Posted on 01/08/2010 9:04:06 PM PST by nickcarraway
The Lock Keeper's Inn outside Belfast is an attractive but otherwise unremarkable café. Serving up the usual Northern Irish fare of sausage rolls and stew, it's a place to stop for a quiet coffee after walking along the nearby riverbank. A world away, it would seem, from the bitter feuds of Northern Irish politics. But following a series of remarkable revelations this week, the inn is at the center of a scandal that could threaten the career of Northern Ireland's top politician.
On Thursday, a BBC television program called Spotlight issued a report accusing First Minister Peter Robinson's wife Iris of breaking the law by failing to disclose her financial interest in a 2008 business deal that helped launch the café. The report alleged that Iris Robinson — then aged 59 and, like her husband, a well-known politician in Northern Ireland — had obtained $80,000 from two property developers for a 19-year-old man, Kirk McCambley, with whom she had been having an affair. According to the report, the teenager allegedly used most of the money to set up the café but saved $8,000 to give back to his lover, the appropriately named Mrs. Robinson.
The revelation followed a series of other disclosures about the Robinsons' private lives over the past couple of weeks. On Dec. 28, Iris Robinson, who currently serves in both the British Parliament and Northern Ireland assembly, announced she would be ending her 20-year political career, saying she had been suffering from "serious bouts of depression." Then, on Jan. 6, a handful of television journalists were invited to meet Peter Robinson at his home outside Belfast. Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Northern Ireland's largest political party, is known for his clinical, dispassionate public image.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Former Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Pinho visits Northern Ireland.
Being a wronged spouse helps you if your a woman not a man. (Polls showed the more Bill Clinton's extramarital activities were mentioned, the better Hillary Clinton did in her 2000 Senate race)
Guilty. Maybe
Cougars on the loose!!!
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson???
She looks less guilty in post #3.
Oh,,LOL...I Love your tagline!
My parents always told me to think of the starving millions in China when trying to force me to eat.
For 59, that is seriously not guilty.
Good grief, she reminds me of my time in the UK. She’s got that British chick look... I suppose that in her case, it’s a British cougar look. In my experience, shamefully guilty until the third round at the pub and then it’s “oh what the hell.”
Me, her, and a bar of Irish Spring and I’ll
let you know a verdict.
Indeed. In as much as the offense took place overseas, I didn't think it fair to apply the standards of American jurisprudence ;-)
NOT GUILTY
A humorous note about Miss Cuckold: British gays apparently hate her as she stated that homosexuality is more vile than child abuse. Now, 19 is not a child, but whoah nelly.
For 59 - not guilty by any measure.
As me dear old Irish granny would have said of this one, “Ye brazen hussy I’ll give ye me belt!’’.
I concur with your expert analysis....
59 looks fine to me now that I’m 54, but when I was 19, attractiveness started tapering off at 35, with 40 being the limit.
No. Close, though.
I heard about the Celtic Tiger but now we have the Irish Cougar!
Older than me but a good looking lady.
Not Guilty.
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