THE shocking scenes in Ballymena, where police were attacked and migrant families burned and beaten out of their homes, have prompted a robust and proactive response from the PSNI.
They’ve increased the number of patrols around ATMs to prevent the placing of Gaza stickers and they’ve warned loyalists that UDA and UVF flags will no longer be permitted within 10 feet of any police station entrance. Anyone breaching the new restriction will receive a very stern telling-off.
We’ve been speaking to the chairman of the hardline unionist party the UVP, who’s been telling us how he and his party have been working to “cool tensions in the area and get the darkies out”.
Disturbing scenes in Ballymena last night, with homes destroyed and police coming under petrol bomb attack. What’s your message to the rioters?
I want to tell them very clearly that while there can be no place for violence, it’s absolutely no suprise to me that there has been violence. Not that I condone the violence, rather I think the violence was inevitable. The violence was wrong, but in many ways it was right. No-one wants to see violence, but we saw violence. And that violence was appalling, but certain people in this town had it coming.
Will you be leading the mob through the town tonight again carrying a racist flag?
I’m glad you asked me about that, because there’s been some very mischievous comment about my role in all this. I had a flag with the words ‘Get Them Out!’ on it because I was going to a Katie Price concert in Ballymena Town Hall later that night.
You said yesterday in the Stormont chamber: “The situation in Ballymena is very tense and very delicate. It requires cool heads and commons sense and I’m appealing to anyone thinking of resorting to violence again tonight: Make sure you get the right houses.” Mightn’t that be seen as giving a green light to the mob?
Not at all, quite the contrary, in fact. If the wrong house gets burned or the wrong people get killed, the good people of Ballymena are going to have to come back the next night and get it right. So in fact I’m appealing to the people on the streets to be extra careful. These people look alike and they’ve all got funny names and mistakes are easily made. Especially when most of the locals coming out aren’t very good at English, never mind Bongo-Bongo.
Northern Ireland is the most dangerous place in Europe to be a woman and women and girls are beaten, raped and killed with depressing regularity. What do you think it is about this current case that finally persuaded Ballymena people to do something?
Hard to say, really. What I will say is that while nobody is condoning violence against women, most people who do it at least share our British values. What we have is people coming in here who don’t know a boney from a flute. They don’t put flags up outside their houses and they absolutely hate Our Troops. I think of them as Catholics with a tanning mitt.
Ballymena is a medium-size town of 30,000 people, but its heroin problem is huge. How come we don’t get crowds outside the drug dealers’ doors?
That’s an interesting question that requires a complex answer, so bear with me. There is a myriad of social and economic factors that have led to Ballymena having a drug problem the size of New York. Generational unemployment, educational underachievement and the resultant low self-esteem have created a hothouse of drug dependency where criminal gangs thrive. The districts involved are societally estranged and hard to reach and so that makes the problem very difficult to address in a meaningful way. That and the fact that if you try to address it the UDA will shoot you in the head.
Israel is an authority on selfies
ISRAEL described the Madleen – a yacht they hijacked while on its way to Gaza with supplies – as a “selfie yacht”.
It was another glaring example of Israel’s PR incompetence. It’s the most hated country in the world first of all because it’s killing innocent people hand over fist in Gaza; but it’s also despised because it is so incredibly rubbish at propaganda. The reason? Well, Squinter’s theory is that the country is so protected and coddled by the world’s biggest powers that it has never had to develop an effective PR strategy. And now that it desperately needs one, it’s finding that it’s not an easy task.
The IDF has developed an appalling reputation for callousness and viciousness, overwhelmingly because of its total disregard for human life, of course, but also because of their love of taking selfies in the homes of dead and displaced Gazans; selfies in which they display a creepy penchant for women’s underwear.
So better all round for Israel if it hadn’t mentioned the word selfie, but since they have, below is a few selfies from the IDF – and the crew of the Madleen.
