I am boycotting newspapers…Leveson reaction.
But I am not boycotting them enough to not notice the headline in tonight’s Belfast Telegraph.
“We Are All Alliance Now”. Notwithstanding the sympathy we all feel at the brutality of this week, the headline over-states it.
Early yesterday, I blogged a post……which was about sympathy for the victims. I stated in that post that I would be writing another …more nuanced ……on the politics behind it.
I think it is important to make a distinction between the two. And as I stated in the comments to one or two people last night, I feared it might just be a little too soon to discuss politics. Maybe…..but surely the Belfast Telegraph running with a headline like this with echoes of John F Kennedy at the Berlin Wall is a total neglect of Politics.
Let us be frank here. The scale of violence meted out to the Alliance Party is a new experience for that Party.
But when Edgar Graham and Robert Bradford were murdered, the Belfast Telegraph did not say “We Are All Unionists Now”. Or when Paddy Wilson was murdered, it never claimed “We Are All SDLP Now” and when Sheena Campbell was murdered, it did not claim “We Are All Sinn Féin Now”.
Frankly for the Belfast Telegraph to do this is a disgrace. It politicises the misery of of the Alliance Party…..a liberal unionist party in line with the Tele’s own editorial stance. Of course the Alliance Party is perfectly entitled to use this weeks events to their advantage. They did not seek the publicity.
Some of the sympathy, mostly from UUP voters will stay with it.
But maybe somebody at Lucid Talk-Belfast Telegraph is thinking of one of their opinion polls to tell us that 95% of people will vote Alliance.
When things settle down, Alliance will be the moderate voice of unionism with offices in predominantly loyalist towns. A mirror image some would say of the SDLP.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
http://telly.com/D7Z8U
This is a TUV guy. Looks like he is scoring a few anti-Robinson points.
The Belfast Telegraph does not give Peter Punt and Mike TV much room to wriggle here.
“In many ways what has been even more desperate [than the violence] is the succession of senior unionist politicians who condemn the violence on one hand but still try to apportion blame with the other.”
Its strange how the narrative “nationalists in crisis” (which may not necessarily be true or untrue) has been turned on its head in a week. But just how out of touch are the UUP? They will be the biggest losers. The call from the three UUP councillors in Belfast (Jim Rodgers, Bob Stoker, Davey Browne) for Nesbitt to discipline Basil McCrea is insanity.
FJH,
re. “Frankly for the Belfast Telegraph to do this is a disgrace”
Disagree completely with that – a genuine cross community party is being driven out of ‘Unionist’ areas and they fully deserve the support of all the electorate to ensure that they can continue to operate and organise without intimidation.
I tihnk the Belfast Telegraph is spot on.
Looking the photos posted by the twitteratti and the amount of outrage didn’t seem reflected in the numbers. Now the BBC are reporting “up to 1,500” attended the Belfast protest.
Just a couple of nights ago, G’gormley was closed for a while for the sake of a couple of dozen spides and the same went for yesterday’s protest in Lisburn. We’ve seen the massive marches of unionist outrage over the years, so, we know what it looks like and this clearly isn’t it.
No one, not even the most naive, is buying the poor attempt the UUP and DUP are making in denying their part in all this and the irony of Paul Girvan getting stoned was amazing. I’m guessing he is now in the dog house for blowing the gaff on loyalists groups orchestrating the violence.
The attacks on Alliance members and the party in general is just thuggery and it matters little whether they are being attacked by words or stones. I heard the woman who’s house was attacked in Ards and it sounded like hell. As well as breaking the windows of of house (and car), they were also on her roof.
BTW, just saw that the violence has broken out again in E Belfast. Ain’t it odd that someone was able to call off the dogs while Hilary was here?
I presume Paul Girvan is in PSNI station in Glengormley going thru some mugshots to help identify those he saw last night.
You couldn’t comprehend y disappointment when I heard of a top DUP man being stoned. Not the story I was hoping for at all 🙂
I can only imagine that Girvan blew the gaff in a fit of rage and is regretting it now. Having said that he recognised leading UVF (funny that) men, he is surely duty bound to do as you say.
Well I can’t see how he would do anything else. Not at home right now so I can’t check this.but is he or similarly named Givan on the Justice Committee