There’s been a lot of naming and nominating in recent days.
From sunny California comes the enormously important news that Prince Harry’s wife Meghan has given birth to a girl who will be called Lilibet Diana. The Diana bit you get immediately – it’s in honour of Harry’s dead mother. She was either accidentally killed or deliberately murdered in an underground pass when the car she was travelling in crashed. This event nearly broke the heart of the British people. It also nearly broke the monarchy, who weren’t able to produce the required amount of tears to match the national mood. Incidentally, did you know that if Diana had not died back then, she’d be 60 this year? A sobering thought.
The ‘Lilibet’, as we devoted royal watchers know, is a lisping child’s version of ‘Elizabeth’, the current English monarch having originally used that name about herself when she was a toddler. It was so endearing to one and all, it is still used by members of the Firm – even the late Prince Philip is said to have referred to his wife as Lilibet. However, Harry and Meghan will call their daughter ‘Lili’, which is an open invitation for US citizens to become even worse spellers than they are.
God, what would we do without the royals and their wains? We’d be driven to talking about which of our horses are suffering from strangles (characterised by thick yellow discharge from the nostrils), glanders (which of course produces unattractive ulcers in your horse’s nose) and tetanus ( which will give your horse lockjaw and a stiff neck). So hooray for the royals, I say.
The other source of naming came from Edwin Poots, who of course suffers from none of the above ailments, being a human. He has named his Executive team.
Top name is Paul ‘Smiler’ Givan, who gets the job of First Minister, closely followed by Michelle MaciIlveen and Paul Frew, who get to look after schools and the economy respectively. Wishing them all the best in their nomination were Diane Dodds and Peter Weir, who were shown the door from Economy and Education, having displayed suspiciously Jeffreyian characteristics. Diane Dodds chose not to go quietly into that good night, tweeting “It is regrettable that the new team announced today does not match the rhetoric about bringing the party together”. Peter Weir’s thumbs were equally active, tweeting “There are some great appointments but disappointed to leave Education, and in the balance of appointments it is sad there is little sign of healing or reaching out”.
Meanwhile South Down DUP constituency chairman Glynn Hanna has resigned from the party, as has his daughter Diane Forsythe, as well as Richard McKee and Kathryn Owen from the Strangford association.
Edwin is in charge but the blood keeps leaking from under the door. As a stable-hand remarked to me the other day “Thon DUP is one Damn Unhappy Party!”.
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