Dear Blondie,
(That greeting, by the way, is just a little joke. Actually, I’ve always thought that as a politician you’ve got lovely hair. And I mean that sincerely.)
But to business. I thought I’d write to you personally and give you the benefit of my more mature experience of politics here and how you can perhaps do better in the future.
Firstly, I’m glad you got rid of McElduff. He had an irritating tendency – which somehow I associate with West Tyrone people – for getting under my skin. You will notice that, as soon as his offensive nonsense became public, I got the TV cameras to show me with the families of the Kingsmills killings. I have found that, if you can be pictured side-by-side with victims, you’re half-way to winning the argument. Just a little tip you might want to tuck into the back of your mind.
Secondly, I’ll be blunt: I’m not one bit pleased that you took nine days to dump McElduff. Yes I know it’s your party and not mine, but I think Sinn Féin can learn from us about the need to act decisively. You’ll remember with the RHI scheme burst into public consciousness, I immediately acted by not moving from my position. That’s an example of political strength, you see. Again, Sinn Féin would do well to learn from such leaderly action.
Thirdly, and while I hope you won’t take offence, this eulogising of terrorists has to stop and stop now. It’s been going on for far too long. We in unionism and the victims of republican violence have just had enough. If you expect ever to be accepted into respectable politics, let alone into an executive as my junior partner, you’ll have to end this naming of kiddies’ play-parks after men of blood and attending ceremonies for men who, thankfully, were cut down and eliminated by our gallant SAS. I’m doing you a favour here, I really am: you’re not going to make any progress in the bright new post-Brexit Ulster if you don’t concede that the Troubles were created by republican psychopaths who waded through gore for years, until eventually the gallant RUC, UDR and the British Army brought them to their knees.
I do have sympathy with you and your people…well, maybe not sympathy, but I can see how it might be tough for you to look the facts in the eye and accept that you and your people are in need of a change of heart, if you’re ever going to come to terms with the fact that you’ll be, at best, a junior partner in devolved government. Ian Paisley called for sackcloth and ashes; I’m less extreme. I’ll settle for a rejection of everything republicans did during the years of the Troubles, a commitment to dismantle all and any monuments to IRA killers, and a written commitment to appear with bowed heads at the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony.
I’m sure you’ll see by now that this letter to you has opened up new and better possibilities for our country in the future. The choice is yours. The sad truth, Blondie (just a joke, have you no sense of humour?), is that your party has got just a bit too big for its boots. It’s my mission to see you step into more suitably-sized footware and position yourself in a more appropriate political position. In short, I’m pointing the way to where you can know your place.
If by chance you feel hurt by anything I’ve said in this letter, I can only tell you that it hurts me more than it hurts you.
I must hurry off now, I’m afraid. My colleagues have organised a DUP party meeting, but Christopher Stalford tells me there’ll be no partying. Well, none that’ll appear in the papers.
Your kindly senior partner
Arlene
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