UUP PEB: Fed up with being spectators?
This election looks set to be the first fought on YouTube… UUP’s Election Broadcast available online, first!
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Books
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Voices from the Grave
Coming up to the Halloween holiday, some people might be frightened of the idea of Voices from the Grave – but for others, the chance to hear an oral history of the Troubles from the mouths of two (in)famous protagonists, PUP leader and former UVF member David Ervine, and Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, is not [...] read our review »
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The Written World
Here’s something to keep you occupied over the weekend. [Will there be a quiz? - Ed] Possibly… The BBC magazine has an short and interesting, but un-embeddable, audio slide-show of Melvyn Bragg’s Radio 4 five-parter, In Our Time: The Written World. The British Library has more online information about the texts and technology featured in each [...] read our review » -
Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review »
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BTW, is there a policy decision on the part of the UUP to downplay their candidates’ link to the Orange Order? Their web biographies show most are quiet on their membership- Tom Elliott being the major exception
Good work from the UUP.
The messages I took from it were:
- we have to work together with nationalists;
- we don’t have a fair and just society here, but we’d like to;
- let’s get rid of those useless Brits and make the decisions ourselves.
My only complaint was the lies about “DUP and SF don’t speak to each other.” Have the balls to tell the truth about who won’t speak to who, lads.
darth,
no not at all, biographies were submitted by candidates themselves, so up to them if they choose to show their membership of loyal orders or masonic.
btw, thank you for your positive comments on presentation. First election in a while where we have been able to properly concentrate on a joined-up campaign and sort out ‘look and feel’ of UUP as a ‘brand’.
Good insofar as it goes, but Reg actually spoilt it for me. I’m not saying that out of spite – I think a few more people and less Reg – perhaps him surrounded by all those profiled saying “On March 7th vote for a positive future, for all of us….” would have been better.
Anyway its fairly academic now, the UUP are coming back with around 18-20 seats. Another defeat.
And in other news, the great Leslie Cubitt will be campaigning for the UKUP in East Londonderry….on the 2005 DUP manifesto!
Watch this man. He is a genius. Shame he probably won’t get elected.
I also hear that the DUP in N Antrim have reached an understanding, where the Ballymena councillors won’t canvas for the Great Crocodile, while he won’t attack them. A doff of the cap in the Tower Centre is a much a public endorsement that his IRKness will get from local stalwarts, if the rumours are true.
Doesn’t that f*cker in the press room have better things to do (and I don’t just mean that Valentine’s card & tin of Whiskas lobster thermidor he left outside the catflap last night)?
Tiddles,
you weren’t playing so hard to get last night so stop your fronting!!
It’s feline nature – someone sticks what looks like a cocktail sausage through the flap, of course I’ll pounce.
with the size of your flap is it any wonder…
Now, now ladies!
I thought it was reasonably slick and delivered a positive message, the 80s porn music in the background not withstanding. Using members was a good idea, particularly the delectable Miss Dunn.
80s porn music maybe but infinitely more preferable to the diddly de crap piped into our homes by the Sinn Fein PEB!
Miss Dunn my number is 07968 … If only:(
Big up for the 80′s porn music – it’s far better than the shit we had in the 70′s.
Wudn’t mind making my next film with Paula Bradshaw… cheeky MILFY minx
Wouldn’t mind a round with Mark Cosgrove myself…
Well with 682 views in the last 12 hours, the sex appeal is clearly working out nicely for them…
Incidentally, it’s not just Darth who esteems Leslie Cubitt:
There were really has been a slackening of effort in the Paisleyite head shed this time around.
Mind you, that surplus ‘were’ was none too fly either.
The UUP have learnt their lesson’s from previous campaign disasters and Reg is an intelligent poitician and know’s what needs to be done.
The UUP now have a director of election’s, they are united now and each constituency is better co-ordinated.
Logisitically this will be a much better election campaign performance from the UUP.
I wish them and the SDLP well.
Nobody can possibly deny that themselves and the SDLP would work a lot better together than the DUP and SF. It would be much better for NI in general if they won and the DUP and SF became small players..if only people would realise this and stop getting suckered in by DUP extremist biggoted views and fear tactics.
Hello all,
Well, the UUP broadcast does look appealing but discussion here seems to have focussed more on the aesthetics – not least the aesthetics of the delectable narrator! – and missed the main point, that they said they were ‘ready for government’ with sinn fein – as far as i know they’ve never actually said that before.
If its true then it would mark a real break from the DUP who seem to be completely confused with themselves depending on who you listen to.
I must say I didn’t expect something like this from the UUP at all – if anything I had written them off pretty much completely as they seemed to be trying to move to the right of the DUP – everything they were saying seemed to point to a sort of Super-Prod style campaign against the St Andrews Agreement.
I voted for Trimble every time he asked, but I wasn’t going to stick with the UUP this time. I dont like negative unionism, and I dont like sectarianism, and having lived here for 48 years I can spot a sectarian undertone a mile off!
Then suddenly they turn around and hit you with a positive message in their TV broadcast like this! Also their website is superb and really positive I love the slogan “For All of Us” – But I am still unconvinced – What happened to prompt the sudden change in direction? How believable is this new bright and forward-looking UUP? Is it going to survive the election? If they win will they really bite the bullet and share power with sinn fein and give us a government???
It’ll take more than an election TV ad and a professional-looking website to shift my vote. I hope they’ve seen the light but I want to see the proof, if Empey and his party will commit to government on March 26th or not even if it means sinn fein?
I have two wee kids and a massive rates bill and if Reg Empey can give me that commitment he’s got my vote.
If he fudges then I’m looking elsewhere!
If this broadcast is a positive sign that the UUP have at last decided to move to the centre then I welcome it and it show a clear gap opening between them and the DUP. Hopefully future actions will reinforce the message this broadcast is trying to give.
Best PEB yet but probably the most expensive. Trys to convey a positive vision for the future.
The worst PEB is that from Sf as it is fundamentally dishonest and inaccurate.
ChrisEastBelfast -
You’re not an extra terrestrial by any chance
?
‘Nobody can possibly deny that themselves and the SDLP would work a lot better together than the DUP and SF.’
You mean just like David Trimble (UUP)and Seamus Mallon (SDLP)? or like Brian Faulkner(UUP/NIUP) and John Hume(SDLP)
An interesting theory CEB but murdered by the facts of history and political experience .
Have a read of the Stormont papers from the 1970s and see how John Hume and Austin currie were loathed by the UUP . If you substitute Hume for Adams and Currie for McGuinness and the DUP for the UUP it’s simply deja vu all over again in the NI twilight zone
When all is said and done the fundamental premise of the broadcasts appeal is – ‘sure wont Ian and Marty be awful’ – which many would agree with. But would Reg and Mark be more inspiring? Particularly as they would always be looking over their shoulder at DUP and SF. Probably not.
chriseastbelfast -McGimpsey??-
The problem is that the UUP have lost so many of their footsoldiers,and big players have retired.That’s a double blow. Alex might also be able to tell us that serious money has been directed to other non-electoral expenses this week, a serious blow for a cash strapped organisation.
The fact that the UUP is punching above its weight for the first few days of the campaign doesn’t mean it can sustain that for long enough to woo back voters.And it’s using youtube and other media precisely because it is doesn’t have the bodies to stuff letter boxes,knock doors etc. Bet it won’t be the activists putting up posters either.OK so the ways of reaching electorate are changing, but the the UUP membership has fallen below critical level in so many areas.
Who are half their candidates anyway? The number of young people willing to take a chinning for the party is superficially encouraging, but the electorate will look at Munce, Dunn, Donaldson, Swann etc and ask where the familiar names are. If all of them fall in the campaign there’s a danger that they’ll never try again, and all of the young..er..talent.. will be squandered at one go.
Darth
You are right re. the Orders – I recieved my UUP leaflet last night and the three candidates – Empey, Copeland and Rodgers – all Orangemen supposedly – made no mention of their membership.
Darth you made an interesting point about how the message delivery is changing and how it’s being presented to the electorate.
Life is becoming harder with the plethora of taxes, I would even go so far as to see we will see fuel poverty etc in a few years, and people are now seeking new avenues of making money to supplement their income and tax avoidance schemes. It is here that people are offering services to wanabe MLAs in putting up their propaganda on lampposts etc and I would not be too surprised that some entrepreneur doesn’t employ workers from an agency to canvass on their behalf.
so we’ve moved from the times when any duffer stood for election and claimed he was District Master for 20 years, member of the Black, Masons and Brownies..to the time when any duffer stands for election who is a member of all of the above, but is too embarassed to reveal the fact in case it reveals the true reason he has been elevated to the status of candidate by his fellow members.
Say what you like about all the new candidates, but they’ve come through – an admittedly drastically pruned- field. What they need to answer ( and this PEB emphatically does not) is “why”? Why stick with a hopelessly becalmed ship when -unfortunately IMHO- they can beaver away with Punt’s children in the party in which Unionists presently repose their trust.
In the old days you could understand the Hezbollah inclined being devoted DUPers, but what on earth makes these fresh faced under-60s think they can achieve anything post-election?
darth,
what a strange and machiavellian way of you have of looking at politics, young people are joining and fighting in the UUP because they believe in its ethos, what it stands for and is something they want to inherit.
politics is cyclical and ultimately the DUP won’t be perched at the top of the tree forever. Maybe these young people have more faith in the party than you ever did when you were a member.
I think the UUP PEB is very refreshing and will appeal to a broad swathe of garden centre unionists who are being driven into the election booth by Hain and Blair’s rates stick.
Fair play to Reg at al, they completely avoid the scare-tactics, hectoring and taunting which characterises the DUP PEB. As someone else on where pointed out, hopefully some day the electorate will see through this.
It’s disappointing to hear form UUPers on here (Rove and Rumsfeld) disparage this approach and sneer at the new faces. The UUP seems a more settled, united party judging from this PEB, maybe their departure from said party along with like-minded individuals is the reason why. Only crime is disloyalty?
when you’re flatlining a nice new life support machine isn’t going to do anything to improve things, just make sure it gets no worse. These bright eyed things have all the enthusiasm, and prosepcts for a happy ending, of the new signings for Leeds United -once great, trading off the past, and in the wilderness for years
I’ve got some Peter & Jane books, Northsider, if that’ll speed along your literacy level. Which is to say, I didn’t disparage the PEB, quite the reverse, I praised it, and mildly enough pointed out that Reg was the weakest bit in it. The PEB was positively good, as far as these things go. What I’ve criticised, mostly elsewhere rather than on this thread, is the actual strategy of the UUP in this campaign, not the techniques it’s using to pursue that strategy. And as far as I can see, its strategy appears to be, ‘vote for us, shure aren’t themuns in the DUP just itching to jump into bed with Gerry Adams’. Which for a variety of reasons we surely don’t need to go into again here is not a line of attack the UUP can currently, credibly make stick.
If the UUP was returned as the main Unionist party on March 7th would it be willing to go into an Executive with Adams, Marty and Co. on March 26th?
Also I distinctly remember Empey expressing a willingness for ‘going into’ opposition at one stage during his leadership?
Maybe Ben & Jerry could give us a statement?
Yes they’ve said they will go into government – surely any unionist with half a brain wants our government back?
I mean we’ve got water charges, rates – not that a government of our own will be a panecea but I’d like it to be Sir Reg or Mark Durkan handling these problems and not some eejit from deepest Sussex or wherever!
Fair play to the UUP at least they’ve got the balls to say it as they see it – gutsy move on their part.
“not that a government of our own will be a panecea but I’d like it to be Sir Reg or Mark Durkan handling these problems and not some eejit from deepest Sussex or wherever! ”
hmmmm, ballyclare seems to forget one of the disadvantages of being a small region in the UK is that you might sometimes get better minds coming in to administer than those big ..er brains of our small political pond.
Now obviously we can exclude Maharajah Hain from this , but the only advantage to having Durkan and Empey in power is that if they screw up we can vote them out…Oh, but hang on a minute- no we can’t actually, because of the D’Hondt formula and compulsory coalition, so the same old dead wood get shuffled round the “Cabinet” table ad infinitum.
And you think this is good, just because the author of the incompetence speaks with a local accent???!!!
ballyclare -’I mean we’ve got water charges, rates’
Aye- who got us into this fine mess – the laurel and hardy show that we had previously in the assembly. Let’s not forget that the “threat” of water rates is not Hain’s doing – look a little closer and the blame has to firmly rest with the NI executive in the last assembly.