The WOMAN TAKEN in ADULTERY

There is no sanctimonious little twerp anywhere in these islands more deserving of a come-uppance than Peter Robinson. The former estate agent became First Minister of the Northern Ireland assembly some eighteen months ago in succession to his mentor, Dr Ian Paisley. He also sits in the Commons where he is the longest-serving Belfast MP (31 years) in the history of the province. His wife Iris, to whom he has been married for rising 40 years, is also a member both at Stormont and Westminster. They like to be known as “the first couple” in Belfast, but in London they are more often referred to – due to the extravagance of their expenses claims, their combined income from various sources (above half a million per year) and their ostentatious expenditure – as “the Swish Family Robinson”.

"It's a little secret, just the Robinsons' affair" [Paul Simon]: Just after Christmas, Iris Robinson announced that she was withdrawing from public life “for mental health reasons”. Last Wednesday, aware that a BBC Northern Ireland current affairs reporter and producer knew a good deal about the circumstances of her withdrawal, she issued an emotional statement, admitting to an extramarital affair that she blamed on her mental state. She had, she declared, tried to take her own life back in March. Ahead of the broadcast of the programme (in Northern Ireland on Friday evening; available throughout the UK on BBC iPlayer until next Friday), the notion was put about that Mrs Robinson’s lover had been “a local businessman”.



Iris Robinson not (I think) from her own campaign literature

Thereafter, Iris Robinson went to ground, or was put to ground. The Sunday Times reports her holed up in the French ski resort of Chamonix where, interestingly, Elin Nordegren repaired in face of the unfolding publicity about the affairs of her husband, Tiger Woods. Peter Robinson now took control of the story, decided to play it as if all were open and above board and invited the BBC’s camera and other selected reporters to his study where, dressed in studiedly casual clothes (the kind an estate agent would affect), he unburdened himself of his own statement.

The pearl at its centre is this passage: “I love my wife. I have always been faithful to her. In a spirit of humility and repentance, Iris sought my forgiveness, she took responsibility upon herself alone for her actions and I have forgiven her. More important, I know she has sought and received god’s forgiveness. I only ask, if people feel they must judge her, that they find within themselves, as I have done, the gift of doing so with mercy and compassion”.



The Elin Nordegren of Stormont

"Jesus loves you more than you will know" [Simon}: That the almighty turns out to be liberal on adultery is clearly to the enormous advantage of the Robinsons. What has been historically a bull point for the Unionists in the perceived wisdom of said almighty is that he is reliably supportive of moral superiority. Moral superiority has ever been the central plank of Unionism in Ireland, politically as well as spiritually. Peter Robinson, as may be detected in his statement, is so in thrall to moral superiority that, even in her agony, he cannot forebear publicly to score moral points off his wife (“I have always been faithful to her”) as well as off everyone else (“I only ask … people … [to] find within themselves, as I have done … mercy and compassion”). As I say, a sanctimonious little twerp.

Darragh MacIntyre’s report for Spotlight, produced by Mary McKeagney, appears to pull no punches. What Peter Robinson called “Iris’s inappropriate relationship” was with someone who only became anything resembling “a local businessman” as a result of Mrs Robinson’s connections. He is Kirk McCambley, the son of Iris’s butcher, a boy she had known since he was nine. In 2008, Bill the butcher died and Iris took Kirk under her wing; there is no mention in the story of Kirk’s mother. They became lovers. Iris was 59, Kirk 19, so she was well old enough to be his grandmother.



Local businessman, aged 19

The Bible story of the woman taken in adultery is the source of Christ’s admonition “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” and we shall occupy no moral high ground concerning the sexual aspects of this story, save in this regard. Iris Robinson, rather inconveniently for her present circumstances, has been most widely known until the present shemozzl for a thoroughly unforgiving stance on the sexual morality of others. On the very morning that her husband was succeeding to the post of first minister, Mrs Robinson was telling BBC Radio Ulster that homosexuality was “an abomination”. She advocated that gay people should seek a cure for their condition. On another occasion, she told BBC Radio 5: “I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals, trying to turn away from what they are engaged in”. In the Commons, she announced that “there can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing children”. It would be instructive to know whether Mrs Robinson’s “very lovely psychiatrist” has been able to winkle out at what age, between nine and 19, the butcher’s boy first became sexually alluring to her.

"Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs Robinson" [Simon]: Iris Robinson is a born-again Christian, unlike her husband who is a life-long evangelical, but as we know it is frequently the converts who become, metaphorically or otherwise, the suicide bombers. Iris’s deployment of the term “abomination” in describing gay people has its origin, as you might guess, in The Bible, specifically Leviticus 20:13: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them”. Most unfortunately for the sainted Iris, we find this in Leviticus just three verses earlier: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death”.


Peter Robinson tries out an AK-47, Israel 1986

Such death is not sanctioned by scripture if it is administered by one’s own hand. Here is the First Book of Corinthians 6:19: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body”. In other words, Iris, suicide isn’t smiled on much in the scriptures either.

On the morning of the night in March when Mrs Robinson attempted to do away with herself with an overdose, Mr Robinson ascertained that she was conscious, phoned her aide, Selwyn Black, and then left for Stormont. She was hence alone until Black and paramedics arrived, the latter determining that she ought to be hospitalised. While others took care of her, Robinson was making jokes at the despatch box – "Going to the candidates' debates" [Simon]. He rationalised this callous behaviour in his statement thus: “I’ve never allowed my personal life to interfere with my work”. A sanctimonious little twerp, as I say.

"We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files" [Simon]: So far so simple. Now it grows murkier, as these things will. Using her political power, Iris solicited £50,000 start-up capital from two local entrepreneurs, so as to set up young Master McCambley in a restaurant in a fashionable riverside development. McCambley won the contract for the enterprise against some competition, despite having no experience in business or as a restaurateur. Iris Robinson sat on the council that awarded the contract. Having secured his situation, Iris then demanded a ten percent facility fee in cash. In every detail itemised in this paragraph, she was either breaking the law or breaching government regulation or both.



Iris and Peter hear of the sad death of Stephen Gately

Not surprisingly, the relationship with McCambley soon broke down. “Just cut links with Kirk” she texted Black. “God’s word was very clear on it”. You might think it a pity that the almighty didn’t find it within himself to be a bit more upfront at the outset of the relationship. Has he not heard of stable doors and horses bolting? Iris’s reaction was to demand the return of the £45,000, partly to clear her own debts, partly to be donated as conscience money to the church; as it happens, in this case, to the church run by her sister-in-law. The church never received any payment. At this point, the Robinsons were holidaying at their Florida flat so all the arrangements had to be conducted by Selwyn Black who, understandably, began to object that, as a former RAF chaplain, he didn’t think that looking after an adulterer’s financial affairs fell within his sense of what was proper, let alone his job description.

"Where have you gone, Ken Maginnis, oh?" [after Simon]: Back in Belfast, Iris Robinson began blatantly lobbying for contracts on behalf of the surviving creditor who had bankrolled McCambley’s business. It was at around this point that Peter Robinson became involved (and she attempted suicide). Discovering that his wife was misusing funds, contacts and contracts, he ought to have made a full breast of it to the committee overseeing propriety or otherwise in ministerial dealings. But he did not. “They both knew the consequences of what they had been involved in,” Black told Spotlight at the programme’s conclusion, “and did nothing to address that circumstance. It goes right to the heart of credibility in Northern Ireland”.



Marilyn (aka Peter Robinson but perhaps a different one)

At least one section of the community is having a deserved good laugh at the expense of the Robinsons. A correspondent wrote to The Guardian on Friday: “May I be the first homosexual to genuinely wish Iris Robinson MP a complete and swift recovery?” And the gay monthly magazine Attitude, in a spirit of merry satire, has invited Kirk McCambley to pose as its next cover pin-up.

"Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose" [Simon]: In sum, this lurid affair pans out as a curious mirror image of the Tiger Woods scandal, this time with the wife dallying with the parochially Irish equivalent of a nightclub hostess and the husband playing the martyred, wronged but vindictive partner, so it is poetic that Mrs Woods and Mrs Robinson should flee to the same glamorous refuge. So far, Elin Nordegren has emerged in rather better shape than Peter Robinson whose political future is very much in the balance. Whether, with its tradition of moral superiority, the Democratic Unionist Party will continue to support him must be in doubt. Perhaps they will say to him, as they have already said to his wife, what Christ said to the woman taken in adultery: “go, and sin no more”.