Arlene Foster with Paul Clark : a convincing performance?

Last night I watched a tape of Arlene Foster’s interview with Paul Clark on UTV. In some ways it was similar to any of these interviews – the presenter tries to tie down the politician, preferably with some damaging admissions, the politician wriggles and avoids the question. This one was a bit like that too, but contained at least three quite different elements.

1. Paul Clark kept saying ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ when Arlene offered an answer. He must have said it three or four times. That of course is very nearly the tag –line of the great Mandy Rice-Davies. Back in the 1960s when the defence counsel at the Profumo trial was questioning Mandy, he pointed out to the fun-loving prostitute that Lord Astor denied having an affair with her. Mandy looked at him with her big eyes and replied, with a little giggle in the middle, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”. The huge majority of the British public believed what Mandy claimed  – that  Astor had been caught with his trousers around his ankles. Paul Clark didn’t say to Arlene Foster “Right – that’s your story because it suits you to have it your story, not because it resembles the facts”;  but he came pretty near.
2. Arlene kept brushing aside any reference to RHI. You might think that scarcely credible, since RHI was the massive truckful of hay that broke the camel’s back. But Arlene said no, no, no, that wasn’t what brought the Executive down, it was Sinn Féin’s refusal to work in harmony with the DUP. There was no point in discussing RHI, she suggested, since the public inquiry had been set up and would deal with the matter in full. Translated: For God’s sake lay off talking about the RHI, which we in the DUP devised and ran; there may well be fire and brimstone when the inquiry reports, but that won’t be until after the election, so meantime stop talking about it. I thought there was a chance the RHI scandal wouldn’t survive as a story through the turkey and plum pud haze of Christmas. How little I knew. Uncomfortably, Clark keep reminding Arlene about the boiler thing.
3. Arlene was clearly under instructions to avoid getting passionate, let alone combative with Clark. That’s a stance that’s not too difficult with Clark, who is and looks like and sounds like a nice man. So Arlene kept smiling and talking in a soft voice, almost conversational. No ‘Never! Never!’s here. Unfortunately, she came across less as a calm leader and more as someone who’s semi-detached from her position as party leader. A bit like a teacher amused by some wild version of events that a child is presenting. If I’d been a DUP supporter, I would have felt as dismayed as many were when Alan Dukes became leader of Fine Gael. He too had a mild, relaxed manner. Alan was seen as a nice man – not unlike Paul Clark, come to think of it. But he was never going to take the Fine Gael party anywhere other than to another electoral disaster.

Hark! What’s that sound I hear? Ah yes. The boys in the DUP backroom sharpening their knives. The Clark interview will have given an injection of elbow-grease to their preparations for the post-election shambles.