ROLL up, roll up get you slightly specious and totally misrepresented polices here. Two for a paundh! 

Plastic bag with your lies sir or madam? That’ll be five pence.

Yes that’s right — it’s that time of year again, when an unelected monarch pontificates to the rest of us in a vain attempt to justify their existence. No, not the Budget, although that’s not far off. I am of course referring to the Queen’s speech.

Oscar Wilde famously described fox hunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Well this annual jamboree is more like the unaccountable in cahoots with the unelectable.

In fact the bag tax was about the only decent measure she announced this week.

The much-vaunted instant recall Bill for MPs turned out to have been so watered down by the time it emerged you can only assume that the drafters had belatedly realised they were like turkeys voting for Christmas — or aristocrats voting for the guillotine. 

It’s not as if those charming Lib Dems have kept any of their other promises, so why the hell not jettison the whole lot like ballast from a sinking ship.

So now we are informed that we can recall our MP but only if they have been banged up in chokey and 10 per cent of their electorate demand it, the moon is in its zenith and the month ends in a “Y.” 

Which is almost exactly where we were already. Thanks for that.

If all public utterances by politicians are, by definition, lies then that goes doubly for the monarchy. Year after year they haul her out to sign off on their outlandish — and in most cases outrageous — polices.

As acting gigs go they’d be better off getting Helen Mirren in. At least she’d make an effort. It is quite excruciating watching the monarch regurgitate this rubbish, trying not to stumble over unfamiliar words like “tax” and “work” as if she has a clue how the rest of us live.

In fact so awful was it this year that a page boy attempted to beat his own brains out on the floor rather than listen to any more of it.

The irony of a hereditary monarch who’s been on the throne for 60 years reading out new legislation for de-selecting MPs and cuts to benefits can not have eluded many.

But onwards, ever onwards. 

From there we move a hop, skip and jump over the water to Her Maj’s most loyal of subjects who, as usual, put their own inimitable twist on the recall issue.

The Bill may have been diluted to within an inch of its life — however when it comes to wrapping their heads (and usually a union flag) round an issue, you can always rely on Ulster loyalism to come up with a novel approach. 

In recent months and weeks they’ve sent death threats to one Alliance assembly member, Naomi Long, and directed so much bigotry and racist bile towards her Alliance party colleague Anna Lo that she announced she was having to quit politics and even potentially Northern Ireland itself.

Lo, who happens to be from Hong Kong, was elected to Stormont in 2007. Her “crime,” apart from not being a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, was to say that on balance she was in favour of a united Ireland and the border was “artificial” — which it is.

Now this was never going to go down well in certain quarters with the DUP predictably to the fore when it came to professing outrage and indignation. They do good indignation, the DUP, having had a lot of practice. Pretty much anything can set them off into a lather — gays, days of the week, line dancing.

About the only things they’re not against are flags and bigotry (depending on which flags and which way the bigotry is directed obviously).

But what happened next made the Scottish independence debate look positively chummy by comparison.

Now all right-minded people felt revulsion for those who had targeted Lo and sympathy for her position. But not DUP Newtownabbey deputy lord mayor Dineen Walker, who took a slightly different tack…

Commenting on Facebook, where of course all the highest forms of political debate occur, Walker felt moved to opine: “Funny because I see Anna Lo as racist! Towards the people of Northern Ireland.” 

Ah, social media, giving a voice to bigots and cowards everywhere.

Apparently even her own party thought this had strayed from the bounds of good taste, and they’re not exactly squeamish when it comes to this sort of thing.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the DUP said: “Dineen Walker’s comments in no way represent the views of the Democratic Unionist Party.”

Hmm, well it appeared nobody told First Minister Peter Robinson.

Robinson came under fire after he came out and publicly backed “firebrand” (head case) pastor James McConnell of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in north Belfast, after he described Islam as “heathen” and “satanic” and said he did not trust Muslims. 

The DUP leader qualified this by saying he would not trust Muslims involved in violence or those devoted to Sharia law. Which is rich coming from a senior member of Northern Ireland’s equivalent of the Taliban.

It wasn’t all bad though because he added that he would “trust them to go to the shops” for him.

Which in terms of crass comments is up there with a Tory saying he’s not racist because his servants are black.

Robinson, of course, remains in his job. If that doesn’t illustrate why
we need powers of instant recall nothing does.