Question time
Quick bit of blatant plagiarism from Mark Devenport’s blog, but I liked “Stormont spy’s” list of questions:
1. Will Sinn Fein fail to put forward McGuiness?
2. If it does happen will Robinson and McGuiness shakes hands?
3. Is this being done to bring Gerry Adams back to the spotlight?
4. What happens to MLA’s pay? Will it be suspended of the Assembly is dissolved?
5. Does the Executive members give up their departments to direct rule ministers?
6. What can Gordon Brown do?
7. Does the Civil Service go into “purdah”?
And finally to leave you with this… Who has more to lose? McGuiness or Robinson? My pension is on Robinson. Firstly he will lose seats to Sir Reg. Secondly he will lose seats to Jim Bowen (Allister). What happens then? What if Sinn Fein is the largest party? Will Robinson sit down in Government as a deputy?
What I think:
1: Probably, but I remain to be convinced that they’ll push it to an election.
2: Pretty unlikely, it’d be madness on Robinson’s part.
3: Not a bad call.
4: The same thing will happen as in normal election period circumstances – but only if SF refuse to nominate after the 7 day period I think.
5: I’m pretty sure not. I know that in Westminster during an election there are no MPs, but there are ministers. I assume it’s the same here.
6: Threaten to legislate over the DUP’s heads. The 42 day detention vote is looking more and more safe for him, so he will be more disposed to ignore the DUP.
7: No idea.
8: I couldn’t possibly comment.
Has there never been a Raving Looney Unionist Party?
For accuracy, is not/was not the DUP the UDUP?
By my reckoning we have had 24 or 25 Unionist parties,with the word unionist in the name, and probably 6 or 7 others which didn’t qualify because of a derivative word in their title. That’s quare goin’.
Has there never been a Raving Looney Unionist Party?
Of course. See the lists above! They cunningly disguised their names though.
Driftwood,
Horseman, I’m sure someone stood for the Dail on a Unionist ticket, but can’t be sure.
In 1997 Jim Devenney stood in the Dail election in Donegal North-West as an independent. He was widely seen as a crypto-unionist, however, for reasons of his various (Orange?) connections. He came bottom of the poll with 1657 votes, and his votes mostly transferred to Paddy Harte of Fine Gael, which is in most cases the preferred party of southern Protestants.
Devenney is probably similar to whoever it is you are thinking about. I’m not aware of anyone in recent decades (and certainly during 1969-1998) who would actually have put a ‘unionist’ tag on themselves south of the border. That would have made them electorally untouchable (in the Indian sense).
A pity Devenney didn’t get 33 more votes!
I,m sure some one in Dublin put themselves forward, but i’m not sure how serious they were.
Do you remember when? Because all the results are available on the web (http://electionsireland.org/index.cfm)
The problem, Driftwood, is that if someone stands as an independent their policies do not get recorded in the results. Since only registered parties are listed, and no unionist party ever has registered (in modern times) in the south, your possible ‘unionist’ candidate will be untraceable amongst the independents.
Concerning the big list of unionist parties and groups, has anyone yet mentioned the Ulster Clubs?
Sammy et al – you are all cheating now. No Wiki and no google until Driftwood decides.
But the Unionists could never unite.
No, let’s not go down that road.
This has been a day which has crossed into the surreal. Let me first count the ways.
There was the booze-up on the London Underground which was anthropologically misunderstood.
Then, the best bit of writing I found in the public prints was Richard Morrison, in the Times, celebrating a sewage pumping station:
I now hear Young-Earth-shocking news of bdelloid rotifers:
And then yous lot are at it like ferrets, especially Horseman @ 07:01 PM, whose question really got me going [Damn good blog, Horseman: strongly recommended -- "ambivalent Senator Ross", indeed].
May I draw attention to one unionist (in all but name) who sat in Dáil Éireann for Fine Gael between 1951-73? Sir Anthony Esmonde was TD for Wexford: he never disguised his “west British” background, accent and attitudes. In our folly, we lefty “progressives” mocked him for it. He inherited his baronetcy from his elder brother, Sir John (a middle brother was killed, aged 19, in WW1: a half-brother, Eugene, was awarded a posthumous VC for a futile torpedo-bomber attack on the Scharnhorst).
Sir Anthony’s eldest brother, Sir John Esmonde, was dead before I became politically aware. He was elected MP for (I believe) North Tipperary in 1915 (while serving as an engineer officer with the Leinsters in France). He was FG TD for Wexford for the 9th Dáil and 10th Dáil. Perhaps here, or elsewhere, somebody can remind me of any other active MP-cum-TD. In the curious politics of 1948, when the cumbersome coalition came to power, the egregious Seán MacBride proposed John Esmonde as a compromise Taoiseach, on the ground that he had no baggage from the Civil War.
Autres temps, autres moeurs.
Well, Horseman @ 08:04 PM, Jim Devenney was High Lama of the Donegal Ulster-Scots the last I heard. That may not be a declaration of Unionist affiliation, but “if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck …’
Fascinating Malcolm but please try and focus on the quiz mun !
I’m afraid I’ll have to disqualify independents. But leave in Independent DUP..I Know, I know, but a line has to be drawn somwhere.
However, it’s early days. What are the people who leave the TUV when Jim Allister “sells out” going to call themselves?
Can we come forward with possible titles forthwith?
The winner gets a deposit on the next MEP election. I am ruling out ‘Independent TUV’immediately so as not to complicate.
Driftwood:
1) Have they had to stand for election to Westminster?
2) If it’s obvious people have?
i) googled or
ii) been on steroids
Are they disqualified ? – (And what’s the appeal procedure !!!)
I’m just a humble Jedi Knight (on the last census anyway)
Yes, graduate, but are you Catholic Jedi Knight or a Protestant Jedi Knight?
I know, too obvious, but it had to be done!
Wasn’t there also a Volunteer Political Party, which although not having Unionist in the title was the political wing of the UVF and certainly a unionist party.
As I’m not allowed to use Nicholas Whyte’s site presumably, I think they were the UVF-linked candidates who stood in West Belfast in the 1973 Assembly elections.
No Wiki and no google until Driftwood decides.
Dewi, I’m offended in your lack of faith in my über-geekness! I was well aware of both parties, just providing links for those struggling with the difference between them (small difference in names, big difference in ideology). And I love looking at that clenched fist with the pointing finger! Vorvärts Kameraden!
Didn’t a Unionist candidate (listed as Non Party on the returns) stand in Sligo-Leitrim sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s and get a derisory sub-100 vote?
All appeals to John O Connell. It’s only fair the SDLP adjudicate on this. Shit, Wiki and google all you like, but I need a definitive answer on number of ‘pure’ Unionist parties (any election) by 11am tomorrow.
Tie breaker is the name for TUV breakaways when Jim Allister declares a policy on something.
Good Night y’all
“Shit, Wiki and google all you like”
But what about steroids ? – Nos Da !
Pro – Assembly Ulster Unionist
United Ulster Unionist party
United Unionist Assembly Party
From “History of British Political Parties” Boothroyd…read that Malcolm?
Sammy Morse,
Didn’t a Unionist candidate (listed as Non Party on the returns) stand in Sligo-Leitrim sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s and get a derisory sub-100 vote?
I’ve looked through the results from 1977 to 2007, and there is no sign of one at all. The few independents that stood in Sligo-Leitrim are usually known crackpots, or the perennial Stalinist, Declan Bree!
A guy called John McCrea stood in 2002, and although he shares the same name as a leading Orange Order person, he is definitely not the same person. Sligo’s John McCrea is still there, writing cranky letters to the local papers, and doesn’t appear to be a unionist at all.
I voted in Sligo-Leitrim in the 1980′s, and I have no recollection of any unionist candidates – and they would not have gone unnoticed!
Dewi @ 08:20 AM:
I’ve seen David Boothroyd’s book (either it passed through the house in the clutches of a daughter doing Politics as her subsidiary subject, or I leafed it through in a bookshop). I think it’s properly titled The Politico’s Guide to the History of British Political Parties, which implies that I saw it in Politico’s, before the bookshop proper closed down. I remember it as the equivalent of an Ian Allan trainspotter’s guide. If it lists these groups here, that’s reliable info.
Without scrolling through all the previous pages, has anyone tagged the “Union Group”? I know they have/had a webpage (all poetry and JFK), but no contact details.
At risk of Dewi never being nice to me ever again, can I mention another southern Unionist of curious interest?
St John Brodrick (MP in Surrey, but with Irish estates) was the leader of the Irish Unionists, which formalised as the Irish Unionist Alliance (not to be confused with the Ulster Unionists, who had their own agenda long before partition came up). He had a long history of service to the Tory Party, including being Secretary for War during the South African campaign.
After the Treaty he was appointed to the Seanad (as the newly-ennobled Earl of Midleton), along with a couple of other Tories, the Earl of Dunraven and Horace Plunkett. Zach from Denver, CO, who posts here as “yourcousin”, will appreciate the link to Dunraven: it proves all his worst fears about the British upper class. Dunraven snaffled Estes Park (the Rocky Mountains NP today) as a personal hunting estate.
What makes Brodrick a passing curiosity for me is his relation by marriage to the von Trapps (of The Sound of Music infamy). Brodrick’s sister married Whitehead, the inventor of the torpedo (and so arguably the most significant strategist in 20th century naval warfare). Their grand-daughter (and Whitehead’s heiress — therefore the basis for the von Trapp wealth) was the first Baroness von Trapp. I think von Trapp met Agathe Whitehead when she launched his first submarine command. The eldest von Trapp daughter was named Agathe for her Whitehead mother.
I fear I may be responsible for initially moving us off thread, but into possibly more interesting territory.
Dewi, any chance of a latest draft of the list?
I get all the dirty jobs……I’m not enirely sure (hmmm) that there is no duplications and do the WRUC count ?
Anyway – there you go.
1)DUP
2) UUP
3) UKUP
4) PUP
5) United Ulster Unionist Party
6) Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party
7) Labour Unionist Party?
9) Popular Front for the Liberation of Judea Unionist Party
10) TUV
11) NIUP
12) United Ulster Unionist Council
13 UDP
14) Independent DUP
15) UUAP
16) WRUC (If acceptable under your scientific criteria)
17) UPUP
18) Unionist Party of Northern Ireland
19) Conservative and Unionist Party
20) UPNI
21) OUP
22) Protestant Unionist Party
23) United Unionist Coalition Party
24) Protestant Unionist Party
25) Ulster Clubs
26) Pro – Assembly Ulster Unionist
27) United Ulster Unionist party
28) United Unionist Assembly Party
When they had all those by-elections they got people to stand for the Agreement as Nationalists only stood in potential gains. What was that party called?
Another question:
If Mr Robinson suceeds today what will the FM and the DFM have in common?
Didn’t they all change their names to Peter Barry? or whoever the Republic’s foreign minister was at the time. Halcyon Days!
Dewi,
When they had all those by-elections they got people to stand for the Agreement as Nationalists only stood in potential gains. What was that party called?
You mean all the multiple ‘Peter Barry’s'? (aka Wesley Robert Williamson)
I think he/they stood under a ‘For the Anglo-Irish Agreement’ banner.
The Continuity Traditional Unionist Voice?
Did they both do auditions for the series Allo Allo with their berets on?
I might actually be wrong on this.
Convictions in both juristictions?
But on reflection has the DFM ever been convicted of anything in the North?
But on reflection has the DFM ever been convicted of anything in the North?
Nor has the proto-FM, IIRC.
Perhaps that’s it. They both have ‘records’ in the south, but not in the north.
Yes he was convicted for obstruction on a bridge – I’ll look it up.
“Robinson and his DUP buddie Ruth Patterson were both found guilty of obstructing the Albertbridge Road in September 2002.”
That’s from an old Elblogador blog.
“Robinson and his DUP buddie Ruth Patterson were both found guilty of obstructing the Albertbridge Road in September 2002.”
Curiously enough, it is entirely absent from his bio on wikipedia, which deals with Clontibret in some detail.
But maybe El Blogador mixed him up with someone else?
It seems I misjudged El Blogador. The BBC coverd that as well:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/3373535.stm
“The deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Peter Robinson, has been found guilty of obstructing a public road while he was the Stormont minister responsible for roads.”
And this twit will be FM in a few hours ….