To hell with the future, lets live in the past

Peter Robinson is a poor orator. After today’s conference speech he can claim full credit for being a bit of a waffler too.

It was a poor effort by the man who can claim to speak for the majority of unionists. Negative and backward looking, there was nothing new and little to give anyone except a died in the wool partisan something to enjoy.

The biggest cheer came for the call for agreed candidates in Fermanagh South Tyrone and South Belfast. The DUP faithful like a good old sectarian headcount. Hardly the voice of the future.

It may appeal to the grass roots but I suspect the vast majority of under 40’s from all sides and none will feel no connection whatsoever with his words. The question is of course, where is the alternative?

It reminds me of the old poem by Maurice Craig, himself a Protestant liberal and proud northerner:

 Red brick in the suburb, white horse on the wall,
Italian marble in the grand city hall;
O stanger from England, why stand ye aghast?
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast.

We swore by King William, there’d never be seen
An all Ireland parliament at College Green
And at Stormont we’re nailing the flag to the mast.
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast.

This city that harbours our hopes and our fears
Was knocked up from the swamp in the last hundred years;
But the last shall be first and the first shall be last;
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast

The bricks they may bleed and the rain it may weep
And the damp Lagan fog lulls the city to sleep.
It’s to Hell with the future, we’ll live in the past
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast.