IN A normal society ex-submarine commander Steve Aiken would have torpedoed his chances of leading the Ulster Unionist Party after making such a hames of that pact business with the DUP.
But this is Northern Ireland and being UUP leader is only marginally a more attractive job than being Donald Trump’s hairdresser. It was always going to end in tears... Steve’s, not Nigel’s. And even without the UDA’s unique negotiating skills, the Ulster Unionists were always going to roll over.
Perhaps against expectation, the SDLP chose pragmatism over principle by not contesting north Belfast either in return for Sinn Fein pulling out of south. Green leader Clare Bailey, defending her party’s support for Claire Hanna said: "These are extraordinary times that demand an extraordinary response.” Indeed.
I’ve never really understood why politicians and others start clutching their
pearls when the P word comes up. I can’t be the only voter who rarely feels it’s a positive choice at the polling station. You simply turn up, apply peg to nose and put an X at the candidate with the best chance of beating the one you really don’t like.
:: Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has always seemed like the sort of class swot who would’ve suggested more homework over the school holidays. But I think she should get the chance to debate with Johnson and Corbyn on TV.
Politicians always look pretty silly donning hairnets or lab coats for those awful campaign photo ops. But I did enjoy the sight of Boris perched awkwardly on a kindergarten chair looking shiftily round the classroom looking like a man scared another of his offspring might pop up.
:: Last week I got to test demography and generosity when I collected for a local homeless charity. I was stationed outside M&S one rainy afternoon directly opposite my rival for public donations; a Roma violinist whose repertoire consisted of one tune.
Unless you possess a card reader most young people cannot help. They Do Not Carry Money.
Coins were something their granny used to have along with mint imperials and a bus pass. Only men, apparently, have brass in pocket but they never want badges in return. The most generous were older women who stopped to rummage for their handbags inside their shopping bags, then find their purse.
A special thanks to the young girl who donated the £10 note she found on the ground inside the store. If you dropped a tenner in the shop, I’m sorry. But it was in a good cause.
:: As a young reporter during the Troubles the words you most dreaded hearing from your news editor when you arrived in the morning were, “Don’t take your coat off". That invariably meant you were being sent to the house of the latest victim to try to get an interview with the bereaved family.
The advice was always to knock the door, ask respectfully and then leave immediately if they said No. It was sobering how often you would be brought in, given a cup of tea and told about the person who been killed overnight.
Those days came back forcefully when I went to see the film made about Lost Lives, that monumental work which catalogued the deaths of the conflict. I had put off going as I knew it would be a hard watch. But it should be seen by all those trying to return us to those terrible times or who won’t accept there are more than just innocent victims. They should watch those scenes of raw grief.
And they should hear the words at the end from former UVF man Billy Giles. He took his own life a year after being released from prison where he’d served 14 years for murdering a Catholic workmate, Michael Fay.
He later said, “When it happened, it felt to me that somebody had reached down inside me and ripped my insides out. That’s what it felt like. It felt as if somebody had just put their hand in through my head and just ripped the inside out of me. I felt empty. You hear the bang and it’s too late then. You’ve went somewhere you’ve never been before and it’s not a very nice place and you can’t stop it. It’s too late then.”
In his suicide note he said he was a victim too. “Please let our next generation live normal lives. Tell them our mistakes and admit to them our regrets.”
