THREE WEEKS after he stood down as First Minister because of a sexual and financial scandal involving his wife, Peter Robinson has announced that he is returning to Northern Ireland’s First Minister’s job.
The Democratic Unionist leader, who was fighting to save his career and also his party’s position, said he had been cleared of breaching his code of office, an accusation which had been made by the BBC in its Spotlight documentary.
Spotlight said that Robinson should have reported to the authorities when he discovered that his wife had “borrowed” £50,000 from two property developers so that she could set up her teenage boyfriend in a café business. However, Robinson said that a legal review had ruled he had not breached his ministerial code.
Meanwhile the BBC said it stood by the Spotlight allegations.
With, I admit, absolutely no inside knowledge of the goings on in Belfast, but based on the evidence turned up by Spotlight (a Northern Ireland version of Panorama, which did air the programme on the mainland), I find it strange that the First Minister has been found not to have breached the Ministerial Code.
After she had allegedly tried and allegedly failed to commit suicide, his 60 year old wife allegedly told him all about the 19 year old kid she was having an affair with, and the deals that she set him up with to fulfil his dream of having a café. As he tried to put his
personal life together again (no one would deny the man must have been having a hard time knowing what his wife had been up to, not only with the teenager, but allegedly with his father too), he must also have been aware that this was political dynamite.
His party is strongly Fundamentalist Christian, as is his church, both founded by the Rev Dr Paisley*. They take the Bible and its teachings very seriously. He must have known that having an affair with a father and son would blow his wife’s career out of the water. (She was a councillor, MLA and MP and that’s a lot of salary and expenses). He must have known too, it would affect her standing in their party/church, which are the same thing. Added to that, the attempted suicide would not have done them any good, with it being a sin, according to the teachings of the Bible. Unfortunately Mrs Robinson hadn’t just been a quiet advocate of morality. She bawled from the roof tops about filth and depravity. She was nauseated by it all (well obviously except when she was doing it). So she was finished, politically and religiously.
In these circumstances I am not really surprised that he would have allegedly wanted to withhold information from the authorities regarding her money borrowing activities, enough being as good as a feast. (Or there’s only so much depravity that a fundamentalist party or church can take.)
I am, however, delighted that the QC that HE appointed to look into HIS involvement has found HIM to be completely in the clear. Isn’t it nice how you can trust the British legal system? Makes you feel all warm inside. So, that will be that.
Unless, of course, Sinn Féin don't believe a Queen's Cousellor......
***********************************************************
*Ian Paisley helped to establish the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in the early 1950s. He also set up the DUP and led it until recently. His title 'Doctor' was obtained from an outlawed seminary in Illinois, and was therefore bogus. He was, however, later awarded an honourary doctorate by a his close friend Bob Jones, founder of the Bob Jones Fundamentalist College in South Carolina.
Signed Dr Tris Price-Williams (my friend conferrred it on me, honest).
.
