Opinion

William Scholes: Top Tories grovelling for DUP Brexit votes - again

William Scholes

William Scholes

William has worked at The Irish News since 2002. His areas of interest include religion and motoring.

It's no laughing matter, as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, pictured left, and chancellor Philip Hammond, pictured right, share a joke while former Brexit secretary looks on
It's no laughing matter, as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, pictured left, and chancellor Philip Hammond, pictured right, share a joke while former Brexit secretary looks on It's no laughing matter, as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, pictured left, and chancellor Philip Hammond, pictured right, share a joke while former Brexit secretary looks on

TORY big hitters Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson will be the star turns at this weekend's DUP conference. Tickets may still be available.

Like two blokes dressed as Marshall and Skye from Paw Patrol at an austerity Christmas tree switch-on, it is presumably hoped that Hammond and Johnson will illuminate proceedings and energise the faithful at the annual Shloer and traybake-fest.

They come from very different sides of the Conservative Party, at least as far as the dominant political issue of the time is concerned.

Mr Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is a supporter of Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal; Mr Johnson is not.

The bomb blondshell does, however, most firmly support Boris Johnson becoming prime minister.

His ardour for the top job is undimmed after being Foreign Secretary for a two year period which served to absolutely confirm his unsuitability for not only that job but also any other great office of state, such as a parking warden.

Mr Johnson remains, of course, generously qualified to be a newspaper columnist.

In a typically opportunistic Johnson manoeuvre, he resigned from the government in July because he didn't like Mrs May's Chequers agreement.

Since then he has gone on to form a Vaudeville act with Jacob Rees-Mogg - my, how we laughed - and has failed to orchestrate the putsch against Mrs May that he so desperately craves.

Mr Johnson is the sort of chaos what you might get if Belfast's Twelfth of July Orange Order parade was funnelled through the orchestra pit of the Grand Opera House.

By comparison, Mr Hammond is an oasis of unexciting calm. Think of James Brokenshire - remember him? - with a little more energy and a working knowledge of the keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Excel.

'Spreadsheet Phil' distrusted his cabinet colleagues so much that he didn't tell them what was in his budget for fear of leaks.

His budget speech at the end of October was distinguished by a series of appalling jokes, which we can only hope - purely for schadenfreude - get repeated when he appears at this evening's DUP gathering.

However, he may also have something more direct to say to the DUP after it abstained this week in votes on the Finance Bill, which is the legislation that enacts the budget.

That course of action seems to mark the end of the fêted confidence and supply arrangement between the DUP and the Conservatives, though presumably this week's hissy fit will be forgotten if a way can be found to persuade the DUP to re-think its position and support Mrs May's Brexit plan, backstop and all.

Mr Hammond may as well abandon any thought of appealing to logic - like dealing with a room full of toddlers, that won't work - though the promise of more cash could do the trick.

In any case, no matter how rationally he argues the case for supporting the backstop, it is likely to be washed away by whatever Mr Johnson has to say tomorrow.

He might talk nonsense, but he does it with vim and flair; Johnson at full-tilt is an elemental force, and one can imagine his rambunctious style of rhetoric going down well with the sort of audience that imagines Sammy Wilson is Cicero with a moustache.

It would be fascinating to know how the Tories really feel about having to toady up to the DUP and its spadnoscenti.

Even that Conservative MP who managed to escape from the witness protection scheme where he was being held by the NIO didn't seem to get the subtleties of the DUP's position, as he rambled on about Northern Ireland being "part of Great Britain".

He probably can't name all of the DUP's 10 MPs. Nor would he be alone.

For example, there's the bloke from South Antrim who no-one ever talks about - a sort of Voldemort, he-who-must-not-be-named figure.

For all the faults of British politics, there is less of the gratuitous vitriol and studied condescension that the DUP has forged into an art form in Northern Ireland.

On this, Arlene Foster sets the standards, though she has a new challenger.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's suggestion that the various business groups who regard Mrs May's plan as the least-worst option don't know what they are talking about demonstrated that the jawbone of an ass is as dangerous today as it was when Samson got annoyed with the Philistines.

In the midst of the gathering calamity, what on earth is the Ulster Unionist party up to?