Peter Robinson steps down as First Minister!

[ONeill]

Say what you want about Pascal McConnell, he was a good 'keeper.

Not a patch on his bro.

[ONeill]

Say what you want about Pascal McConnell, he was a good 'keeper.

Not a patch on his bro.

Seemingly a much better racist though.

Well, Pascal was more of a gingerist.

[THE MIGHTY QUINN]

Calm down lads- Peter has met the Muslims and they've accepted his apology.

Nothing more to see here. Move her on.

It's a bit like Fr Ted running the free drink night for Craggy Island's Chinese community

[HiMucker]

So....it's a hobby? Not a faith?

More of an insurance policy.  You never know when you might need it

[armaghniac]

Calm down lads- Peter has met the Muslims and they've accepted his apology.

Nothing more to see here. Move her on.

It's a bit like Fr Ted running the free drink night for Craggy Island's Chinese community

Robinson should have had a few free pints and sausage rolls for the Muslim community.

[Orior]

Calm down lads- Peter has met the Muslims and they've accepted his apology.

Nothing more to see here. Move her on.

It's a bit like Fr Ted running the free drink night for Craggy Island's Chinese community

Robinson should have had a few free pints and sausage rolls for the Muslim community.

I hear the nibbles were smokie bacon crisps.

[93-DY-SAM]

The hypocrisy of this place knows no bounds but that doesn't come as any great surprise. The DUP spouting on about free speech when not many months ago they were trying to ban a play which was having a bit of a poke at Christianity. Free speech but only when it suits the DUP. Also, free speech doesn't mean you can say what you like and even more so when it comes to those in power and influence.

Don't get me started on that Nolan tube. This morning when two sensible contributors were making valid points he interrupts them to announce the latest viewing figures for the previous nights Nolan tv show had just landed on his desk. Cue blowing smoke up his own hole and being full of his own self importance. Complete disrespect for his guests. For all the good Nolan does exposing the intolerance of this place he undoes it in a flash with sensationalist and egotistical journalism.   

[give her dixie]

from blog by Brian Spencer

It would have been hypocritical for Peter Robinson not to have backed Pastor McConnell. He's right at home.

If people are shocked, it just shows how the DUP has conned people.

It's not a reformist, post-Troubles party; it's a Cold-war era free Presbyterian sect that passes for a political party. Not only are there Catholics and commies under the bad, now there are "Moslems".

This is the politics of fear, not hope. The language of pogroms. Words not even Nigel Farage would utter. These are the words, at a stretch, of some ailing, crack-pot Tory backbencher – who if he did say them, would get booted into political oblivion. i.e. summarily sacked.

This is the DUP's world. Politics of isolation, absolutism, religious certainty and threats, As Daniel Finn said:

"In British political terms, the DUP slots in between the right of the Tory Party and the BNP."

They make a mockery of British democracy and a parody of Britishness. As Brigid Brophy said in the Spectator:

"The Northern Irish have indeed made themselves less and less like the British of the mainland by refusing to move on with the mainlanders from a merely numerical towards a tolerant conception of democracy."

It's not a Lockean democracy of religious freedom and enlightenment, but a party that will put flags before food, side with angry loyalist street protesters confronting the PSNI.

Again, this is the DUP's world, not the western world we know and of which want to be part.

The world is opening up. We want to be part of that. Open for business. Open for immigration. Open for religious pluralism. Open for homosexuals. Open for a mixed economy.

Peter Robinson has sent out a message that we're closed to Muslims.

This is anti-economy. Not only will it effect investment, it marks us out as intolerant and religious weirdos.

It's long past high time we said that we did not want to be ruled, never mind associated with this sort of religious madness. We don't want creationists doling out policy, religious prohibitionists drafting legislation. We don't want society stultified and insulted by this hysterical garbage.

Robinson says that Pastor McConnell is right to decry false doctrines.

What's next: the decrying of Catholics? By backing Pastor McConnell, Robinson has not only backed racism by his failure to unequivocally condemn racist attacks, but has now licensed the exclusion of religious minorities.

Fear is not a policy, it's an alibi for lack of policy and vision.

Peter Robinson isn't a leader, he's an alibi and a excuse for unionism's abject failure.

The Union will be saved with an "unremittingly" and "unrelentingly positive" case for the union, as David Cameron has repeatedly said. Once again Peter Robinson and the DUP make the "unremittingly" and "unrelentingly" negative case for the Union.

Where McGuinness's handshake has deprived unionism's hostility of its substance, Peter Robinson and the DUP continue to feed discontentment with the Union with Britain.

Shame on unionism which has facilitated years of loyalist hysteria, a dangerously false grievance narrative and a near-two year campaign of hostility on the streets.

Now we can say, shame on unionism for backing a religious leader and islamophobia over tolerance and religious pluralism.

This is really dangerous. This is but a further move to deceive, manipulate and propagandise impressionable loyalists. I'll say it again, like I did last time: those who believe absurdities may take this further.

This sort of religious demagoguery needs repudiated, for the local sake – before this gets worse, for the international sake – before Northern Ireland unionism gets marked off as a pariah in the global community.

We want a naked public square – a wall of Separation between church and state. We have had enough years of terrorism and sectarianism.

Time to get tough on these religious loud mouths.

Maybe its time that nationalists/republicans pulled the plug on the local assembly. We'd be better off with some sort of Anglo Irish construction to run the place, rather than having taxpayers provide the bigots and religious nut jobs of the DUP with cushy, well paid jobs to be shared out amongst their various family dynasties. Absolute shower of hate-filled morons.

I would agree with you but unfortunately that highlighted bit swings both sides of the political pendulum.

I would also agree. Stormont provides a platform for bigotry and raw sectarian hatred. It is a big cash cow that tje 2 big parties are milking dry, and we are footing the bill. It needs to be shut down as the only thing they agree on is pay rises, job extensions and co opting their cronies into well paid jobs. Oh, and agreeing to keep brown envelope donations private so that we dont know who is funding them. Gansters the fecking lot of them.

[orangeman]

I don't know about the DUP but SF MLAs and party workers as far as I know do not receive the big salaries directly. They get a weekly wage which might not be more than the minimum wage ( that's what some party members told people when they going round canvassing and the issue of salaries came up ) so SF can't be accused of lining their pockets. Most of the salaries go back into the party. I'm sure they're able to claim "expenses" just like all the other parties.

I stand to be corrected on this.

DUP however seemingly put all of the salary in their pockets.

[HiMucker]

I think Sinn Fein party members take the average industrial wage, not the minimum wage.  Still very commendable and something they don't hype on about enough.  I stand to be corrected though 

[WT4E]

Caught up on the Nolan show last night.

[give her dixie]

I don't know about the DUP but SF MLAs and party workers as far as I know do not receive the big salaries directly. They get a weekly wage which might not be more than the minimum wage ( that's what some party members told people when they going round canvassing and the issue of salaries came up ) so SF can't be accused of lining their pockets. Most of the salaries go back into the party. I'm sure they're able to claim "expenses" just like all the other parties.

I stand to be corrected on this.

DUP however seemingly put all of the salary in their pockets.

It doesnt matter what the MLAs do with their salaries, the fact remains that they draw down the full amount plus expenses.

If a Sinn Fein MLA was to go before a CSA board for example, its the 48,000 they would have to pay child support from, not the average wage.

[Walter Cronc]

I had to turn it off half way through the pastors discussion. Cringe worthy!

Tho switched it back on for the blood and thunder raving lunatic. What a madman!

Another born again/guilty conscience that one!!

[ballinaman]

Get the time warp ready ballinaman!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b044w6mv/the-nolan-show-series-5-episode-5

Does anyone have any tricks for getting around the "available to play in the UK only" restriction. I am in the US.

Part 1 with the Pastor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7T_5TSA7f8

Part 2 - George Galloway part - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MFfPdC3OPQ

Thoroughly enjoyed that, when's the next episode? Cringe television of the highest quality.
I think there could be a series along the line of The Office or Extras with that pastor character, getting himself into wacky situations and the like.
Sharararara law would be a class catchphrase...

[Walter Cronc]

I was waiting for him to say 'Shikaka' like Ace Ventura!!