I HAVE some shocking news so I hope you're sitting down. Bumbling, blond Prime Minister Boris Johnson has finally been exposed as a liar.
I know, you could have knocked me over with a wet shammy. But worse, he's only gone and got his collar felt by the 'Old Bill', the first sitting PM in history to suffer such ignominy.
As we say in these parts, the dogs in the street knew 'oul Boris was a bad 'un, as even in mendacious Westminster, his lying was over the top. He lied to his editor at The Times about making up a quote, he lied to ex-wives about soon-to-be future wives.
He lied to the electorate about Brexit and to the DUP about the Protocol, and now it's revealed he lied to the House of Commons about a litany of parties held in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown he had imposed.
With a brass neck of prodigious proportions, Boris will no doubt shamelessly stumble on, oblivious to how the world now views him. His disregard for societal norms no doubt originates from a privileged upbringing, where private schools and Oxford instilled his predestination to make rules for the little people, rules which he could disregard.
Timing is everything in politics, and if ex-Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick had promptly investigated the breaches in Covid rules by Number 10, Boris and his Chancellor would be history. Why she initially refused to investigate is itself worthy of investigation, not that that's likely to happen.
The pain felt by those denied the opportunity to comfort dying family members due to Covid restrictions may yet remove both Johnson and Sunak; seemingly, there are more fines coming.
If not, then a Rubicon has been crossed, in so far as the supposed age-old traditions of decency, honesty and honour in Westminster have been trashed by a bunch of posh, privileged public schoolboys.
I've no doubt the Kremlin are rubbing their hands at these self-inflicted wounds on the self-proclaimed mother of Parliaments.
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IT IS silly season here yet again - we've so many, it's almost impossible to identify a sensible season.
I speak, of course, of our upcoming Assembly election and its harbinger, the littering of our lampposts with election posters.
Here's a question: do we really need candidate's faces on the posters? Surely we've suffered enough? Wouldn't just their names and party suffice?
I know this suggestion will come as a blow for many candidates, looking forward to the ego boost of their face emblazoned along every main road. I'd suggest it's better to leave a bit of mystery when courting, be it a lover or the electorate.
If truth be told, you could count on two hands the number of Assembly candidates important enough to attract votes. Due to our tribal split, most votes cast here will be based not on the individual standing but the party they're standing for.
It's no exaggeration to say you could put a goat's head on many posters with the party name underneath and they would attract the same vote.
When you then consider the aggravation election posters cause, their efficacy is questionable. At a Protocol rally last week, an election poster of UUP leader Doug Beattie was positioned just behind the speakers' stand with a rope around his neck.
Jim Allister and Jeffrey Donaldson were photographed attempting to turn the poster around when they should have taken it down and denounced whoever had put it up.
Attacks on election posters have occurred across the political spectrum with the UUP, DUP, Sinn Féin, Alliance and TUV all reporting incidents. By the start of the week, 41 cases of posters being damaged, removed or destroyed had been reported to the police. I'd argue the PSNI may have more pressing issues to address than such idiocy.
Things became much more serious on Monday past when South Belfast SDLP candidate Elsie Trainor was attacked when she challenged two young men removing her posters.
While I applaud the courage of Ms Trainor in challenging the men, I'd suggest no poster is worth a physical assault.
The saga of election posters ended with a laugh when Doug Beattie tweeted a photo of one of his posters lying on the ground with the message, "I know a lot of election candidates are complaining about posters being stolen off lampposts, here in Upper Bann they take the lamppost and leave the poster." The PSNI will no doubt be hot on the trail of the lamppost thief.
