In 1998 we were divided into Green and Orange. In 2026, we are divided in multiple ways…

Momentous Times? Watershed?

I am not so sure. We have moved too quickly from saying that two heroic women should be foremost in our thoughts to promoting our own narratives. Scoring points.

Jeffrey Donaldson of course.

Over the years I have seen him a few times. Sitting on a bus while he paraded with his Brethren in Lisburn. Oddly I have seen him do some interviews on the bridge over the M1 motorway at Moira. Never actually met him. The nearest I came was on the traffic island at Great Victoria Street/Hope Street in Belfast. It seemed apt. Half way between the old Orange Order HQ on Dublin Road and the old Unionist Party HQ in Glengall Street. And around the time of Drumcree when he was rarely off the telly.

I was never a fan. That fish for a start. I never considered him a hypocrite. Hypocrites are not nice. I considered him a bigot. He was, I thought exactly what it said on the tin. Turns out he is also a hypocrite.

Ambitious certainly. South Down and Enoch Powell’s aide and then to Lagan Valley and Jim Molyneux’s aide. UDR  man. Orange and other Orders. Knighthood. Privy Council. Surely a peerage and an Orange banner with his portrait would eventually happen. If he was a Catholic, we would say that he was “in everything but the crib”. He climbed the greasy pole and eventually slid down the slippery slope.

The Spotlight documentary was over a year in the making. Seems unfair. Seemed like it had one eye on the Regional Documentary of the Year at TV Awards. If the verdict had been “not guilty”…….

All those interviews and all that footage of MI5 and MI6 and crossing Vauxall Bridge were already in the editing suite at Ormeau Avenue. A real trial in Newry and an alternative trial.

“Son of Mourne”, Kilkeel, young love and early marriage and a religious faith. Religion gets a bad break. Sometimes it is kinda wholesome.

Donaldson was always youthful looking but he had the demeanour of a middle aged man. No young person should have an interest in politics. Maybe he reminded me of…me.

Enoch Powell’s bagman. But Demographics effectively ruled out Kilkeel and South Down as a good political career. So decamping to Lagan Valley and bagman to Molyneux was a better option. UDR, Orange Order and endless tray bakes and of course that fish.

Daphne Trimble…she had her axe to grind. A thorn in her husbands side.

Mr Baxter the retired RUC guy explains intelligence and compromising individuals and levering people.

And the gay sauna in London. Seen by two senior detectives from Belfast? Really?

Seemingly women threw themselves at Jeffrey Donaldson. I think wives always think that women are after their men. But Eleanor tells an aide that “when the children grow up…divorce”. And that is kinda normal, isn’t it?

Mr Baxter sees Donaldson with wine bottles and two women in Westminster Hall. Jim Wells sees him drunk in Africa. Junior Paisley sees him drunk and trying to snog a MLA in Washington DC. And there is that projectile vomiting at the Mayor of Beijing.

Hardly criminal. But more serious is the young woman who claims she was exploited. It did not proceed and Poots and Paisley rightly I think defer to the young woman’s wishes.

The DUP effectively splits between a Poots faction and a Donaldson faction and leader Poots is overthrown after just three weeks by Donaldson. And maybe that is the watershed.

Decades have elapsed since there was Christian counselling where Donaldson was face to face with one of his victims. It seems clumsy and amateur where the religious dimension of GOD and Forgiveness took precedence over Justice. It would not happen now.

The Presbyterian Church were more professional in 2023. The second victim and her husband did not name the abuser. But the Church and Police Officer called it.

Almost as an aside the Donaldson opposed the Framework Deal and appeared with Allister, Bryson and  Hoey in halls and on platforms.

And then he changed his mind. Donaldson and  the DUP were overly enthused about something that was not that much different from what they had previously rejected. What happened in 2023 and 2024? The media just seemed glad that the Stormont show was back on the road so no hard questions were asked although it looked like the Donaldson Deal was not worth the paper on which it was written.

Now Donaldson is in prison and his last TV appearance was walking into Newry Courthouse. Many of us will never see him again.

Prison is enough. We should not gloat that he is heckled by other inmates. Or living in fear. The gloating makes me uncomfortable Much less dignified than the only two heroines in this awful story.

I re-activated the Twitter/X thing. DUP and loyalists being teased and trolled. Memes on my Facebook. It is tacky.

Some would call it a pile on. We have had them before. The Storey funeral for example. But in the Donaldson case…it is just too serious.

There are genuine questions to be asked of the DUP and maybe UUP. And of the PSNI. And of  journalists. It seems extremely odd that Donaldsons four decades of hypocrisy was missed by the Stormont “lobby”.

Journalism is not merely Reporting. It is an intelligence gathering operation. Use the information at the right time. Is there ever a right time? The honourable member for North Tyrone is a drunk. The equally honourable member for West Antrim is a womaniser. But don’t tell the viewers, listeners and readers. It is none of their business…and besides journalists want to keep their jobs. Dismiss it as gossip and tittle tattle.

There was a time after 1998, when only the Peace Process mattered. We accepted the myth that “one side is as bad as the other”. It is hardly a carefully thought out analysis but it is one that got the Peace Process over the line. And we got all the nonsense…City of Culture. Tall Ships…don’t mention Casement Park. Somebody needs confidence building measures …and another survey.

Back in 1998. it was one side or the other …Irish Flag.  British Flag. The division was two nations.

Then it got complicated. Rainbow Flag. European Flag. Green issues. Womens Rights, Gay Rights,Language Rights. Racism, Migration, Brexit. Legacy issues, Palestine /Gaza/Israel. The Riight to Life. The Right to Die.

In 1998 we were divided into Green and Orange. In 2026, we are divided in multiple ways. I suppose that is progress.

But a person self-identifying as a middle of the road person could get away with the whole “one side is as bad as the other” in 1998. Harder for a self-identifying progressive to say that now.

I do not like the terms “PUL” and “CNR”. They may have been accurate at one time. Now they seem outdated. There might have been a time when one side was as toxic than the other. Is that still the case? Or is it merely that one side is dominated by a toxic politics.

The pile-ons?

We have always held back because the misdemeanours of one side is seen or needed to be seen as balancing the misdemeanours in the other side. Like it or not, the painful truth for moderates is that they need to a parity of distaste for both tribes.

When one tribe is actually more toxic than the other tribe, it damages the middle ground. Choices have to be made. Sitting on the fence is not a noble option.

But neither is gloating at the discomfort of ordinary decent people at the toxic nature of the politics offered to them.

Yet for those who style themselves “progressive” and wish to advance ideas. it might be time to put the boot in.

This is an Open Goal. The goalkeeper is out of position,

And we have the Paolo Di Canio decision. Be a good sport and not take advantage or Back of the Net.