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Ian Paisley Jnr: the Pee Flynn of the North?

  • 26-06-2019 11:38am
    #1
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭


    Or is Michael Lowry a better analogy? Given that his constituents are still electing him perhaps it is.

    In today's Irish Times, they're reporting on the BBC Spotlight follow up to who actually paid for his luxury holiday*** in the Maldives in 2016 (don't get this mixed up with who paid the estimated £100,000 cost for his two luxury holidays to Sri Lanka in 2013): Ian Paisley faces fresh questions over payment of Maldives trips


    And it seems, the answer is, despite Paisley initially claiming that the Maldives trip was paid by himself and by a "long-term friend" who was unconnected to his work, that:

    Ian Paisley holiday 'funded by Maldives government minister'

    Before this Maldives scandal broke, the Irish Times wondered was the Sri Lanka scandal ''One scandal too many'. It's impressive in its own right that a public representative who is supposed to represent some of the most ignorant and marginalised people in 17th-century 21st-century western Europe can with ease enjoy £100,000 being spent on his holidays in one year. So much for all those Calvinist values of frugality and dislike of ostentation. His cupidity must really disgust some of his constituents.

    Moreover, Paisley's corruption has been going on many, many years now. As long ago as 2007 he was widely believed to have been in the pay of at least one property developer, Seymour Sweeney, when he was lobbying for a development near the Giants Causeway and this led to his resignation: Ian Paisley jnr quits and denies wrongdoing (2008)

    Could this week's scandal be the straw that broke the camel's back? He was suspended from Westminster for 30 days last year for failing to declare gifts from the Sri Lankan government. Paisley at the time stated it was a "genuine mistake". Now, he has been discovered to have not declared gifts from a government minister in the Maldives. What is the next step that the Westminster Parliament or ethics' committee can take?


    *** Pluralise that. The BBC article above says that Paisley and his family also received at least one other free luxury holiday to the Maldives, this time in 2014. And, furthermore, he did not register that "complimentary" stay with parliament either. Expect much more dirt to follow now.


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