Well, what a bagful of goodies Santa has brought you - namely, the results of the 14th annual very irreverent, downright rude and totally satirical Coulter’s Coveted Cock-Up Cups and Awards for 2023.
The Top Tit Trophy goes to the DUP for failing to jump at the almost £4 billion boost from Westminster to kick start the Stormont Executive and ensure the hard-pressed workers and those struggling with the cost of living crisis had a pleasant Christmas.
Let’s face reality; forget all the DUP spin about wanting to get the right deal for Northern Ireland and that talks were not over and there’s still wriggle room to make changes to the Windsor Framework.
The real reason the DUP wouldn’t trigger a pre-Christmas Executive relates to the splits in the party and the backlash from hardliners in the TUV and extreme loyalism. It’s amazing what a wee poster can do!
Significantly, there’s no messing about with the rapidly declining Ulster Unionist Party - it collects The Asshole or Elbow Plate for having policies which no one understands what the UUP now stands for! Will the UUP go into opposition if there’s a new Executive, or take up a ministerial post? It is a liberal unionist movement, or socially progressive … and so the list of confusing policies goes on and on.
And as for the Shinners, they march away with the Satan Under The Sofa Shield - sponsored this year by the North Korean Positive Thinking Department - for Sinn Fein’s ability to totally rewrite Irish history leaving out the ‘RA and clamping down on any media outlets which dare to criticise the political wing of the republican movement.
Mind you, the militant wing of Christian fundamentalism pushed the Shinners all the way for this award. A section of the so-called street preaching fraternity have taken up the theological cudgels left behind by 1950s American McCarthyism; its no longer Reds under the bed, but militant fundamentalists are now seeing satanic plots and deceptions in every aspect aspect of life - have you tried looking in the mirror lately, lads?
And what of the poor Stoops? Has the party with no seats in any future Stormont Executive managed to feature this year? Yup, the SDLP does! By a squeak, the party scooped the Crumbs in the Barrel Cup for its disastrous showing in council elections this year, losing seats hand over fist to the Shinners. Makes you wonder, what’s the point of the SDLP. Indeed, after next year’s expected Westminster General Election, there may not be a decent Stoop party of any influence. Looks like the Foyle seat is already a goner!
And there’s a special award for the TUV, but it is only getting this cup as I don’t want any ‘sell-out’ posters plastered outside my home! This vote transfer unfriendly movement picks up The Spitting Feathers Plate for having the most positive policies as to how Northern Ireland should move forward as a community. I actually couldn’t find them, but as I say, I don’t want the hard lads in the middle of the night decorating my street lamps.
As the middle ground Alliance Party, it rolls home with the Avoid Pressing the Nuclear Button Shield for constantly dodging the question how it would vote in the event of a border poll. If my schoolboy geography is correct, east of the River Bann, it is Orange Alliance to get unionist transfers, and west of the Bann, it’s Green Alliance to soak up nationalist transfers.
Naturally, the Conservative party runs away with The Thick as Pig S-H One T Trophy for its sheer brilliance in converting an 80-seat plus Commons majority in the last General Election to a place where it is now facing electoral oblivion in a single Parliamentary term. What was a satirical jibe on the Alas show, namely a new Tory Party led by BoJo and Nigel Farage could be the only option in the future, otherwise the UK is looking at a Labour administration in power for possible a generation.
And this year’s Booby Prize goes to the struggling Dail coalition government of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for off-loading millions of pounds into Northern Ireland before the Shinners get their hands on a social housing budget and bankrupt the South within five years.
And being a preacher’s kid, no awards ceremony would be complete without something for religious folk and The Blasphemy and Heretics Memorial Cup is won jointly this year by the militant fringe of the pro-life movement and the ultra Right-wing faction of the militant fundamentalist street preacher movement.
As a Presbyterian minister’s son married to a Baptist pastor’s daughter, I was brought up on a diet of sensible and responsible open air Christian evangelism. But the strategies of both these joint winners have resulted in draconian laws having to be implemented in terms of licences for preaching on streets and safe access zones at health clinics.
The problem is that these laws and by-laws will affect all Christians, not just the lunatic fringes, who want to use open air evangelism as a means of preaching the Gospel or defending the rights of the unborn.
And so we come to the most prestigious of all - The Gobshite Cup - dedicated to those who criticise me the most as I’m a great believer in the freedom of the Press and in freedom of expression.
In spite of all the ‘shite pumping’ (sorry, that should read informed political comment!) about my published and broadcast work, The Gobshite Cup for 2023 goes to my co-host, Mattie James, on the new political satire radio show, Alas Coulter And James, which is broadcast on Sundays.
The amount of name-calling he’s heaped on me makes the horrors of growing up as a teenage minister’s son in the Seventies in the heartland of the north east Ulster Bible Belt pale into insignificance.
Most Sundays in the New Year, we’ll be on air in the North Coast from 1 pm and in the Newry, Portadown and ABC council region from 2 pm. Here’s the link.
A word of warning - this is not for the woke, fainthearted, or easily offended. It’s hard-hitting, edge of the knuckle political satire as at the age of 64, I really have become a grumpy old git!
Enjoy your turkey dinners. Even before I get to dessert, I’ve already received nominations for the 2024 awards from a right bunch of assholes (apologies, that should read experienced political activists and religious campaigners).
The Top Tit Trophy goes to the DUP for failing to jump at the almost £4 billion boost from Westminster to kick start the Stormont Executive and ensure the hard-pressed workers and those struggling with the cost of living crisis had a pleasant Christmas.
Let’s face reality; forget all the DUP spin about wanting to get the right deal for Northern Ireland and that talks were not over and there’s still wriggle room to make changes to the Windsor Framework.
The real reason the DUP wouldn’t trigger a pre-Christmas Executive relates to the splits in the party and the backlash from hardliners in the TUV and extreme loyalism. It’s amazing what a wee poster can do!
Significantly, there’s no messing about with the rapidly declining Ulster Unionist Party - it collects The Asshole or Elbow Plate for having policies which no one understands what the UUP now stands for! Will the UUP go into opposition if there’s a new Executive, or take up a ministerial post? It is a liberal unionist movement, or socially progressive … and so the list of confusing policies goes on and on.
And as for the Shinners, they march away with the Satan Under The Sofa Shield - sponsored this year by the North Korean Positive Thinking Department - for Sinn Fein’s ability to totally rewrite Irish history leaving out the ‘RA and clamping down on any media outlets which dare to criticise the political wing of the republican movement.
Mind you, the militant wing of Christian fundamentalism pushed the Shinners all the way for this award. A section of the so-called street preaching fraternity have taken up the theological cudgels left behind by 1950s American McCarthyism; its no longer Reds under the bed, but militant fundamentalists are now seeing satanic plots and deceptions in every aspect aspect of life - have you tried looking in the mirror lately, lads?
And what of the poor Stoops? Has the party with no seats in any future Stormont Executive managed to feature this year? Yup, the SDLP does! By a squeak, the party scooped the Crumbs in the Barrel Cup for its disastrous showing in council elections this year, losing seats hand over fist to the Shinners. Makes you wonder, what’s the point of the SDLP. Indeed, after next year’s expected Westminster General Election, there may not be a decent Stoop party of any influence. Looks like the Foyle seat is already a goner!
And there’s a special award for the TUV, but it is only getting this cup as I don’t want any ‘sell-out’ posters plastered outside my home! This vote transfer unfriendly movement picks up The Spitting Feathers Plate for having the most positive policies as to how Northern Ireland should move forward as a community. I actually couldn’t find them, but as I say, I don’t want the hard lads in the middle of the night decorating my street lamps.
As the middle ground Alliance Party, it rolls home with the Avoid Pressing the Nuclear Button Shield for constantly dodging the question how it would vote in the event of a border poll. If my schoolboy geography is correct, east of the River Bann, it is Orange Alliance to get unionist transfers, and west of the Bann, it’s Green Alliance to soak up nationalist transfers.
Naturally, the Conservative party runs away with The Thick as Pig S-H One T Trophy for its sheer brilliance in converting an 80-seat plus Commons majority in the last General Election to a place where it is now facing electoral oblivion in a single Parliamentary term. What was a satirical jibe on the Alas show, namely a new Tory Party led by BoJo and Nigel Farage could be the only option in the future, otherwise the UK is looking at a Labour administration in power for possible a generation.
And this year’s Booby Prize goes to the struggling Dail coalition government of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for off-loading millions of pounds into Northern Ireland before the Shinners get their hands on a social housing budget and bankrupt the South within five years.
And being a preacher’s kid, no awards ceremony would be complete without something for religious folk and The Blasphemy and Heretics Memorial Cup is won jointly this year by the militant fringe of the pro-life movement and the ultra Right-wing faction of the militant fundamentalist street preacher movement.
As a Presbyterian minister’s son married to a Baptist pastor’s daughter, I was brought up on a diet of sensible and responsible open air Christian evangelism. But the strategies of both these joint winners have resulted in draconian laws having to be implemented in terms of licences for preaching on streets and safe access zones at health clinics.
The problem is that these laws and by-laws will affect all Christians, not just the lunatic fringes, who want to use open air evangelism as a means of preaching the Gospel or defending the rights of the unborn.
And so we come to the most prestigious of all - The Gobshite Cup - dedicated to those who criticise me the most as I’m a great believer in the freedom of the Press and in freedom of expression.
In spite of all the ‘shite pumping’ (sorry, that should read informed political comment!) about my published and broadcast work, The Gobshite Cup for 2023 goes to my co-host, Mattie James, on the new political satire radio show, Alas Coulter And James, which is broadcast on Sundays.
The amount of name-calling he’s heaped on me makes the horrors of growing up as a teenage minister’s son in the Seventies in the heartland of the north east Ulster Bible Belt pale into insignificance.
Most Sundays in the New Year, we’ll be on air in the North Coast from 1 pm and in the Newry, Portadown and ABC council region from 2 pm. Here’s the link.
A word of warning - this is not for the woke, fainthearted, or easily offended. It’s hard-hitting, edge of the knuckle political satire as at the age of 64, I really have become a grumpy old git!
Enjoy your turkey dinners. Even before I get to dessert, I’ve already received nominations for the 2024 awards from a right bunch of assholes (apologies, that should read experienced political activists and religious campaigners).
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Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. |
