Where are all those weapons when you really need them?
Robin Livingstone
Into the West
Andersonstown News
27/11/2006
I have no idea how much of my hard-earned money is spent by the British government on security, but it’s a lot. My heart isn’t usually warmed by the physical manifestation of my security tax – Trevors in all-night garages, British soldiers fighting locals outside dances in Lisburn. That kind of thing.
I wasn’t at Stormont for the historic/crunch (delete as applicable) November 24 deadline on Friday, but if I had have been that was certainly one time I’d have been delighted to see some armed police or even some special forces types on the scene. But as ever, they’re never there when you need them.
I don’t know what was in Michael Stone’s mind when he decided to do a Rambo at Parliament Buildings, but I’ve seen the pictures and I know for sure what was in his eyes – madness.
You have to think the whole thing was a stunt pulled off by a publicity-crazed psycho fed up because the Sunday papers have grown tired writing about his killings, paintings, books, lovers male and female and whatever you’re having yourself. The Browning 9mm that he brought with him was an imitation, but the pipe bombs in the holdall were real. But while the civilian security guards who brought him down and subdued him until the Trevors arrived showed extraordinary bravery, they weren’t exactly Navy Seals.
Along with countless others, I watched in stunned disbelief as the most infamous multiple killer in the North, who had just made his way into Stormont carrying a gun and a grip bag, was tackled by three middle-aged blokes and a woman who had just had her nails painted a very fetching fire-engine red. As the cameras rolled and they laboured to hold him on the wet ground at the top of the Stormont steps, it first appeared to me as if they were trying to tickle Stone into submission, and at one stage it seemed for all the world as though they were giving him the bumps.
Where the Trevors and the British army were is anybody’s guess. While it is true that security at Stormont is provided by civilian guards and not the PSNI, you’d like to think that the Trevors have an emergency response protocol for the seat of government – a rapid-response plan to be put into action should the Hucklebucks decide to launch their own Tet Offensive by taking over the great wedding cake on the hill. But apparently not, because for some considerable time after Stone threw his grip bag into the Great Hall and then did a Marcel Marceau in the revolving doors, he was rolling around on the floor with four I.D. checkers armed with nothing more than their laminated passes and government Biros.
If you ask me, I think the Trevors were secretly delighted. By the time Stone was being taken away down the Stormont drive in the back of a cop car, Ian Paisley Jnr had decided it was the Shinners’ fault for not wanting the PSNI about the place. And with the real possibility of a functioning Executive in the building some time next year, it’s likely that a root-and-branch review of Stormont security will now get under way. And Deputy First Minister McGuinness may well have to bid a cheery good morning to Trevor on his way into work in the morning after all.
As for Stone, he’s had his licence revoked, he’s been charged with multiple counts of attempted murder and he’s back in prison, no doubt for a very long time. At the risk of being accused of rubbing it in, I think that’s not enough. Given that during his last interview with UTV he was hobbling about on a stick, and given that days later he made it up those steep steps without his stick and carrying a gun, a knife, a can of spray paint and a bag of bombs, surely they should take a look at his DLA as well.
robin@irelandclick.com
