Sir, - At the election count for the Upper Bann constituency in Banbridge the treatment meted out to the leader of one of our political parties, David Trimble, was reminiscent of the early days in the Munich beer cellars of the 1930s.
The grotesque ranting of the defeated candidate had overtones of thwarted Anschluss rather than what we might have expected from a disappointed candidate in a democratic election.
Were the crowd in Banbridge saying that the people of Northern Ireland had no right to endorse the Good Friday Belfast Agreement?
David Trimble has had responsibility for managing the outcome of the ratification of the agreement by a significant majority of the people; it is not therefore the responsibility of any one man.
Rather, it was the people who voted for the agreement which had been put before them as the result of debate in which, across a deep historical fault-line, parties went as far as they could stretch to reach accommodation with each other. David Trimble happened to be the leader of one of the parties which favoured it as the best compromise/agreement which could be achieved at the time but he had only one vote like the rest of us when it came to endorsing it. As for representatives of any party which refused to participate in that debate, it is difficult to have much sympathy for them if indeed the outcome has not been to their liking.
Though the intimidation demonstrated by opponents of Brid Rodgers in the West Tyrone constituency and the alleged "fixing" of votes in the Fermanagh-South Tyrone constituency are rotten to the core it was the picture of embryonic fascism being deployed at the Upper Bann constituency at the counting centre in Banbridge that is the main focus of these few comments.
God was brought into the voting strength in a number of constituencies perhaps it is therefore appropriate to conclude by thanking the Almighty that David Trimble and his wife were not badly injured as a result of their experience and to congratulate Mrs Trimble in particular for the courage and steadfastness which she showed when confronted by such intimidation. - Yours, etc.,
John Robb, New Ireland Group, Charlotte Street, Ballymoney, Co Antrim.