A Tangled Web

Actions not Words, Dr Paisley



Democratic Unionist Party leader, Dr Ian Paisley, presented his annual political oration at the Independent Orange Order demonstration in Rasharkin, Co Antrim. Leaving aside the customary fundamentalist religious guff (which even I, as a church-going Protestant, find overly excessive), Paisley presented an analysis of the Belfast Agreement, government concessions to republican terror, UUP pusillanimity, and the erosion of democracy in Ulster in a profound and passionate way.



I take Ian Paisley to be a man of his word; something I find increasingly impossible to do with the Robinson/Dodds wing of the same party. Should 'the Doc' hold true to his word and refuse any toleration of fully-armed terror, he would not only be acting in a righteous and determinant manner, but also staying true to the fundamentals which gave him a huge mandate from the pro-Union people. I suspect his Deputy has other ideas.



Democrats will be watching the DUP extremely closely come the autumn. Any abandonment of correctitude will be seized upon, scorned and, hopefully, punished using the same methods responsible for causing David Trimble's fall from grace.