noted: the E. – the Physician Royal’s middle name – stood for Ezekiel. And as for the ‘erasure’ – between the royal and the 31st bone – the one in q. was, of course….the shin bone. (By erasing the reference to ‘shin’, Eunan the T. Unionist is of the opinion that that was the clincher when it came to, erm, clinching the Lordshipment).
There is nothing left to say, in this mournful report, except for the inner poet in P. Warbeck to break into verse, taut and laconic as that of S.W.:
‘There was a wee white horse called Sorrel
Which liked nothing better than to quarrel
Less Laurel, more Hardy
To riz a row never tardy
Hence nosebags of laurel from old Balmoral.’
Shalom.
Splendid as ever, Perkin – but methinks your limerick-nag limps a trifle in the metre. As I am at present in Spain, you might have wanted to try instead an updated version of “There was a young girl from Madrid”…
Hola,, amigo, if you consider one’s limerick-nag to be limping a trifle, well then what can one say? Except that Sorrel is in good company.
Perhaps the Spanish media has not yet picked up on a Royal scandal (British Royal style) which, though a staple diet for the Red Tops over here, like the TIT (The Irish Times), only broke in the Broadsheet media during the last couple of days..
To wit, a horse owned by the Queen aka the Banrion of Balmoral, was tested positive for the banned substance known as morphine. This was the five-year old filly called Estimate (sic) which limped in second in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last year and it is estimated (more sic) that the horse had enough on board to have felled an elephant.
When those commentators who specialise in the propaganda technique known as Rope-a-Mope were quizzed about this scandal involving dope and a ‘orse, their response was a terse ‘nope’ in fluent non-Erse.
Now, as to your challenge.
This throwing down of the gauntlet is truly catching. Coming as it does in the wake of Professor Emeritus John A. Morphine, oops, Murphy, D.Litt doing ditto with Fear na Feasoige, aka GA in the pacific and para-somnolent columns of the Letters Page of TUT (The Unionist Times).
But, of course, we Warbecks were ever of the Warrior class and like nothing better than the throwing down of a g. (for either gauntlet or glove) at one’s metrical feet.
Here goes: ‘There was a young girl from Madrid
A senorita neither Rita, Molly nor Bid
Though Dev was her grandson
Tall, shortsighted and homespun
A post mortem showed she was Syd’
Hasta luego.
Absolutely amazing Perking, always enjoy reading your pieces.
Hi jude ;
I thought maybe we’d exhausted this one for this particular year and were getting re-adjusted to the summer lull where our politicians all rest up for three months while the earth stops spinning on its axis until September….and politics are on holiday. The press then takes up the challenge of the Silly season and hokes about for stories of poor wee trapped dolphins and the awful terrifying nakedness on our beaches… Well, have you seen the state of some of these naked people in these modern days …It’s not like it was before McDonalds arrived , y’know? Twenty five stone and rising…and that’s just the children!
Well , you brought up another slant on it so I suppose it’s time to talk .I look at it this way…Our politicians shove this particular rock up a hill ….pushing it before them with their noses until the very last minute before the annual summer holiday . They make a lot of noises just before July kicks off and then the rest of us are left to get on with it until the flags rot off the lamp posts sometime around Black Saturday or thereafter…when the summer has been well and truly contaminated.
A week or so ago, my good tax money was being used by a council operative to scrape and clean the blackened ground of the bonfire site where a variety of flags, effigies , sofas, pallets and rubber tyres had been offered up to the sky gods on the Eleventh Night….that curious pyromaniacal affair that consumes some of our native tribes every year and which is apparently conducted in a dimension well beyond our temporal laws. it’s just a pity that the same operative couldn’t have cleaned up the various dog -shittings from the flower strewn walk or pulled that chair out of the nearby stream. No matter , at another site the same council is having bother with vandals breaking into their other “traditional” bonfire site and are smashing the wooden fence for access in the process .Maybe they’ll spend some more of my tax money on a sturdier iron fence for next year. The fires go on and no one knows how they happen or how the tyres and pallets get there. Beyond space and time and that….
Bonfires , as I say, exist in a nether dimension beyond time and space , so why would politicians want to do anything about them ? By the time summer rolls through and the fuse is lit on another political year, we’ll all have forgotten about them until another Eleventh Night beckons.
In this other dimension, the local press appeared with stories of mock battles at Scarva and pages and pages of strangely dressed people eating ice cream and marching .That’s fair enough .It’s a bit quieter than all that rioting from last year.
Someone reading the local papers in the library or on the “World -a-Net” a hundred years hence,will be none the wiser about the flags and effigies being burned out on the bonfires. They’ve never been reported or debated properly.
Maybe ,then , masked children will be trailing around a little hover-cart from door to door every Eleventh Night with a little stuffed effigy of a bearded bespectacled “Guy”…they’ll be asking for a donation …”Penny for the Gerry?, Mister?”
People will be asking …”Gerry, who?”
So many laws are broken by Loyalists in the weeks preceding the twelfth of July. Burning tyres which billow black smoke into the night sky is surely a crime when they release a toxic soup of pollutants. Children being especially at risk. Hundreds of different toxic pollutants are created by burning tires as well as a tremendous number of small particles that settle deep in the lungs. Drinking in public places and displays by proscribed organisations. Its alright thought because its the twelfth of July ‘The Glorious Twelfth’ as some say. What is so glorious about is is yet to be seen.
What do Unionist Councillors and MLA’s do or say about this. Well so far nothing because ….. wait for it ….. its culture, spewing tons of toxins and poisons into the air is culture don’t you know. As for the effigies and flags, well the thing about this is its fine and normal for Loyalists to steal flags and posters but posters are political party property and so private property and so ‘stealing’ posters is indeed theft as is stealing a statue of The Virgin Mary and placing it on top of a bonfire, religious equality I think you’ll agree. Both stealing these items and placing them on top of these bonfires is not only theft but continues on to be a hate crime on both a person and a religion.
Again though, nothing is done about it by the PSNI who have now it seems taken so long to do anything about it that, in the words of the PSNI “the evidence has been destroyed”. A sad excuse for an excuse I think you’ll agree but it just brings into focus the thin line between law and order in the North of Ireland. The line between acceptable celebrating of culture and the celebration of culture which includes pollution of epic proportions, theft and hate crime seems to be very VERY wide, so wide that Loyalism can pretty much do anything within the month of July and get away with it.
Sinn Fein do the right thing by condemning the removal of the British flag, after all this can only lead to a stronger shared future right? The big question is this….who’s reaching out to who?
Very good Dr C
I am not a fan of your last post but this is spot on.
I think it is best summarised by Red Dwarf’s Cat character: “Eat fish, expect bones!”
The hypocrisy and entitlement of unionism sickens me. There is no such thing as brownie points for supporting the Queen or painting the kerbs red, white and blue.
If NI was as British as Finchley then there would be no need to circle the wagons.
Also, even though I am regarded as a pseudo-liberal-lundy-traitor, my own brand of unionism might be a little bit more appealing to middle of the road voters than the mainstream unionist version of ‘why don’t the taigs get it’.
I could be wrong, but my inherent foolishness tells me that by treating people as equals they are more likely to see you as a friend rather than a foe.
I could be wrong though. Crazy chat.
Crazy chat – not. Every time I read a comment from you, AC, including those I disagree with, I find myself warming to you. You’re a model for how political opponents should communicate. Maith thú – take a bow…
Oh….stop….(but I will bow. I love a good bow)
Unionist politicians never condemn their lowest common denominator, they do not lead they follow. They never know when they might need them to, ahem, persuade people to go on strike or shut up shop. Even the great leader Big Ian went with the mob. During the conflict they had to be asked time after time to condemn sectarian murder gangs, even when they issued mealy mouthed criticisms they would make excuses for their people. Why should they condemn the pagan Wicker man type bonfires we see in loyalist areas, complete with effigies and flags? They support them.
I’m impressed ! In Spain and keeping an eye on the Ballymoney Times.Shades of the Skibberen Eagle!
Is it Spain that’s being compared to Skibereen? Or an eagle to…Ballymoney? Not sure what your dazzling witticism is, exactly, A. Maybe you’d explain for us’ns in the back row?
A bit touchy,aren’t we?Maybe the Spanish holiday will lessen sensitivities!
Well you may speak for yourself, Argie, but I’m not at all touchy. If I were I wouldn’t dream of writing a blog or reading some of the comments I get.
Just to clarify,I agreed with the content of your blog but naively thought that if you were on holiday in Spain you might want to get away from the daily routine of blogging.Obviously I was wrong hence my reference to keeping an eye on the Ballymoney Times from Spain!Clearly ironic comments do not always go down well on this site.
Ah no, Argie. Just clumsy ones…:)
No comment, Iolar.
It has always intersted me why/ how unionists refer ( even ostensibly in an off hand, not thought out manner) to Catholics, as Taigs, where they have adopted the rather less hostile moniker of, Prods, for themselves. I’m quite aware of the reference to Sagart /priest issue.
It’s just another scintilla of evidence of their lack of respect. It may seem petty , but it has always bugged me.
A wee bit like Wendy Austin , and others, affecting a faux-anglicised accent. I know it is the way they are taught in middle class protestant schools, but it is actually an insult to Irishness. It’s an affectation that enables them to eschew any residual Irishness they might horrifyingly harbour.
I’m not so sure about all that Freddy .you ‘re maybe being a little over-sensitive. The only ones that call anyone “Taigs” or “Prods” are the wee daft ones that have no better sense than that. Or the wee daft ones that grow up into the Big Daft Ones.It’s more a matter of upbringing and basic knowledge and intelligence. If you speak English, Irish , Welsh or French . you’d be taught how to speak words properly .An accent can even change across a classroom …across a town even …never mind within this little six counties or further afield…even within a family , come to think of it.
i have to say , too , that i have never had a problem with Wendy and her accent . Do you think she deliberately speaks in a particular way for other reasons than to be clearly understood? i think she does a very balanced and nuanced job , given that we live in such a screwy place.We’re all typing away here in English and i don’t feel it is a threat to my Irishness in any way …Realistically, I know exactly where I was born ….here in Ireland …that simple fact makes me Irish…no further debate needed really….i have to say , I’d love to be able to speak French the way my sister can with a lilt to her speaking voice …French is a lovely language to hear spoken well.It doesn’t make her any less Irish mind…..
I was toying with doing a GCSE in French this year (did one in Irish last year) but I suspect events, dear boy, events are about to intervene…
Events? That seems suitably cryptic. Les événements? Début d’une lutte prolongée?
I fear we’re all becoming Warbeckified around these parts…
Dr C
Credit where credit is due: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-28479010
Just out of interest is anyone aware of a recorded instance of mainstream Unionist parties publicly standing up United against instances of loyalist sectarian violence / intimidation or Anti-catholic activity by groups within the unionist community or is it “all for one and one for all”?
Ask a silly question, Pointis…