Gavin Robinson Cartoon, Brian John Spencert was like watching a vet tending to a snarling snapping turtle; the BBC’s Mark Carruthers cross-examining the leader of the DUP.
Peter Robinson was asked about the probity of Gregory Campbell and his laboured curry-yoghurt routine and attack on the Irish Language Act, which rightly aggrieved many.
Kyle Paisley had the day before sent the tweet of the conference weekend: “Politicians in England would lose their place for this kind of vulgarity, or at least suffer a severe reprimand.”
The re-run of Currygate required an answer; but Robinson squashed the matter with a snarl. He produced a contrived, watery response and talked about respecting unionist culture. The discrepancy was blazing – respect our culture, we disrespect yours.
Probed further and he flashed the whites of his beak, caustic and angry. Creating the very real sense that there was something very not right about being subjected to serious scrutiny.
This isn’t right of course. Those who assume public power assume responsibility and meeting the press is elementary to this. The press ask questions and politicians answer those questions – honestly, evasively or otherwise – in a decent and cordial manner.
Robinson is notoriously ill-tempered and unavoidably so. Time after time routine questioning is met with the sulky barks and cantankerous ripostes of a hormonal teenager.
This is the leader of Northern Ireland. What sort of person can pass as a leader with this kind of behaviour? It’s unacceptable. His equivalents are Nicola Sturgeon, Carwyn Jones and Natalie Bennett – they could never pull off a Peter and last the day. His vein of acid-tongue contempt for the media and the public it serves would never run in Great Britain or Ireland.
Like his bullet-proof adversary Gerry Adams, Teflon Pete seems immune from the normal forces of accountability. Yet we are part of the British parliamentary culture and should aspire to those standards and not let such pathetic posturing be part of our political culture.
Perhaps worse than the acid answers was the way Peter Robinson was so perplexingly able to contort and flip every question against the interviewer. It put me in the mind of George Bernard Shaw, except I shall put it like this: never wrestle with a snapping turtle, you get dirty, and besides, the snapping turtle likes it that way.
By Brian John Spencer.
1 Comment
Northern Ireland and its politics are a place apart from Britain and Ireland. Unfortunately for the many decent people in the province, it’s a bit of a zoo where folks with mindsets from another century thrive.