I have never been great fans of either Peter or Iris Robinson. When Peter gave his news conference last week outlining how Iris had attempted suicide when Peter heard of her “inappropriate relationship” I for one was not all that interested in the details of the affair. In fact, I felt sorry for them. Affairs can trouble even the most soundly established marriage, and it can be difficult to try and mend the feelings of hurt and betrayal that are exposed.
However, the allegations revealed in BBC’s Spotlight programme made me feel that any sympathy was misplaced. Citizens are expected to observe the highest degrees of compliance, especially in their financial affairs, standards which their rulers hold in contempt. If I received a loan or a gift in kind I am supposed to reveal it to the relevant authorities so that they can penalise me. But not those who govern me. Oh no! they’re too clever, too “cute” to be bound by the same rules that bind little people. But that is where their arrogance blinds them to the truth.
I’m the last person to moralise, but I found the revelation that Iris Robinson, a woman of 59, was having a sexual relationship with a mere youth forty years’; her junior positively obscene and disgusting. She viewed him at first as a son, but it soon went beyond the platonic. If it had stayed there I doubt anyone would be troubled. He was young enough to be her grandson. (By the way I feel the same about a relationship between a man in his late ‘50s and a girl forty years his junior.) Had the youth been any younger it would have been a case of paedophilia.
Iris Robinson was trenchant in making high-sounding moral judgments about people, describing their behaviour as an abomination and equating gay people with murderers. At the very least she showed appalling lack of judgment. What’s more, the fact that this most inappropriate of relationships was accompanied by the handover of a large sum of money makes the whole thing look like prostitution,
And then there was the shocking statement by Peter Robinson that God had forgiven Iris. I am a Christian, and one of the central tenets of my faith is belief in a merciful God, but I can only believe and hope – I cannot know. To do so would be to know the unknowable. It would be the worst form of presumption, but then if you are the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, and your wife is the honorary member for Strangford, I suppose you feel you know God and have a right to expect the best. There are shades of the belief that God is an Orangeman, and if he’s not he must be replaced by a man who is.
Leading figures in the DUP have expressed their sympathy for Peter. Did he really not smell a rat? He presents himself now as that figure of literary fun throughout the ages, the cuckold. (I knew a girl who used to love when I used the word.) There are those who say he deliberately looked away, as his own conduct might not be that blameless.
It is further evidence of the warped morality and ethics of our rulers. While the Robinson affair impinges on Northern Ireland voices have been raised questioning whether some of our high-powered female politicians may not be indulging in such inappropriate relationships. Maybe Minister Harney has a toy-boy, while I pity any youth who might have fallen for the lying blandishments of Minister Mary Hanafin.
I love it when you touch me there Kirk ... er Peter
