PROFILE: SAMMY WILSONNorthern Ireland's Environment Minister continues to leave a trail of ruffled feathers in his wake – this time he has outraged the green lobby by banning TV adverts aimed at tackling global warming
THERE’S JUST no stopping Sammy Wilson. To a chorus of shrieks, boos and jeers from outraged environmentalists, this week the North’s Environment Minister decided to ban the screening of a television advertisement . . . aimed at saving the environment. It might sound like a bad joke, but the move was classic Wilson: eye-catching, loudly self-righteous and guaranteed to raise hackles all round.
The British government adverts, which would have been shown on UTV, urge the public to reduce energy consumption and cut carbon dioxide output by switching to energy efficient lightbulbs and not leaving televisions on standby. But Wilson, a vocal climate-change sceptic, scoffed that the ads gave people “the impression that by turning off the stand-by light on their TV they could save the world from melting glaciers and being submerged in 40ft of water” – and that, he said, was “patent nonsense”.
Reaction was swift and incandescent. Brian Wilson, the Northern Ireland Green Party’s sole assembly member, retorted that the minister was being “grossly irresponsible”, adding that “while the minister is entitled to his own views, he is not entitled to ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence that man-made climate change exists”.
Quite right, agreed the SDLP. Spokesman Tommy Gallagher said: “It is one thing for Sammy Wilson to hold weird views on climate change . . . it is another when he uses his position to pursue causes which are in conflict with the objectives of the department he is supposed to be leading.”
But Wilson was unrepentant. In fact, he gave every impression of richly enjoying it all. The moustachioed DUP man relishes his self-created role as a shoot-from-the-hip straight-talker, a defiantly non-PC man of the (unionist) people. In this instance, he’s even flouting his own party’s manifesto commitments, and he evidently gets a particular kick out of winding up green campaigners. Since coming on board as Environment Minister, he’s accused them of following a “hysterical pseudo-religion”, spoken out enthusiastically in favour of nuclear power, and has voiced his opposition to the creation of an independent environmental protection agency in the North.
Wilson does not limit his provocative pronouncements to green issues. The closest thing the tightly-reined DUP has to a maverick, Wilson often “flies solo”, sounding off about a wide range of issues that personally exercise him. Last week, he had a pop at principals who shut down schools because of the heavy snowfall, accusing them of “mollycoddling” children. Prior to that, he expressed the view that jobs should go to local people ahead of foreign nationals during a recession, seemingly impervious to the row that erupted around him.
And then there’s the minister’s in-house lobbying forays: it was reported that he had been contacting staff at the Department of the Environment planning service, in his capacity as East Antrim MP and MLA, about individual planning applications in his constituency. No rules were broken, but civil service union Nipsa expressed concern about officials being placed in an “invidious” position. On occasion, Wilson has even had a go at his own planning officials: last month he accused them of “failing abysmally” in their refusal decision on the Aurora project, which would have been the tallest building in Belfast – already known colloquially as “Sammy’s Skyscraper”.
That’s the trouble with Wilson. Perhaps more cut out to be a back-bench agitator than a suavely assertive minister, he leaves a trail of ruffled feathers in his wake, requiring constant smoothing by embarrassed civil servants and party staff. (Ian Paisley jnr – another DUP man made from the same pugilistic mould – jokes that “he even manages to make me look dull”.) Back when he was chair of the education committee at Stormont, Wilson’s bickering sessions with Sinn Féin Education Minister Caitriona Ruane earned them the sobriquet “the Jack and Vera of Stormont”.
Yet for all his irascibility, Wilson is rarely pictured without a grin on his face – albeit of the cocky cheeky-chappie variety – and his affable sense of humour is well known. In fact, in his YouTube channel launched just before Christmas, Wilson has included an amusing clip of himself being interviewed by faux-naif “youth” presenter Ali G, in which he helps Ali clear up an unfortunate mix-up the RUC and the RAC. (Ali: “But why is they using breakdown cover as police?”) It’s hard to imagine Wilson’s rather more dour-faced colleagues at Stormont doing the same thing.
A FORMER HEAD of economics at Belfast’s Grosvenor Grammar School, Wilson first entered politics as a press officer for the DUP before being elected in 1981 to Belfast City Council – a position the youthful-looking 55-year-old still holds today, in addition to his duties as MLA, MP and, of course, Environment Minister. Wilson was also the first person from his party to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1986-1987; a role he reprised in 2000-2001.
Back in 1986, during his first stint as Mayor, Wilson was accompanied to official engagements by Ian Paisley’s daughter Rhonda, who he named as Lady Mayoress. By all accounts, this was an exciting period for the pair, who together led the barracking of Sinn Féin councillors at rambunctious council sessions, with Rhonda reportedly sounding a trumpet each time republicans attempted to speak. Wilson’s jokey side was in evidence even then: in 1986, the couple’s official Christmas card announced “Belfast Says Noel”.
Yet that romance is long in the past now, and today Wilson is known as a confirmed bachelor. A keen motorbike enthusiast, he’s often pictured proudly astride a Harley Davidson: although there were a few muffled sniggers last October when Wilson – who has responsibility for road safety in Northern Ireland – was caught on camera and fined for having no MOT or tax on the bike he was riding. With typically splenetic vigour, Wilson, who was on his way to have the bike serviced prior to the MOT test, slammed the law as “absurd”.
Mick Fealty, founding editor of Northern political blog Slugger O’Toole, says that for all Wilson’s anti-green bluster, he’s not quite the lone maverick he first appears: “His performance as Environment Minister has seen the return of ‘Barnstorming Sammy’ of his early days on Belfast City Council. As one party colleague remarked, ‘he’s the DUP’s Alan Clarke without the sex’. In a fairly buttoned down political arrangement, all government parties need colour where they can get it, and Sammy’s late and not entirely convincing conversion to anti-global warning plays well with the party’s pro-business anti-regulation schtick. In truth, his conservatism on the environment is widely shared across all four main political parties in the Assembly; all of which tend towards that defining school of Irish politics, north and south: clientelism.”
With such a distinctive public persona, it’s not easy to glimpse the man behind the moustache. Most observers remark on his commitment and capacity for hard work; one political journalist notes that he regularly turns up at residents’ meetings, unlike many other councillors. And he’s certainly more capable of smart thinking than his intellectual-baiting tactics might seem to suggest.
Within the DUP itself, Wilson has long seemed to represent the “secular wing”, appealing to those working-class unionists and loyalists turned off by the sometimes overt religiosity of the party. (Strangely enough, in former days Wilson was often called Sammy the Red, because he was seen as being on the left of the DUP; in fact, one political observer believes that “in any normal society, Sammy would have been some kind of lefty socialist. It’s only living here that’s made him the way he is”.)
Yet in other ways, Wilson is classic DUP through and through: many see his combative, blunt and knockabout style as distinctly reminiscent of the party’s founder and former leader, Ian Paisley. Whether that’s an advantage to Wilson under Peter Robinson’s more astringent leadership remains to be seen.
WHATEVER ROWS this irreverent politician gets embroiled in, there’s one ignominious episode in Wilson’s life that will surely follow him to the end of his days. Back in 1996, the Sunday World published seven pages of him and his then girlfriend frolicking naked through a sunny meadow while on holiday in France. Party leader Ian Paisley came out staunchly on Wilson’s side, arguing that “Sammy Wilson was at the time in a remote and secluded place where no onlooker was likely to be shocked or offended. And, of course, he has never publicly urged that nudity in a private place should be prohibited.” But the Big Man’s backing couldn’t prevent the widespread rush of hilarity that followed the publication of the pictures; two years later, Martin McGuinness was still milking the joke in the otherwise tense opening session of the Stormont Assembly, when he remarked on how good it was to meet Wilson at last – “great to see him today with all his clothes on”.
Surviving the mortifying tabloid coverage of his naked romps has given Wilson the ultra-thick skin necessary to be a professional contrarian, a role he relishes to the full. But Wilson is torn between being a serious politician and a crowd-pleasing showman. With a motion of no confidence passed this week by his own environment committee, it’s clear that – if he wants to continue in ministerial life – it’s a conundrum he’ll have to resolve.
CV: SAMMY WILSON
Who is he?Northern Ireland's Environment Minister and avowed climate change sceptic.
In the news because:He blocked the broadcasting of British government climate change adverts in Northern Ireland because he believes they are green propaganda.
Most likely to say:"Nuclear power, skyscrapers and gas-guzzling motorbikes – welcome to my world, eco-suckers."
Least likely to say:"I'm a bit worried about the C02 emissions coming out the back of this bike. Maybe I should get a ministerial Prius instead – while I'm still in the job."
Essential trivia:Sammy may be a petrolhead, but he's reported to be planting a forest near his east Antrim home.