Their fall has been Shakespearean.

Him a loyalist Iago her the Lady MacBeth with the dream home.

They had it all. The Orange Cherie and Tony.

The Swish family Robinson are no more.

The last time we heard about Iris is that she was under a psychiatrist, not literally I hope.

“Ulstur’s” first couple had it all two years ago.

Their taxpayer funded lavish lifestyle was flaunted in front of the little people.

Iris billed the long-suffering English taxpayer for a £300 gold fountain pen to carry out her duties.

Her First Minister Hubby billed London for a laptop case-a case not a laptop mind you-that was a snip at £1500.

Yes £1500!

In the lynch mob frenzy in London over what English MPs were claiming for (moat cleaning, duck houses) the lifestyle of the Robinsons went largely unremarked upon.

Except by the people who elect them.

This power couple were confident that the plebeian throng that put them in power would remain docile.

They were wrong.

They had mobilised a politics are around their perfect god fearing Christian marriage.

Iris had live on radio said that homosexuals were “an abomination.”

The Robinson’s were the embodiment of the Christian right in political power in a way that is common in North America, but bizarrely out of place in modern Europe.

Like many public marriages of powerful couples The Robinson marriage was a sham.

Iris, it turned out, was a serial adulterer.  She bedded a teenager and set him up in business. Iris was a sugar mummy. Fine Iris, whatever works for you, but please don’t pretend to be the perfect Christian wife.

The spin-doctors around Peter Robinson did their professional best to extract the sympathy vote for the North’s First Minister.

Then there were allegations of spurious land deals to convoluted to go into here, but the combination of Irisgate and the questions of land deals between Peter Robinson and wealthy developers was enough.

The abduction and killing of Jean McConville can be explained by the chaos of the war situation in Belfast in the early 1970s.

Explained does not mean excused, but there is certainly a context.

Moreover if Brendan Hughes is to be believed from the grave then Mrs McConville certainly acted foolishly in having security force transmitters in her house-twice.

Even the damning evidence that he protected his brother after he said he believed that Liam Adams had raped his own daughter Aine.

Suzanne Breen in the Sunday Tribune has forensically established that long after Adams said he was “estranged” from his brother and had no idea where he was they were closely associated.

Adams also lied about his brother’s level of involvement in Sinn Fein in the 1990s in Dundalk.

So Adams continued to have a convivial sibling relationship and political comradeship with his brother more than a decade after Gerry Adams believed that his brother was a sexual abuser.

One thing that the Northern election did tell this observer is that the good folk of East Belfast are more moral creatures than their neighbours in West Belfast.

It would appear that there is no crime Gerry Adams can be associated with that will, lose him votes.

Even the knowledge that he protected a brother that he believed had raped his own four year old daughter doesn’t cost Gerry Adams votes in his Belfast bailiwick.

Adams is incapable of being politically damaged.

Some will rejoice at that fact others will weep.

I’m with the latter.

A politician that knows that the electorate will not punish them no matter what are dangerous to democracy.

Indeed such an electorate is even more dangerous to the operation of a functioning polity.

It would appear that the electorate of West Belfast are steeped in situationist ethics of the most delinquent kind.

Not so in Belfast’s British quarter.

People were genuinely disgusted at the hypocrisy of the Robinsons. Irisgate  and then the allegations over land deals involving Peter Robinson himself.

Commentators in London opined that in picking Naomi Long of the Alliance Party the people of East Belfast had turned their backs on unionism.

Oh dear. It seems to be a feature of the London elite that to be given entry into that particular temple one must demonstrate a stunning ignorance of anything pertaining to the island of Ireland and the people who live here.

The Alliance party are designated unionists in the devolved Northern Assembly. Although they pride themselves on their cross community credentials they are, in the main, culturally unionist.

The people of East Belfast have not stopped believing in their Britishness or their culture.

They have just stopped believing in their MP. Thanks to top class journalism from Darragh McIntyre of the BBC the people of East Belfast found out the Robinsons.

They didn’t like what they saw and they used this democratic opportunity to get rid of him.

That is how democracy should work.

The people of East Belfast have shown that they have a moral sense.

Their republican neighbours clearly don’t.

The denizens of the Falls road should be sick with shame.

Of course they’re not.

More reason to weep.