Separating Stormont crowd leaves bad taste

I queued from 9am at the Prince of Wales entrance in order to get as close to the Parliament building as possible and get the best view of HM the Queen.

When the gates finally opened at around 11am I made my way forward only to be stopped half way by security personnel and told the tickets I had only allowed me in the “pink zone” and to get any further you needed a different ticket to enter the privileged “blue zone”. These tickets, I hasten to add, were not available to the general public via Ticketmaster.

When I questioned this decision I was told by a member of the security staff that 10,000 tickets had been issued for the blue zone separately and these were for MPs, local councillors, dignitaries and other hand picked organisations and their families.

As Her Majesty entered Stormont via the Massey Avenue entrance, as did the blue zone ticket holders, those of us in the pink zone could see it on the big screens that had been erected and I, like many others around me, were very excited to see her being driven around in an open topped vehicle obviously assuming we would also get a clear view when the entourage passed our way.

Unfortunately before the Queen and her entourage made their way towards Stormont gates she was transferred from the open topped vehicle into a limousine and as such we did not get as clear a view as those before us had in the blue zone.

I, as a loyal supporter and a die hard Royalist, do not for one minute regret going and just getting an albeit short glimpse of Her Majesty made my day and it all worthwhile.

But I do question why there was what seemed a two tier class system in operation.

It was only when the Queen had left Stormont that the blue zone was opened up to the pink zone ticket holders and we were only then allowed to come and go as we pleased. Why was everyone not allowed freedom of Stormont for this very special day on a first come first served basis irrespective of class, status, distinction and privilege?

Opening the blue zone after Her Majesty had gone has left a bad taste in my mouth as to how this event was organised and it seemed to send out a message that we in the pink zone were second class citizens or indeed wrongly viewed as being of a higher risk than those in the blue zone during the Queen’s time at Stormont.

The simple fact is that the normal 9 to 5 hard working class people of Northern Ireland are the backbone of our society and I, for one, do not vote in elections in order to be separated by privilege. I vote for the greater good of our country and equality for all irrespective of your position within our society, so why treat us differently when it comes to important events like this?

Indeed given the religious and political breakdown of those currently elected and seated in the Stormont Assembly one could argue that there was certainly more anti Monarchy sentiment within the blue zone than the 100% Royalists in the pink zone.

Unemployed (Still),

Lisburn