SQUINTER: Unionist fury explained (again)

UNIONIST fury. It’s real. Again. But what is it that has brought such huge numbers of loyalists out on the streets in recent nights? (23 people blocked the road in Carrick on Sunday.) We’ve been speaking to a DUP spokesman in an attempt to take the temperature of loyal Ulster. - Why are loyalists out on the street rioting?- It’s a complex mixture of grievances.- Well, give me the main one.- I’m thinking… so many to choose from. Hmmm.- Just one.- Right, right.- Let me make it easier for you. Is it more about the Irish Sea border or the Bobby Storey funeral?- I’d say the Bobby Storey funeral.- Tell me more.- The police colluded with Sinn Féin/IRA to allow a breach of the Covid rules they drew up.- And you’re upset about that because…?- Because the DUP has always taken its pandemic responsibilities very seriously and it’s infuriating when others don’t.- Can I give you two words?- Go on.- Sammy Wilson.- Cheap shot.- Sorry. The 13-year-old who was scooped in Sandy Row – do you think he was upset about the PSNI Gold Commander liaising with senior republicans?- I’ve been speaking to his mother and I can tell you that yes, he was incredibly upset at the direction of the criminal justice system in the Province. I haven’t seen him that annoyed since he got a feg burn in his North Face jacket.- Tell me about two-tier policing.- Two what policing?- Tier.- Oh, yes. We believe the police have been giving preferential treatment to republicans and the Storey funeral was a glaring example of that.- The police haven’t intervened in any funerals – loyal orders or loyalist paramilitaries.- And your point is?- They’ve treated all funerals the same.- Here we go – two-tier broadcasting as well now. They went to the doors of George from the Shankill and Big Jim Wilson the night after they were out on the middle of the road innocently hugging each other in a responsible socially-distanced way celebrating the Rangers title win.- But there was a large police investigation into the Bobby Storey funeral.- Yeah, and nobody was interviewed for months.- So you’re angry because it took the police longer to investigate 24 people than it did for them to rap on two doors?- Kind of.- Do you think the Sandy Row UDA under-15s were also rioting about the Irish Sea border?- They most certainly were.- What don’t they like about it?- They believe, as do we, that it cuts us off from the rest of the UK and leaves us a satellite state of the EU.- So they were burning wheelie bins outside Lavery’s to send a message to whom?- To Leo Martin and Micheál Varadkar and that Brussels bloke with the grey hair my granny fancies.- Not to Boris Johnson?- What’s it got to do with him?- He told you it wasn’t going to happen and then he made it happen.- It was the threats of violence over a land border from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party that forced his hand.- Threats of violence?- Oh, yes.- Let’s talk about threats of violence.- Where are you going with this?- Why did you meet the UVF and the UDA to talk about the Irish Sea border?- We were simply engaging with community stakeholders via the Loyalist Community Council.- Community stakeholders who are up to their necks in drug-dealing and murder.- The LCC is not just the UDA and the UVF, you know.- It’s not?- No, Red Hand Commando are in there too.- Wasn’t meeting those guys simply a veiled threat of what might happen if the Irish Sea border stays?- Look, we made it very clear to the loyalist commanders that violence can never be the way forward.- And what did they say?- It was pretty hard to tell, actually. I think they were all still off their faces.- Why’s that?- They were at a big funeral the day before.

SQUINTER: Last orders in the Benidorm Rose and Crown

A LOT of hilarity in the past few days about the Costa del Sol Brits who are having to pack up and return to Brexit Britain thanks to new post-Brexit regulations. It’s hard not to find Brits in Spain funny – or perhaps proposterous might be the word. Anyone who has ever been to a resort where Brits – or perhaps more accurately the English – have a substantial presence will recognise the places where they congregate. Watney’s Red Barrel on draught. All-day breakfasts. Yesterday’s Sun and Daily Mail. Union jacks around the pool table. Portrait of the queen behind the bar. And yet Squinter can’t help but feel a little sorry for them as they gather their kiss-me-quick union jack cowboy hats and their Spitfire beach towels and fly back to their rainy regional airports. Because the truth is that Brexit was not their fault. Fair enough, you can argue that they failed to exercise due diligence. But when your main interest in life is karaoke at the Benidorm Rose & Crown, the fine detail of international politics and trade is most likely not something you take an active interest in.

SQUINTER: DUP straight-talking may be starting to bend just a wee bit

MUCH confusion this week after a DUP ‘source’ told Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan that they would oppose an Irish Language Act as long as the Irish Sea border remains in place. It’s not entirely clear how a five-year-old in the bunscoil sandpit singing ‘Is mise tiománaí traenach toot, toot, toot’ was responsible for the technicalities of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, but perhaps that will become more evident over time.

SQUINTER: After Shankill PUL party, collarettes are felt

AFTER Squinter’s revealing interview last week with George from the Shankill, Constable Trevor sprang into action, interviewing both him and Jim ‘Don’t Make Me Angry’ Wilson at their homes about last week’s pandemic celebration on the Shankill of Rangers’ first title success. To add insult to injury, George (to repeat, not one of his real names) is also being investigated by his employer. When George admitted in his tell-all interview last week that he worked in a people-facing role, Squinter had no idea that it would turn out that he actually works in a sick and vulnerable people-facing role. It seems George delivers prescriptions for a Belfast chemist. And his employes were so unimpressed by George’s Covid party hugathon that they have launched an investigation too. So that’s the peelers and his bosses who are on the case of the the 60-year-old Shankill shorts and flip-flops model. Not a great week for George, all things considered. But, nil desperandum, there’s always this weekend’s Glasgow derby to look forward to when Rangers are warm favourites to make it three wins out of three against Celtic at Parkhead. Squinter called George to see what he’s planning for Sunday evening should the Teddy Bears manage to further humiliate the team who have been their bitter rivals for almost 10 years. Not surprisingly, George was reluctant to say too much. Indeed, his normally voluble Twitter account has been uncharacteristically serene in the past few days, so it may be that getting his bus pass has increased his propensity for critical reflection. “We’ll win on Sunday,” he told Squinter, “no doubt about. And if we do I’m going to have a quiet celebration at home. Just me and the neighbours in the front room and maybe a few of the guys from the supporters’ club.” 

SQUINTER: George from the Shankill telling it straight

NOLAN co-presenter George from the Shankill was one of those who took part in the Monday night Rangers celebration on the Shankill. Squinter sat down with George (not one of his real names) to discuss the Covid regulations-busting party that the PSNI missed.– You told Nolan that the party was spontaneous, is that right?– Correctomundo.– So how come you were advertising a ‘Celebrate the 55 at 5.55 party a month ago?– I was?– You’re that George from the Shankill guy on the wireless, aren’t you?– Sometimes.– Well there’s your call on Facebook for people to hit the streets and party like it’s Covid-1999.– Oh.– Let’s move on. Are you in Jim Wilson’s bubble?– How dare you. We’re only friends.– No, I mean are you in his Covid bubble?– Not that I know of.– So how come you’ve been filmed hugging him?– That was a socially-distanced hug.– What’s a socially-distanced hug?– We weren’t lying down.– Fair enough. Did you agree with Jim when he told Nolan that if young Protestants hadn’t been out spreading Covid they’d have celebrated by fighting Catholics at the peaceline?– Of course. That’s just common sense.– Right. All those times you praised the health service and urged people to stay safe,  you were completely serious, right?– Totally. Our nurses and doctors are heroes, every one of them.– So why didn’t you stay in the house?– I was overcome by sheer emotion.– You’re heading towards 60, George, aren’t you?– No comment.– And you’re out letting off party bangers in the middle of a pandemic.– You could say that.– Wearing shorts.– What can I say? I’m a warm-blooded kind of guy.– How many league titles is that?– The big 55.– But wasn’t the club liquidated in 2012?– Yes, but it’s since been unliquidated.– When did that happen?– It was in the Daily Record.– The same paper that had the headline ‘RIP Rangers’ over a picture of a coffin on the front page.– Bit of banter.– And all the debts are paid?– Most of them.– Which ones?– I think we’ve paid the face-painter and the milkman.

SQUINTER: Troubles drama Bloodlands mines a riche seam of cliché

LAST time Squinter watched something through his fingers was Ian Óg Paisley doing his ‘What did we ever do to you?’ Brexit betrayal speech to the Tories in the House of Commons. The past two Sunday nights he’s been watching through the finger-fence again as the BBC drama Bloodlands unfolded on our screens. Squinter should point out first of all that a lot of what’s risible to him about the series will go over the heads of a British audience – the weird location switches, the accents, the cloth-ear for local patois, Hugo Duncan on the car radio at nighttime. And, of course, it’s the massive audience in Britain that this travelogue-thriller is aimed at and as far as they’re concerned, this could just as well be set in the Faroe Islands. But Squinter can’t bear to watch it. In fact, he can’t bear to watch it to the extent that he watched the second episode just to confirm that he can’t bear to watch it. He particularly liked the first big action scene. Two IRA men launch a warning raid on the PSNI outside a Belfast police station (whose security gates, opened manually by two uniformed officers, are the same as the gates at the bottom of Squinter’s drive). And the operation? Two men, one of them unmasked, throw petrol bombs at a marked police car, which immediately catches fire. The petrol bombers then flee on foot pursued by police officers. Cue mental Benny Hill music. Marvellous. 

SQUINTER: When Mervyn met Maros

SQUINTER: BBC bosses decide Nolan can dish it out but they can't take it

AN online petition calling for the cancellation of BBC Radio NI’s Stephen Nolan show has prompted the intervention of the big guy’s Ormeau Avenue bosses after it passed its 10,000-signature target at the weekend. The petition urges people to sign up because the show “seeks to stir sectarian tensions for ratings”. It adds that the morning phone-in “regularly platforms unelected representatives and apologists for paramilitary organisations.” It seems the final straw for the people drawing up the petition was the recent comment on the show by Loyalist Communities Council Chair David Campbell that it may be necessary to “fight physically to maintain our freedoms within the UK”.

SQUINTER: Gregory's greatest hits & Simple Simon

GREGORY Campbell has refused to apologise for his Songs of Praise outburst on Facebook. The DUP man complained that there were too many black people in a gospel music competition. His response to the criticism, when it came, was almost as, ah, interesting as his original post. He told Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra that he couldn’t be a racist because he once liked an anti-Black Lives Matter tweet by a black English football player. And he added that nobody had complained about his Facebook post for days after it went up. Convincing it wasn’t, but Gregory’s no stranger to  confused and confusing imbroglios, as Squinter has found out down through the years... 

SQUINTER: Our Article 16’s a bit different from your one

IN Squinter’s continuing series of articles attempting to make sense of our current travails, he’s been talking to a senior DUP figure over the weekend controversy that brought the twin crises of Covid and Brexit together with a bang.

SQUINTER: Uncle Andy’s thoughts on Checkpoint Charlie

THE NIO has met the UDA, the UVF and the Red Hand Commando for discussions about the NI Protocol. Yes, you read that right, the British government has met illegal loyalist paramilitaries still engaged in murder, extortion and drug-dealing to discuss the finer points of international trade.

SQUINTER: Leaking Leo and Tintin Stalford pontificate on pandemic

THIS week the Republic of Ireland became one of the places on the planet worst hit by Covid. On Monday there had been more cases there in the previous fortnight than there had been in the first eight months of the pandemic. Which is rather embarrassing for the coalition government of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens, given that it’s not that long ago since the Republic was being held up as an exemplar of Covid best practice, and indeed it was only last month that it seemed as though the north of Ireland was set to top the Covid charts (in fact the figures here have seen a significant fall).

SQUINTER: A DUP poetry lesson & Christmas songs selection

THE Northern Ireland Office has decided that the late poet Seamus Heaney is to be the face of its programme of events to mark the 100th anniversary of partition. Him and Mary Peters (the Golden Girl of Are Wee Country who’s actually a Scouser). The use of Heaney’s portrait in the literature released at the launch of the programme (right) caused a stir, not least because the poet was not a man in whom unionists seemed terribly interested while he was alive. Indeed, when he died in 2013 not a single unionist politician attended the funeral of the Nobel Prize winner, which at the time was widely viewed not merely as a lack of interest, but as a decided snub. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood signalled his displeasure by tweeting a pithy response in the forme of a couple of famous Heaney lines: “Be advised, my passport’s green/No glass of ours was ever raised to toast the queen.” For the sake of full disclosure, Colum might have added in brackets that he himself swore an oath to the queen when he entered the House of Commons, but anyway... Loyal Ulster was mightily displeased by Colum’s intervention. UUP leader Steve Aiken tweeted a picture of Heaney shaking hands with the queen in 2011and added: “Despite colour of passport I do think Seamus did raise a glass to the queen... far better days in Irish/UK relations. Let’s get back to them.” Unfortunately, while Heaney meeting the queen and shaking her hand obviously impressed Steve and the party at the time, it didn’t impress them enough to pay their respects two years later. DUP leader Arlene Foster, meanwhile, tweeted: “Colum should reflect on what the late Seamus Mallon said. ‘We have two stark and clear choices. We can live together in generosity and compassion or we can continue to die in bitter disharmony.’ Let’s choose generosity.” Yes, you read that right. The leader of the DUP is now lecturing the leader of the SDLP on generosity and compassion. Squinter asked: “Alexa, point me in the direction of someone displaying a complete lack of self-awareness” and Arlene’s tweet came up. The First Minister’s generosity and compassion were famously on show when she said in 2017 of the push for an Irish Language Act: “If you keep feeding a crocodile it will come back for more.” The resulting furore energised republican and nationalists voters to such an extent that in the next election unionists lost their majority for the first time. Gregory Campbell remains gloriously undisciplined for his generous and compassionate “curry my yoghurt” remarks on the Irish language in 2014 and, indeed, was so empowered by the party’s indifference to his now notorious outburst, he followed it up with a promise that he would treat a Sinn Féin position paper during talks as “toilet paper”. At the weekend, Arlene’s colleague on Newry, Mourne and Down Council, Glynn Hanna, extended generosity and compassion to the US President-Elect when he said he would oppose a plan by Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance to invite Joe Biden to the borough to celebrate his family links with County Down.

SQUINTER: Centenary celebration moolah up for grabs

SECRETARY of State Brandon Lewis has announced that his government is to allocate three million quid to the marking of next year’s centenary of This Here Pravince. The celebrations – or whatever title the events fall under – will all fall under the branding of ‘Our Story in the Making: NI Beyond 100’. It will be interesting to see quite what ‘our’ story is and who ‘we’ are. 

SQUINTER: Flying your Christmas colours isn’t easy

REGULAR readers of this column will know that Squinter’s memories not great. It’s not a new thing – he’s the only person in his family that his mother didn’t trust sending to the shop. Send Squinter for three things, he’d come back with two; send him for four and he’d come back with three (if his ma was lucky); write him a note and he’d leave it behind. The memory of the day that Squinter told three American visitors to the office to cancel their taxi and he’d run them to the Europa still produces a wince. Out Squinter walked into the car park, the Yanks following like ducklings. Squinter’s car wasn’t in the usual spot so he walked about a bit, the visitors following obediently and silently. Around the building he went to the front car park and scanned the vehicles and spaces there with no joy. After two or three minute it suddenly came to him that he’d given his missus the car at lunchtime. Instead of explaining this off with a laugh and offering to call another taxi, Squinter’s embarrassment addled his thought processes to the extent that he simply told them that he didn’t have a car. That was about a month after Squinter got out of the car in the morning with some papers and a laptop and forgot to take the keys out of the ignition. It was 5.15pm when he noticed exhaust fumes as he approached the vehicle. He’d left it running for just the eight hours. Dunelm Mill on Boucher Road and Squinter’s a man on a Saturday afternoon mission. He’d bought a nice wreath for the front door the previous day, but when he got it home he realised he hadn’t given any thought to how it was to be hanged. The front door is one of the modern composite jobs that you’re not allowed to drill hooks into, but nil desperandum, a quick chat with Professor Google saved the day. What you do is you buy a nice bright, festive ribbon: red or green’s the most popular, but you can also go mad and opt for silver or gold. What you do then is you loop the ribbon through the wreath, draw the two ends over the top of the door and tie them to an adhesive hook you placed upside-down on the back of the door; conceal the hook by tying the ends of the ribbon in a nice big bow and – hey, presto! – you’re good to go for Christmas. Inside the shop, Squinter did what he always does: wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes and then went in search of an assistant. Very nice young woman she was, too. Off she set at a brisk pace towards the back of the store and in  seconds there the two of us stood under the Haberdashery sign. “What colour would you like,” she asked, and Squinter was forced to admit he wasn’t sure and so he told her what it was for. Then she asked what colour the wreath was, to which Squinter confidently answered “Green with red berries and a red bow.” She confirmed Prof Google’s analysis that green and red were the most popular colours and then she asked another perfectly logical question in relation to colour schemes: “What colour is your door?” Squinter opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. Still relatively undaunted, he tried mentally walking up to his front door, negotiating the gate and the path, the steps and then… blank. He could see a door in his mind with a square window and two side panels, but for some reason the door kept changing colour: white, brown, black, green, blue… So Squinter muttered an apology and rang home. He tried to mumble the question, but she heard it and when Squinter hung up and told her the door was black, she merely smiled and said that a nice Christmassy red would stand out well against a dark background. And that was that. Squinter thanked her profusely and off she went, still smiling. Squinter wandered off in search of the tills, asking himself whether it is in any way normal for a person not to know what colour their front door is and he felt himself reluctantly drawn to the conclusion that, no, it probably isn’t. But when he remembered that he’s been forgetting things for as long as he’s been old enough to remember things, he cheered up a little. Around the corner he continued, finding himself in the soft furnishings section and there was the very helpful young woman who’d helped him with the ribbon. She smiled and Squinter smiled too, and then he said the only thing that seemed fitting and apt in the circumstances: “Excuse me, you couldn’t tell iz where the check-out is?”