Lurid coverage of the aftermath of Iris Robinson's affair is rife on the internet, writes DAN KEENAN, Northern News Editor
‘NORTHERN IRELAND’S First Lady is a whore”, screams the headline on gossip website Perez Hilton. It is only one of a flood of jokes, texts, stories and more – many of them crass, inaccurate, slanderous and libellous – which are everywhere in the wake of the Robinson affair.
The picture under the offending headline on Hilton’s website portrays a crudely altered version of the well-known image of the Robinsons laughing together in the First Minister’s office at Stormont following Peter’s accession last year.
Dubbing Iris Robinson the "Celtic Cougar", Hilton writes of Peter Robinson's decision to take six weeks to care for his mentally ill wife: "To add insult to injury to the First Lady who believes homosexuality is worse than child abuse, British gay magazine Attitudeis trying to get the 19-year-old to be the cover boy. Ha!"
It is crude stuff, and typical of much of the lurid reaction to the sexual/political scandal which is going global. Locally, however, the controversy surrounding her links with developers, her affair with a teenager, her finances and the resulting political whirlwind which could yet flatten the Stormont institutions is being met with a mixture of shock, amusement and, of course, anger.
To be sure there is a hefty dose of Schadenfreude in there too, especially from those outraged by Iris’s dismissal of homosexuality as “an abomination” and her claims that gay people could be “turned around” with psychiatric intervention.
Some are only too happy to quote Leviticus back at her in relation to adultery. It’s not often that conservative and liberal rivals in the great personal morality debate resort to the Pentateuch for ammunition – but this is Northern Ireland, and the notion of an eye for an eye is still current.
The gay online news service Pink News has called her the "wicked witch of the north" while gay rights campaigner and one-time Westminster candidate Peter Tatchell managed to find personal sympathy for her "terrible" plight before offering the following advice: "It is a great pity that this painful experience has not softened her heart towards the suffering of lesbians and gay men." Others, particularly in the wider nationalist community, have lost little sleep over the humiliation of Peter Robinson. On Radio Ulster the morning after the BBC Spotlightprogramme, a caller suggested Iris Robinson was using her mental illness to avoid questioning.
While still DUP deputy leader and key strategist during the 2003 Assembly elections, Peter Robinson promised a “shock and awe” campaign aimed at “regime change within unionism”. His citing of battlefield language in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq was deliberate. It made him sound and look the hardest and most ruthless of political fighters.
It’s a long way from that image to the broken and diminished figure sitting at home last week before the cameras, bereft of the trappings of office, explaining the plight he and his family face.
But for all that, there is a strong tendency to regard that Robinson performance, including his account of the night Iris tried to kill herself, as less than the whole truth. “I don’t know one man in a thousand who, if that happened to them, would go to work the next day,” said one caller.
A Facebook group is campaigning to make the song from The Graduate– Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs RobinsonNumber 1 in the charts. Formed only last week it already has 21,000 members, of which the odd one has a streak of sympathy. "Ah, leave her alone, she's depressed," advises Andy. But it's a call easily overwhelmed by Steve's attitude. "Hey Iris, what goes around comes around."
