The 5th Column

DUP throne

KEEN to lift the lid on the inside stories, it is our duty to report that there is a stinker of a rumour going around the election newsrooms.

It is said that one DUP bog standard Assembly candidate has installed a Union Jack toilet seat in his house.

It smells of dirty tricks to us.

Burnside splits his sides

ULSTER UNIONIST anti-Agreement candidate David Burnside lectured reporters after the 'Fuss at the Bus' handbag swinging between the UUP and DUP at Trimble's Glengall Street bunker last week.

"This bickering and public in-fighting is a massive turn-off to the unionist population," Davy intoned gravely. Then he dashed off to join Jeffrey Donaldson in launching their manifesto attacking their party's pro-Agreement position.

Hip operation

THE AGEING POPSTERS of the SDLP came up with a breathtaking marketing ploy to try and poach some of Sinn Féin's youth vote.

Ten thousand DVDs have been released to spice up the SDLP's promotional push. And what chart-topping goodies are on the SDLP DVD? The party's party political broadcast.

The DVD also offers anyone listening to its off-key message the chance to win tickets for this month's Belfast Odyssey Arena to see Justin Timberlake, the idol of 12-year-old teenyboppers.

The SDLP spin doctors laughingly called the DVD wheeze 'Rock Your Vote'. Should have called it 'SDLP on the Rocks'.

Frankly silly

INDEPENDENT UNIONIST Councillor Frank McCoubrey has launched court papers to try and have Gerry Adams ousted as MP for West Belfast, for keeping to his pre-election pledge of not taking his seat.

Now Frankie and friends may not have actually voted for Adams (then again, maybe they did) but they are mightily miffed that Gerry doesn't take his place in the Westminster sleeping chamber to champion the rights of West Belfast there.

As he lodged his legal papers, Frankie says that Gerry has failed to represent the Shankill in the House of Commons and ludicrously claims that, in not doing so, has abused the rights of people in "one of the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom".

He believes the MP should not have stood for election, or have been allowed to, in the knowledge he would not take the Oath of Allegiance to the British queen, which is required for MPs to take their seats in the House of Commons.

Frankie said: "We have people on the Shankill who still have to use outside toilets. Only three children from the area passed their 11-plus last year. We have drugs, joy riding and mass unemployment, and lost Mackies, O'Hara's Bakery, Finlay Packings and Anderson's Blinds and Shutters since Mr Adams became MP in 1997."

So now we know the power of parliament in London. There's no unemployment, factory closures, drugs or joy-riding where Messrs Paisley, Trimble and the SDLP take their seats.

And those people suffering with outside toilets must have only moved in after Gerry became MP. Otherwise the ever-vigilant Frank would have launched a similar challenge to Adams's predecessors, the SDLP's Joe Hendron and Gerry Fitt.

'Bolton Wanderer' charged

UDA REFUGEE Ian Truesdale, one of those who sought sanctuary in England and became known as the 'Bolton Wanderers', has been charged with the murder in North Belfast last Christmas of Jonathan Stewart during the UDA feud.

The murder victim was the boyfriend of Truesdale's daughter.

Irish Times collared

ARE THE TOFFS at the Irish Times, the 'paper of record', sinking to the level of the 5th Column by giving people in its straight news stories colourful nicknames?

Tuesday's news report of the previous day's proceedings of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry referred to former Derry IRA Volunteer as "Mr Gerry 'Mad Dog' Doherty".

Now we note the Irish Times's respectful "Mr" but Gerry's family surely didn't give him the middle name 'Mad Dog' when he was baptised in church (can you imagine the priest's face at the font?).

To be fair, the Times restrained itself and continued afterwards to refer to "Mr Doherty" rather than "Mr Mad Dog", but to be equally fair, we didn't see the same reporting rules applied to other figures in the public eye and Irish Times news stories that day. For instance, why not "UUP leader David 'Trembler' Trimble"? Or "Tánaiste Mary 'Slasher' Harney"? Or "Finance Minister 'Champagne Charlie' McCreevy"? Or "corrupt Dublin planning official George 'Fixer' Redmond"?

Tabloid tawdriness is the trademark of the 5th Column. But is the Irish Times now going to the dogs?

Steady Eddie

THE Bloody Sunday Inquiry also heard from another former Volunteer, Eddie Dobbins.

A British lawyer cross-examining Eddie seemed to be amazed that, on Bloody Sunday, Eddie and a handful of IRA Volunteers had been stationed in the Creggan to defend the are in the event of a sneak British Army incursion.

"So yourself and three other men were left behind to defend the Creggan against a British Army regiment if the case arose?" the British brief asked incredulously.

"Yes," Eddie replied. "I tried to tell the men all morning that there was too many of us."