Mr & Mrs Robinson

[Maguire01]

On Panorama tomorrow night - BBC1 @ 8.30:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qdpcy

[Hurler on the Bitch]

I think that the TUV will split the hardened Unionist vote and allow the UUP to sneak in .... especially in East Belfast - however, Naomi Long of the Alliance, her vote has held up well ..

[Hurler on the Bitch]

On Panorama tomorrow night - BBC1 @ 8.30:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qdpcy

Another nail in the family coffin...?

[ziggysego]

On Panorama tomorrow night - BBC1 @ 8.30:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qdpcy

Another nail in the family coffin...?

Will there be any more revelations or will it simply  be Spotlight repackaged as Panorama for a British audience?

Gerry Kelly on the radio this afternoon said more revelations.

[Orior]

Interesting post there Hurler

[Tony Baloney]

Interesting post there Hurler

His best yet.

[Hurler on the Bitch]

On Panorama tomorrow night - BBC1 @ 8.30:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qdpcy

Another nail in the family coffin...?

Will there be any more revelations or will it simply  be Spotlight repackaged as Panorama for a British audience?

Gerry Kelly on the radio this afternoon said more revelations.

That beardy fecker should stick to playing crap tunes and talking shite during his Radio Ulster show!

[DownFanatic]

Did the Robinson's daughter inherit Iris's good looks? Any pics?

[orangeman]

Iris Robinson receiving acute psychiatric treatment   


The wife of the NI first minister is receiving "acute psychiatric treatment" as the furore about her private life and financial affairs continues.

A Democratic Unionist Party spokesman said the information on Iris Robinson was being disclosed after speculation about her health and whereabouts.

Peter Robinson is facing growing pressure to resign over the reports.

Former first minister David Trimble has said the DUP leader can "no longer deliver" as first minister.

The spokesman said Mrs Robinson, an MP and member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was receiving treatment from the Belfast Health Trust.

Reports that Mrs Robinson was in a French ski resort were "completely untrue", he added.


Earlier this week, the BBC alleged Mr Robinson did not tell the authorities his wife failed to register £50,000 she obtained from two property developers.

The Spotlight programme said the money was paid to her 19-year-old lover, Kirk McCambley, to help him launch a cafe.

'Clear his name'

Lord Trimble said Mr Robinson had "lost his authority within the party and the system".

"If he is going to fight to clear his name, then the place to do that is from the back benches," said the Ulster Unionist party leader.


David Trimble: "His authority has gone"
Lord Trimble said he expected Mr Robinson to step down within the "next few days".

"To have a situation where a party leader sees his wife expelled from the party and acquiesces in it, doesn't even persuade the party to give her a decent way out, shows there has been a complete loss of authority," he said.

BBC political editor Mark Devenport said DUP politicians had been put under strict orders not to speak to the media.

"Nobody is ringing me and telling me Peter Robinson must be defended and that his situation is impregnable, it is quite the opposite," he said.

"Those that have broken with that instruction have talked about his position being untenable and the real debate being not over his leadership, but over who might succeed him.

"Even if this legal probe that he has ordered clears him of these allegations, on a political level there is huge damage to the Robinson brand."

[Hurler on the Bitch]

The fact that we may have forgotten is that this lady has been given a severe reality check and PR could probably have a breakdown over this. Despite the fact that, when Spotlight finished last Thursday, our house resembled the Felons Club after David O' Leary's penalty against Romania in 1990, she and he, perhaps have taken a bit too much. I think the dogs have had their kill.

[mylestheslasher]

Has the nature of Iris's suicide attempt ever been revealed? I doubt I'm alone in suspecting that this may not have been a wholehearted attempt. If it was surely to god Peter wouldn't get up and head to work before the doctor arrived? It maybe a bit morbid but I'm thinking of all the ways someone might try to kill themselves and I can't think of one  that can be slept of as Peter claimed!
I would say Iris probably is getting treatment but mostly due to the fallout of this scandal - she has fallen some distance in the eyes of her followers and for someone who obviously takes great care to appear to be in control I'd say it is a fair shock to know every single thing she ever did wrong will be on every TV in Ulster in the coming weeks.

[orangeman]

The fact that we may have forgotten is that this lady has been given a severe reality check and PR could probably have a breakdown over this. Despite the fact that, when Spotlight finished last Thursday, our house resembled the Felons Club after David O' Leary's penalty against Romania in 1990, she and he, perhaps have taken a bit too much. I think the dogs have had their kill.

[/b]



No doubt about that. The dogs have had a feed and the vulchers are circling to finish off the carcass.



But as I said earlier, there'll be a backlash.


The next month will be fascinating.

[stew]

Peter Robinson as a politician is finished and the DUP as a party are finished.  When the Robinson affair is over there is another story waiting quietly in the wings which will knock the "God" fearing voters over the edge completely if they haven't gone yet.  This will be revealed before the election and will take out one of their stars by the roots and they will lose a massive following.  Unfortunately there is not great leadership elsewhere in the unionist "family" and there will be a big split.  SF will come back as largest party if they can get over the Liam Adams issue without too much damage.

Still looking good for a 2016 handover

Dont see how this is good for anyone tbh, in times of doubt and crsis Unionism seems to lurch further to the right, which can only mean one thing - TUV making huge inroads.  The UUP are frinished IMO, I would be delighted if they were to make some sort of comeback, but I cant see it happening.  Hard to see what the TUV can bring to any shared future - only an increasing number of fuckwits.  I hope Pedar toughs it out.

It is good because it rocks unionism to it;s core, the DUP die or at least lose a lot of their piousness and credibility and for the right minded unionists out there, voting for the TUV is a touch too much, they wont be able to do it.

Peader is done, finito, best case scenario for us is he stays and is the laughing stock of the assembly, no way the dup allow that to happen.

[orangeman]

Will Nigel be able to put all this behind him if he takes over ?

David McKittrick Ireland Correspondent


Sunday, 22 December 1996



Frantic attempts were under way yesterday to persuade loyalist paramilitaries not to break their two-year ceasefire in the aftermath of the IRA attack on police officers in a Belfast children's hospital on Friday.

IRA gunmen fired at officers acting as bodyguards for Nigel Dodds, a well-known Belfast politician and secretary of the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist party, who was visiting his sick son.
One officer was hit in the foot, the other was uninjured. The gunmen escaped towards the nearby Falls Road. Yesterday a man was arrested in connection with the incident.

Loyalists and others view the shooting as a provocative act. The fact that it took place close to sick children has caused particular revulsion and made retaliation more likely.

The incident brought widespread condemnation in Belfast, London and Dublin and a warning from US Congressman Joe Kennedy that a return to violence in the province could lead to President Clinton losing interest in Northern Ireland. Clergymen have made private pleas for the loyalists to stay their hand, butthere was a sense of pessimism in Northern Ireland yesterday.

The IRA has said the intention was to kill the police officers rather than Mr Dodds who, with his wife, was visiting their seven-year-old son Andrew, who is seriously ill with hydrocephalus and spina bifida. Police sources confirmed this. Both Mr Dodds and the Rev Ian Paisley, however, said they did not believe the IRA claim.

"I don't believe anything the IRA says," said Mr Dodds. "An organisation that can sanction a shooting in a children's hospital is capable of anything."

The attack substantiated indications from both security force and republican sources that an escalation of IRA violence was expected following the recent apparently final breakdown in communications between the Government and Sinn Fein. John Major last month refused republican demands for immediate entry into negotiations in exchange for a restoration of the 1994 ceasefire.

Mr Paisley appealed to loyalists not to resort to force: "I say to anybody who would think to retaliate - put that out of your mind. That has not to be done because it must not be done, because that does not achieve anything. No one should take the law into their own hands."

[Minder]