If You Ask Me
with David Vance

It has been said that "if thought can corrupt language, then language can also corrupt thought" and ever since devolution day, when the abominable no men in the DUP melted overnight into the rollover kittens of unionism, the corruption of political word and thought here has accelerated apace. Consider the spectacle this week when a minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly in the shape of IRA/Sinn Fein member Conor Murphy sought to deny the very existence of Northern Ireland in his ministerial pronouncements!

Mr Murphy now claims that this mean-spirited delusionalism is restricted to statements issued in his name but I am sure all career-minded civil servants in his department got the message loud and clear. And after the hallelujah chorus that accompanied Mr Murphy's party allegedly signing up to law and order, we've heard newly appointed Policing Board luminary Alex Maskey first attack the police service for having the temerity to arrest a prominent republican suspected of serious crime in Mid Ulster.

And then condemn the German Government for having the nerve to seek the extradition of Roisin McAliskey for her alleged role in the bombing of a British Army base in Germany. It's republicanism uber alles these days and we all know who we can thank for that, don't we?

Step forward, Dr Paisley and his DUP colleagues, the people with a flexible bottom line. Whilst IRA/Sinn Fein twist words out of all shape Dr Paisley has become adept at eating his own words. In fact, he has been having quite a feast over recent weeks.

He's swallowed the DUP assertion that republicans would not be fit for government for at least a generation. He's devoured his promise that the IRA would have to return the £26m it stole from the Northern Bank. And most recently he's redefined his form of unionism by expressing admiration for the Scottish Nationalist Party which seeks to leave the UK; small-minded nest feathering Ulster nationalism is the ultimate corruption of unionism.

Meanwhile, in another perfect example of a corrupted society, the Police Service of Northern Ireland confirms it has rejected hundreds of suitably qualified candidates because they were of the wrong religion. Only in pc Northern Ireland does such revolting discrimination win the praise of the liberal establishment, as merit is thrown out the window and all that matters is which church you claim to go to.

The inconvenient truth is that whilst the restored assembly is being presented as a triumph for moderation and compromise, it is in fact a grotesque monument to the worst form of extremism. A righteous peace can't be bought through shameless appeasement and doing wrong does not become right just because the Free Presbyterian Moderator says so.

We have an assembly of fools mired in political greed and moral hypocrisy and words have lost all meaning as the corruption of political thought nears completion.

If You Ask Me Archive