Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: Van the Man should stick to singing

North Antrim MP Ian Paisley with Sir Van Morrison on stage at the Europa Hotel
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley with Sir Van Morrison on stage at the Europa Hotel North Antrim MP Ian Paisley with Sir Van Morrison on stage at the Europa Hotel

Sense of humour is a personal affair and some people have very little. (Not us, though, other people.)

Van Morrison and Ian Paisley in the Europa shouting ‘Robin Swann is very dangerous’ was described later by Paisley as ‘parody’. To judge from his career to date it’s unlikely that Paisley understands parody. But for this viewer (of the scene as video-ed) his bound to the side of a ranting Van was less classic Junior exhibitionism, more the groan at many’s a wedding. This was sober uncle trying to halt a speech gone very wrong without provoking worse, as well as vain then deservedly embarrassed man as always too easily tempted to a microphone. By a big name who should stick to singing, and the saxophone, and his best songs.

But the two new leaders of political unionism were called upon to comment. Perhaps for time to think, Edwin Poots used the feeble, time-worn ‘haven’t seen it’. Which meant the UUP’s Doug Beattie could be angry about that as well as defending his health minister. It also meant attention moved off Beattie’s inability to see balaclava-ed marchers in Portadown. He did volunteer, from a later sighting, too late, that these were indeed sinister.

None of this is remotely funny, the non-joke pointed up by another outing for hoods with cut-outs. PSNI vehicle in front, up the Shankill they came. So that an anonymous man in a wheelchair could set fire to the United Ireland for All flag (apparently the one recently draped from Divis tower) and an anonymous speaker in a garden could deliver a poisonous message. Speaking on behalf of ‘the Greater Shankill Coalition’, in his words. Thanks to recording relayed by cool-headed Belfast Live reporter Shauna Corr, we know he told the listeners that they were standing where ‘in August of 1969 in the guise of the IRA violent republicans were mobilised to slaughter and maim the Protestant people – an attempt to bomb, shoot and kill their way to a so-called united Ireland.’

That is not what happened in August ‘69. It would be good if a leading unionist from a political party came out now and said so. It would also be a considerable surprise. Surfing loyalist anger has been one of political unionism’s gambits, alongside rejecting their own responsibility for the vilified protocol. The bigger hope, to judge from video of the scene, is that Anon’s inflammatory fiction seemed to leave most listeners unmoved, attendance scattering rather than gathering.

The best hope for all of us may be the state of loyalist paramilitarism, sunk in drugs and crime. And the wit of people who see that, but have to live where the UDA and UVF still reign.

Late though it is, it might help if news-editing decided against automatic use of the tags ‘prominent’ and ‘leading’ for self-appointed loyalist spokespersons. Reporting is vital, dislikeable but significant events must be recorded. Self-description that builds up the self-describer surely always needs qualification. Make the lads top of the bill without examining their CVs? The lads are unlikely to settle thereafter for the bit parts they deserve.

If people at microphones flanked by big guys with their faces covered were not peddling fake history and distorted ‘news’, with a sprinkle of misused big words to borrow authority, none of this would matter. Inflating reputations in the margins - of Twitter, of social media, on radio shows that depend on rants – only matters when it feeds directionless anger among people already misled and deceived. Maybe that’s too optimistic. Misdirected anger powered Donald Trump and to date sustains Boris Johnson.

Uninformed interviewers on major current affairs and news programmes elsewhere have added to the fog over the protocol, the state of play inside the DUP and the Stormont executive. It’s also been raining dead cats (sorry, cat-lovers).

Please, no more Junior and The Man. Toulouse versus Larne probably still has shelf life.