Ian Paisley Jnr Goes Free!
Having Ian Paisley Jnr take up your case must be like finding yourself sitting beside somebody on a plane with swine flu! I mean, how hard is it to get yourself imprisoned in this country? The rest of us spend our lives trying to keep out of incarceration whilst Jnr is doing everything short of breaking shop windows to get in!
He traipsed up to the gallows again on Monday 29th June intent on following in his father’s footsteps and martyring himself on the altar of civil liberties. All he managed was ridicule from the new Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin.
This legal gradee came off with a one liner any decent stand up comic would kill for. He commented on Jnr’s willingness to go to jail by saying that “brandishing custody before Mr Paisley appears to be like brandishing a whip before Max Mosley”!
The subsequent laughter in court must galled Ian Jnr beyond imagination. We all realise that Jnr, as they say in these parts, ‘ain’t the sharpest pencil in the case’ but somebody within the DUP should be keeping an eye on him. I can only assume that the new leadership are quite happy to see Jnr continue to not only shoot himself in the foot but put that foot in his mouth before he pulls the trigger!
After this latest court ruling not only will he still remain at liberty but he’s now racked up legal costs of £43,000 in his attempted martyrdom!
The hapless wannabe felon is now claiming financial distress due to the legal costs incurred by the case. He seeks our sympathy by reminding us that he has four children, a mortgage and a substantial overdraft! He’s even gone so far as to admit that he may have to sell his home to pay the legal costs. I wonder if he means he’ll have to sell his main home or his now infamous holiday home in Bushmills?
Ian Snr had a very worried look on his face outside the court. You can imagine the talk in the car on the way home. ‘Please Daddy, I need the money’. ‘No son, I got you a job, you’ll just have to fiddle your expenses like all the rest of them’!
What all this does call into question once again is the judgement of Ian Jnr. He’d only just begun to get his head above the parapet after the Giants Causeway debacle and now this. For once he really seemed to be on the right side of the argument. A politician should have the same right to protect his sources as a journalist – as demonstrated by the recent case of Suzanne Breen. A whistle blower must be assured anonymity if what they are exposing is in the public interest. What is truly amazing is that even in this case Ian has managed to cock it up!
He went from a civil liberties campaigner to a self-serving political hack with one stupid newspaper interview. With his now famous lack of judgement he admitted that ‘going to jail hadn’t done his father’s political career any harm’. What Jnr doesn’t seem to understand is that he ain’t his Da, in fact if I were Ian Snr. I’d be looking into getting a DNA test, and soon!
