peter robinson

My life in a Banana Republic: January

 

Jambo Jambo!

I have returned from visiting my family in Africa.

Shortages, queues, poor hospitals, corruption, political instability.

But I think I can cope till my next trip away.

I have been looking for your “Fresh Start”.

Was it when everybody changed their minds and said that Peter was a splendid chap after all?

In Africa, such people retire to a large walled estate with many servants and live off the money they stole from the people. I wonder what Peter will do?

Perhaps the Fresh Start was when everybody said nice things about the Great She Elephant.

Or when men asked her how she would cope with the laundry and cooking and she did not slap them.

Dingle tells me that lawyers are still on strike. I saw one on the television. He mumbled and was sweating. If such a person represented me I would be cross. Perhaps his heart is not in it.

Dingle, who keeps his finger on the pulsing, says that they have been on strike since last May and that Minister Ford, who is by far the most righteous minister in all Ireland, has saved millions of pounds which he will spend on costly legal actions about aborting and same sex marriage.

A Great Justice called Horner has told the politicians that they live in a bygone age and must change the rules on abortion, if they want to live in Europe. In Africa he would be arrested for such interference with the goings on on the Great House on the Hill. Or large tanks would be sent to Chichester Street. Perhaps the Fresh Start has prevented this.

I rejoice that the Pastor had escaped the claws of the state, even though the Judge said that he was offensive and had lost the run of himself. This puzzled me since the Pastor is 78 and does not look like a man who could run. Dingle explained that it meant that he had lost self control when speaking , like when Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, Bobby Storey and such like say things. Even when Peter said that he would only trust a Muslim to run an errand for him to the local Quikkimart.

“But none of them was prosecuted”, I say. Dingle smiled. I suspect the Small Prosecutor, who is now putting on trial a lady who had medicine for abortion, which I now understand is the Most Heinous of Crimes here in the Northern Part of Ireland.

My puzzlement know no bounds. It could lead to me losing my running.

Huge constitutional crisis

Northern Ireland was plunged into a new slough of despond this evening with the news that Peter Curistan has turned up at Brooklyn with a constitutional bombshell for the Chief Constable.

He complains of words spoken by Peter Robinson, paragon of virtue and man of rectitude, in the House of Commons on 8th February 2006.

Stifle, Dear Reader , your surprise at the elapse of almost ten years since this outrage.

According to his solicitors KRWLAW , “human rights lawyers,solicitor advocates” he alleges “criminal malfeasance in public office by the First Minister , Peter Robinson MLA”

The activity complained of took place, not while Mr Robinson was an MLA at all but when he was a MP.  Mr Curistan alleges that this activity has damaged his personal and business reputation.

Stopping there , one might have some sympathy with a man whose reputation has been damaged by words spoken in the House of Commons. It is not an unusual event, especially where Northern Ireland is concerned. It is alleged that these words are without foundation.

Mr Curistan is fortified in his complaint because he recently sought KRWLAW’s advice and they engaged the services “of a ‘leading’ , not just any , Queen’s Counsel with vast expertise in criminal law.” KRWLAW go on “That Q.C. is [one almost expects ‘none other than’ and a drum roll and clash of cymbals] Mr Eugene Grant, a former Chair of the Bar Council of Northern Ireland”

My devoted readers will know that I have a certain view of this country, summed up as ‘a banana republic without the bananas’

Some of you will have acquired a smattering of legal expertise.

So let’s get down to it.

There is no such offence as “criminal misfeasance in a public office”.

There is the common law criminal offence of “misconduct in a public office” to which I shall return.

Misfeasance in a public office is a tort, which is a civil wrong for which the remedy is , generally, damages. Interestingly, Mr Curistan has chosen not to sue Mr Robinson in the Civil Courts. That may have something to do with the delay in his complaint or the costs involved. I do not know. The day following Mr Robinson’s statement Mr Curistan could have  issued civil proceedings. He did not.

Instead , I think, though because of the poor quality of the KRWLAW press release, I cannot be sure , Mr Curistan is urging the Chief Constable to investigate a crime.

At this point Curistan, KRWLAW and Grant “leading Q.C.” come up against one of the great products of the Protestant Glorious Revolution, The Bill of Rights 1688.

It provides “that the Freedome of Speech and Debates in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament”

Halsbury, the book of reference on these matters, says that the law is settled. A Member of Parliament cannot be pursued in the courts for what he says in Parliament. It is known as parliamentary privilege.  Perhaps, though, the Bill of Rights is an enactment whose time has ended. We shall see. Meantime lights burn late at Brooklyn while the Chief Constable and his advisers consider the greatest challenge to the constitution since Guy Fawkes. Wait a minute! What timing!

It is a distraction , for those in abject poverty in many areas of Northern Ireland. It is a welcome relief for the workers at Michelin. It is a change from boring old news about our dysfunctional education system , our underachieving health system and our dangerous prisons, in which men in the lowest centiles of IQ are locked up.

Who knows where this crisis will end? Is Parliament, as we know it , doomed? After all it is only 498 years since the notice was nailed to the door in Wittenberg.

This crisis may outlive the last crisis…when was the deadline….?

Emma Pengelly Part II

Readers will know that for many years I have been involved in the campaign to have the killers of my parents prosecuted and for hundreds of people to be compensated for the use of Semtex  by Martin McGuinness and his fellow terrorists, who are in government with the DUP.

I blogged about Emma Pengelly and she emailed me today to say that she finds my blog “both unfair and upsetting”. Leaving aside the DUP inactivity on either of my campaigns, I’m sure there are many politicians who share her emotions about my blogging about them.

She says that she is not a “blow in” having lived in South Belfast for about a decade. Given the size and geographic spread of the constituency, that could be said by anyone in Sandy Row, the Malone Road or Carryduff. But ask Ruth Patterson for a more intimate view.

Secondly she says that she did not support a cap on self employed barristers “in the context in which it was being discussed”. You decide, Dear Reader.

Thirdly she says that she has “a full mandate”. An extraordinary claim in the circumstances. Nobody has ever voted for her.

Fourthly she says that it is outrageous that I mention her husband’s salary. Well, is not her point to Jim Allister about the payment of money by the state?

Fifthly she objects to the use of the word “comfort”. That word  has been in the public domain for a long time.

Lastly , she suggests that I have attempted “to publicly humiliate her” and added a little note of menace, something the DUP majors in. Ask Jamie Bryson.

When she was appointed I wished her well. I hoped that she might be that ‘breath of fresh air” that we often seek in our politics.

Sadly, by her willingness to get embroiled in a spat with Jim Allister, she displayed all the weaknesses of her boss and of the party in general. Arrogance and willing to spend more time rubbishing unionists than SinnFein/IRA.

I’m disappointed by her and that’s in less than a month.

Anyway, what’s that saying about the heat and the kitchen?

The Orange Donkey

It seems meet that this subject should be now aired.

it used to be said that the Unionist party could field a donkey for election and it would win.

Has anything changed? Well, looking at loyalist areas of North Belfast, certainly not. Deprivation is everywhere. But so long as the marches are uppermost in the minds of the masses, all will be well.

Let’s look at a few Orange Donkeys.

Nigel Dodds and Jeffrey Donaldson. Compensation for victims of PIRA crimes. Twenty five years on, all we hear are the same old promises. I and others are at least walking wounded. Many victims live appalling lives of suffering. This duo of donkeys just witter.

Jamie Bryson. Did he shake hands with McGuinness? I have asked him twice, but he has not replied. What has this man done for the lives of the loyalist community?

Saving the best for last. Willie Frazer, that flim flam man of loyalism. Carpet Bagger extraordinaire. Seller of fake medicines to loyalism. That man , with no visible means of support and no visible results. Does Willie draw a salary from FAIR? If so how much? Can anyone tell me of any victim of the troubles who has received practical support from him, apart from a second hand cooker?

Let’s look at the Kingsmills project. if there was not a start to disclosure to the Coroner by 27 March , Willie was marching in Dublin. Well, the date has come and gone and there is no sign of Willie’s Dublin march and no sign of documents.  But, you see, he met the Irish Prime Minister. So that’s all right then.

Somehow, he is again the voice of FAIR, an organisation which is supposed to be non-sectarian. Let’s examine some recent Willie posts. Amnesty International is part of the Republican movement, apparently. The Irish Government financed the IRA murders of innocents, according to Willie.

Why was Willie not in Ballymurphy, supporting the claims of innocent victims there?

Did his handlers advise against it?

The point of this article is to draw attention, if such were needed , to the Big House Unionism which still prevails and to the followers on their coat tails, who , like Bryson and Frazer , make no practical difference to the most vulnerable in our society.

Piers’ Diary

Hi!

I’m in charge of the Irish Desk at Number Ten.

I was educated at a famous public school and read Greats at Oxbridge. Got a Third but as the man said only a Third and a First are worth a damn. I joined the Civil Service and progressed up the ranks.

They asked me to sort out the Paddies in the 1990’s.

Problem was that occasionally they slipped a big bomb into the City. [My chums were well pissed at that and I got grief at the wine bar on a Friday night].

So I came up with a scheme. All the green Paddies would be left alone,even the mass murderers, provided that the bombing stopped. They could be assemblymen or whatever provided they said that they were democrats, they could cross their fingers if they liked.

Then we had to deal with the Orange Paddies. They are big into their religion so we got a few compliant clerics to tell them all about forgiveness. Best of all we got that big Orange bigot Paisley turned. Not so difficult after Kincora. We then turned all the other sex offenders and gays in his party and the heterosexual ones with the dodgy spouses. [Main point was they couldn’t bomb the City.]

Of course they weren’t alone. We had the videos of all the important Green paddies abusing boys and girls.

Just how good are Box? Years of experience at our disposal!

Next we identified young wannabes in the law, academics, business, arts etc. They were all taken to Enniskillen and told how fab they were. Worked a treat. Now on the bench, chairmen of NGO’s , health trusts etc.

The place is trussed up like a turkey . No workable dissent.

There were occasional blips like Downey but since he was a tout it got sorted. Very worthy NI committee didn’t get a sniff….

As my old professor said: “finis coronat opus”.

They want me to sort out the Royal sex abuse allegations next….

Best….Piers  x

Cameron speaks with forked tongue?

The newspapers , in May and July 2014, including the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, carried a story that the PM had appointed Sir Kim Darroch to “secure compensation for British victims” of Libyan/PIRA/Sinn Fein terrorism. It was reported that he would negotiate on behalf of the families. I have no doubt that this information came from Number Ten and that it was the same line peddled to the DUP when they had tea with Cameron in the garden. He was looking for their votes of course. The same story was given to my lawyers.

Here is what Sir Kim told me about his role: “This is a broad remit to lead discussions with the Libyans to facilitate progress for all UK victims of Qadhafi sponsored terrorism. It is not a mandate to secure payment of individual compensation claims.’ Cameron told him to “build a dialogue”.

So there you have it, misled again by Cameron, the man who almost daily tells you how tough he is on terrorism. The deaths from semtex occurred twenty five years ago.

This British Government is a laughing stock abroad. It contributes almost nothing to the war on IS. It has left Libya prey to IS, Cameron having got his photo opportunity there. Afghanistan was a military disaster. Despite hectoring NATO allies to spend two percent of GDP on defence, he refuses to implement that spending here.

If any British citizen thinks that the world of terrorism fears us, think again. The Government of Toffs is incompetent.

I trust that the DUP will not promise their support in the event of a hung parliament.

The queer case of FAIR

If one Googles “Families acting for innocent relatives”, one is directed to http://www.victims.org.uk

One is then told that “this site belongs to and is the sole property of William Frazer..unless otherwise indicated this website and its contents are the property of William Frazer.”

The queer thing is that on 16th November 2012 the BBC reported that “Willie Frazer steps down from victims’ group FAIR.”

There is another site http://www.fairvictims.co.uk which is hard to find and which  looks like the Mary Celeste. It contains little re events ,no details of who runs the organisation and appears frozen in time.

I understood that this organisation had received substantial sums of public money [hundreds of thousands of pounds] to help victims. I am at a loss to know where that money is , or was spent. I wonder is FAIR registered with the Charity Commission?

I’d like to see some accounts and an account of its activities over the last three years. Any offers?

NI Executive, Libya and the opportunity

One of the problems with the present talks is lack of additional money. Another is funding “the past”. In May 2011, the National Transitional Council in Libya signed a memorandum of understanding in which they said that it was their “sincere desire to enter discussions to consider an appropriately resourced humanitarian fund to be set up to recognise the pain and suffering of such victims and the wider society in the UK , and in particular Northern Ireland”. This was after it had apologised for the harm caused by the supply of guns and semtex to PIRA, led by Martin McGuinness and others.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was tasked with examining ways in which this fund might be established and resourced. Three years on , it has made no progress.

It is estimated that 3,500 people, mostly in Northern Ireland, could benefit from this fund. It is an important aspect of dealing with the past.

Billions of pounds of Gadafy’s assets are frozen in the UK , yet no politician, or lawyer,local or national,  appears to have the skill to make this happen.