Iris Robinson and Kirk McCambley

If you don’t know what this post is about and you want to, and live in the UK, click here for BBC iPlayer of last nights Spotlight Investigation into Iris Robinson MP, MLA, Councillor and wife of the First Minister of Northern Ireland.For the rest of you I am assuming you watched the programme.

In a way Peter Robinson may not be a dead man walking politically, but as a husband he is seriously neutered. If his wife has done something financially inappropriate he really needs to distance himself from Iris, or his position will be untenable within his party. Having said that, he probably can’t do that as the likelihood of Iris attempting suicide may be high. I really feel for him as a husband. To make things worse, everywhere he goes in Ireland, North and South there will be people only too happy to remind him of his wife’s infidelity.

The jokes have already started and everyone is telling them, from died in the wool DUP sympathisers to Republicans and the ordinary Unionist and Nationalist. I suspect that Republican activists are sharing sketches as we speak for murals and graffiti, and the LGBT community have had Iris is their sights after her comments that ‘Counselling can change homosexuals’, and are already seeking her former paramour Kirk McCambley for the cover of a gay magazine. Belfast is a small enough place that if Kirk McCambley lives there, Peter Robinson will likely bump into him if he steps out his front door.

It is our own Clinton and Lewinski scandal, even though the genders are reversed and the politician wasn’t the head honcho of Northern Ireland, it was her husband who was the head of the free world. And so far no cigar has been mentioned, or a suit. In fact it’s not much like the Clinton/Lewinski scandal, but it’s as close as we are ever likely to get in Northern Ireland.

I watched the programme expecting it to be mostly about parliamentary expenses, and even though I was aware of Kirk McCambley’s identity from the blogosphere from mid afternoon, I still sat with my mouth open for most of the program. Let’s remember that they are just allegations at the minute and no one should sit as judge and jury. If the law has been broken a court will ultimately decide that, not a television programme.

Using Tweetdeck and searching the hashtags #Robbo and #IrisRobinson during the airing of the programme made it seem like I was watching it in a cinema. Lots of comments mentioned the words ’schadenfreude’ or ‘epicaricacy’ and none of the tweets I saw were supportive beyond those from gay men and straight or bisexual women calling Iris a ‘Cougar’, and hoping that they could pull 19 year old men when they were nearly 60.

I was far from convinced with Dr Selwyn Black’s explanation as to why he waited until now to go public, even though he didn’t come across as  a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind. In the normal course of events there would be ‘more to come’ on Selwyn Black, and I guess there will be if the DUP press machinery chooses to take that path. I would personally counsel against it, as it won’t reverse what happened and unless Selwyn Black decides to run for election in Strangford, it really isn’t a party issue.

I was shocked to see Kirk McCambley interviewed, and I suspect that it wont be the last time he will be interviewed in the media. It would be no surprise if he retained Max Clifford as I would be surprised if his emotional attachment to Iris Robinson is so great that he will baulk at revealing further details. Having said that I don’t know the guy at all so I could be wrong.

One thing that disturbs me is who was playing who? Did Kirk McCambley use Iris Robinson to get money to get into business? Why did Kirk McCambley need these funds if his late father ran a well-known butchery business in East Belfast and had recently died? How ‘brief’ was this brief affair? Was Robinson using McCambley to make her feel young and/or to get back at Peter Robinson for a perceived lack of attention? Was this the first time she had done this? Was her suicide attempt a parasuicide? It didn’t seem that serious an attempt given that she was still at home for some time after it had happened, until a locum and her own GP arrived almost simultaneously after her husband had went to work.  No immediate screaming sirens, no intensive care, no husband with her every moment in hospital.  A justified response to a parasuicide or the actions of a harsh or calculating husband looking to protect the ‘brand’ ?

God forbid if the Robinson’s divorce, and seek to air their marital dirty linen in public. Allegations and cross allegations, affidavits being ‘leaked’ a la the McCartney divorce. It could have it all.

If I were in the media I would be examining the position of the media having access to the family courts in Northern Ireland, and doing something about it now rather than later.

Tagged as: Journalists, Northern Ireland