| If
You Ask Me
by Alex
Kane
Robert
Louis Stevenson defined politics as "the only profession for which
no preparation is thought necessary." MLAs have embraced this definition
with glee and if you combined the absurdities of The Eurovision Song Contest
with the Da Vinci Code, you would still be hard pressed to compete with
the farce produced by the three-ring-circus squatting at Stormont.
Our version of the
Da Vinci Code is the d'Hondt Code - the long sought solution for unlocking
the 300 year old mystery of why Planters and Gaels can't share Ulster.
The UUP had another go at cracking it last week, when they invited David
Ervine into the fold.
The problem with Ervine
is that his metaphors and similes are mixed with such reckless abandon
that it requires an entirely separate code to decipher the true meaning;
although it often turns out that there is no meaning behind it at all.
Last Thursday he justified
his leap from PUP to UUP by saying he hoped to encourage former comrades
to follow him to Valhalla; not the most helpful image to conjure up when
you know that Valhalla is the hall where the souls of heroes slain in
battle spend eternity in pleasure and feasting. If he regards the pimps
and drug pushers of the UVF as heroes, then it makes Reg Empey's task
of selling the pact much more difficult than it already is.
And the pact has caused
major problems in terms of perception. Terrorists in government is one
thing: front men for terrorists in the party is quite another. The claim
that it was about reaching out to loyalists, in the same way it had reached
out to the IRA, was undermined by the news that the party had reached
out to a number of others before Ervine. And, when all is said and done,
it is a huge risk to take for the sake of a seat in what remains a hypothetical
Executive.
The UUP grassroots
can only hope that the UVF keep their cocaine-stained noses clean for
the next few months and that the IMC is able to report positive progress
in terms of decommissioning and moving away from criminality.
Put bluntly, this
Jekyll and Hyde partnership depends entirely on the decent Jekyll keeping
the monstrous Hyde under control. If
he doesn't, then it seems likely that the Ulster Unionists will disappear
into an electoral black hole.
The line between inspired
leadership and divine madness is a fine one and only time will tell if
Sir Reg can walk that line with most of his party in tow. The fact that
he hasn't been deafened by public support from his MLAs, nor bowled over
in an avalanche of media approval, would suggest that he has his work
cut out for him.
Meanwhile, Dr Paisley,
inspired by Lordi, front man for the outrageous Finnish winner of Eurovision,
had a vintage, mock-Wagnerian huff in Stormont on Monday. Yet,
in terms of the big scoreboard, if the politicians don't take the Bucks
Fizz option and start "making their minds up," there is likely
to be a resounding nul point from an increasingly switched off public.
If
You Ask Me Archive
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