Cheesh - it's almost like old times. A right-wing demagogue doing a Mussolini act before adoring disciples, people refusing to shake hands with other people, people turning their backs and booing their political opponents, lusty delivery of 'God Save The Queen'...It all makes me feel about twenty years younger. And don't tell me the press pack aren't on their knees with gratitude that Jim Allister has appeared to put some jizz and piss and vinegar into the Stormont scene. Next you know he'll be mounting a Carson Trail and all the right tight loyal wee towns throughout the North will be hanging up a banner saying 'Doagh/Brookeborough/Tobermore says Naw'. Poor 'little Peter', as John Taylor used to describe him. He looks and sounds like a man who's just noticed that half the roof has blown off and he doesn't know whether to phone the police, the fire-brigade, a builder or an ambulance. And now Allister says he's going to stand in North Antrim against that well-pedigreed but distinctly wobbly candidate, Ian Óg Paisley.
South of the border, Sinn Fein have got the wagon pretty firmly stuck in the mud. The loss of Mary Lou's seat is extremely not good news, and the weak showing in North-West is pretty troubling also ,especially as there'll be a by-election there, now that Pat the Cope Gallagher has got his bum back into Europe. Sinn Fein must be doing some serious soul-searching these days. If they come up with another stuck-in-the-mud election for the Dail, that'll make it three in a row, and there'll be a lot of people deciding that the political path IS the road to nowhere. And that's sort of scary.
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