I mentioned in my 12th July post yesterday the braindead teeny-bopper with the UFF flag wrapped around her while I was watching the Orange parade head towards the field. When I returned to watch the parade on its return leg, I'm sad to say the situation had deteriorated quite a bit further.

How not to encourage respect for the Orange tradition

By the time I got to the main road where the parade would pass, a crowd of morons had already, in the time-honoured loyalist tradition of acting without thinking, erected banners of the UVF/YCV (and not the historic versions) as well as the UDA, as well as waving flags from those same organisations. It seems some of the braindead populace of Belfast are determined to oppose any efforts by the Orange Order to broaden the appeal of the 12th July celebrations.

Come on lads, wise up. The organisers want to get rid of all this bullshit from the celebrations. It's not like they're planning to include Irish tricolours in the parade or ask Sinn Fein (either directly or via their "residents groups") to give speeches at the field on the evils of Protestantism. It's in everyone's interest to ditch the paramilitary glorification. That includes the Orange Order, the loyalist communities and of course Joe Q Protestant who just wants to bring his kids for a day out to watch the bands without exposing them to banners or chants glorifying murderers.

As I've been trying to keep a (relatively) open mind on the link between the UUP and PUP in the non-assembly up to now, I found this piece from Alex Kane in the Belfast Telegraph quite interesting (hat-tip to Pete Baker). Kane is one of many members obviously concerned about moves by the UUP leadership to align the party with the political wing of the UVF and seems to be talking a lot of sense.

I particularly liked his statement that the UUP should not measure itself by the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of the DUP. It's a good point to make, particularly for those of us who are often too instinctively defend the UUP simply because they seem to be the lesser of two evils.

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This is one for the fans of loyalist paramilitaries out there. On Saturday, the Mount Vernon UVF sent an 8-man gang into Rathcoole to torture Robert McCord for information he didn't have - ie the location of his estranged cousin, Raymond.

Paramilitaries still blight loyalist communities.
Image adapted from wikipedia image by E Asterion. CC-ASA licence.

Robert McCord (in his 50s) was

• Stripped from the waist up
• Beaten about the head
• Burned with cigarette lighters

... all For God And Ulster, of course.

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Another twist in the shacking up of the UUP and PUP in Stormont has seen 25 year old Ulster Unionist party officer and Down councillor Peter Bowles is defecting to the Conservatives in protest over the party's new links to the UVF. As well as becoming the first Ulster Unionist to defect, he will also become the Conservatives' only current elected representative in Northern Irleand.

Interestingly Bowles has chosen a party that has traditionally struggled to attract votes in Northern Ireland over the 'easy option' of joining unionist rivals in the DUP. I for one hope it pays off.

I've been watching a couple of threads over at the Young Unionists blog with interest recently, following David Ervine's decision to join the UUP grouping in Stormont, allowing the Ulster Unionists to claim an extra seat in any potential executive.

I can't make up my mind on the merits of this idea. Frankly the motive of taking one of the 10 executive seats from Sinn Fein under the d'Hondt formula is about as appealing a motivation as one could find in Northern Ireland politics, but the fact that Ervine is the leader of a party with links to active terrorists is a very obvious and very large fly in the ointment. Nationalists and republicans have been understandably angry, accusing the UUP of double-standards - the fact is: so have many unionists.

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Sinn Fein/IRA/Republican criminality has been under the spotlight for some time now with the leadership of the DUP blaming such activity, along with the lack of support for policing, for the lack faith they have in the prospect of sharing power with Sinn Fein, however the police seem to be more worried about loyalist crime.

While Sinn Fein are showing signs of slow, reluctant acceptance of the rule of law, loyalists still seem to be having trouble with the same proposition. Figures released recently show that loyalists have been responsible for 90% of 'security-related shootings' in the last year.

152 people have suffered punishment attacks in the last year, split equally between beatings and shootings. Of these, loyalists have been responsible for 92% of the shootings and 75% of the beatings, while such attacks in republican areas are "almost zero".

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