Tory Spokesman was not official….
The story posted with above title on Slugger O Toole has rattled many cages.
Responding to the narrative official spokesmen Jonathan Caine said:
“Both David Cameron and Sir Reg Empey made clear on Tuesday afternoon their one hundred per cent commitment to the continuing partnership between the Conservative and Ulster Unionist parties.
“We remain determined to bring national mainstream politics to Northern Ireland and to end its semi detached political status.
“The person identified (in earlier post ) is not an official spokesman for the Conservatives and does not speak with authority of the Conservative Party.”
No one should doubt the standing or integrity of the individual quoted in earlier post.
As you can see Mr Caine was clearly not the author of those quotes in the earlier post on Slugger.
I do my best to be fair.
I don’t see how an anti-UUP campaign is necessary, and indeed I do not see one. All of this could have been avoided had the party chosen to make a logical decision last Tuesday. The fact that they did not is – quite simply – a story in it’s own right.
Let’s look in a bit more detail at the spinning that’s going on, especially from certain local Tories on here. The way I see it, there are two possibilities.
- Cameron consulted his Conservative candidates, and his shadow NI Secretary, and asked for their opinion before speaking about the deal, which would mean that the local Tories supported the deal (like John Taylor and Sylvia apparently did). If that is the case, then how can local Tories justify their link with the UUP, and in particular, how can local Tories contributing to this thread justify trying to cover for the UUP ?
- Cameron did not consult his candidates or his NI secretary and decided to make his comments on his own bat; or if he did consult, and they sided with the UUP, that he decided to ignore them. If that is the case, don’t local Tories feel let down by their party leader making a pronouncement that they disagree with on a major issue ? Do they want to argue to local voters that they should support a Prime Minister who completely ignore the concerns of local political representatives ?
I suspect the truth is that Cameron, quite correctly, moved to uphold the bipartisan policy in Northern Ireland which was, in all fairness, started under the Conservatives in the first place. I also believe that local Conservatives do support the deal, being as they are somewhat more pragmatic than the UUP. This implies to me that Eamonn’s original contribution here from his source was almost certainly close to being on the nail, and it also leaves me wondering why local Tories are scrambling to defend the UUP’s serious political error.
I do wish local Tories would spend more of their time trying to sell their policies and their linkup, rather than frantically scrambing to try to justify themselves by covering up UUP bad decisions which they know themselves to be wrong. Someone told me a long time ago, that if you find yourself defending the indefensible, it’s time to get out.
Comrade Stalin: then how can local Tories justify their link with the UUP…
Does that mean that a coalition can only survive if both parties share policies on every topic?
And why should a difference of opinion over a bit of devolution be a deal breaker between a local party and a UK wide party? Especially since the deal doesn’t even cover elections to the devolved assembly!