With only one candidate officially standing for the leadership, there’s plenty of rumours about who else might be standing. Reg Empey is one such. David McNarry is also considering running. But I’m not sure Jude Collins will get many takers on his outside tip of the day – his name sake Colonel Tim Collins. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a …
Unionist councillors walked out after Limavady Council officially adopted the d’Hondt mechanism for choosing who sits in the senior offices year on year. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Chris Gilligan points out that the continuing success of the DUP does not represent a hardening of Protestant attitudes towards Catholics, so much as disillusion with the apparently endless peace process. He points out that: “If expecting the IRA to disarm before Sinn Fein can be considered a democratic party is an extremist position, then many of those who voted ‘Yes’ in the referendum on the 1998 peace agreement are extremists”. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has …
Brian Walker reckons that the DUP’s deficit in the House of Lords will become substantially reduced. He reports that the Big Man‘s wife Eileen and the only DUP MP to lose his seat in the last General Election, Andrew Hunter are both to be raised to the UK’s upper chamber at Westminster. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest …
Brian Feeney may be exaggerating when he claims the UUP is finished as a political entity, but his cross channel examples of how vanquished political parties have a tendency not to learn key poltical lessons is apt. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Start as you mean to go on. Ian Paisley is clearly revelling in his long sought after position as the voice of Unionism. It’s no coincidence that he went straight into quoting Burke (who was part of Trimble’s keynote in his Nobel Lecture), in his victory speech. In Westminster he somewhat nailed his colours to the mast when he suggested that the days of terrorism on both sides have come to an end. We have to go another road and …
Susan McKay on the debate over who will lead the UUP next. Few insiders rated Sylvia Hermon’s chances of taking over the leadership in the short term before she pulled out yesterday. McKay thinks the succession is going to be messy, and that the UUP has problem with Sylvia for more than one reason: In truth, their problems with her are fundamental. She is a woman and she isn’t an Orangeman. Amid all the public recriminations, these are things which …
Political pundit Dr John Coulter of the Irish Daily Star maintains we shouldn’t just be focusing on the Ulster Unionists’ problems. He reckons the DUP could also be heading for stormy waters. Oh, and stand by for an extended metaphor of prodigious length!By John Coulter There’s so much focus on the rudderless and leaderless HMS UUP, the political eye has been taken off the motionless DUP U-Boat basking calming off the shores of electoral victory. We now know the real …
Owen Bowcott talks to Andy Wilson of East Antrim Unionist Association about what the UUP’s crushing defeat means for its future and where he sees the potential for growth that will sustain his party in the near future. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
An interesting letter in the Belfast Telegraph from London based Alan Patterson, who argues that the potential cost of losing David Trimble is that there is no one to sustain the improved image of Unionism in Britain. One key strength of David Trimble’s “new” unionism which has been virtually ignored in Northern Ireland has been the considerable impact which his positive and pragmatic stewardship of the Ulster Unionist Party has had upon unionism’s much maligned image in Great Britain. David …
Ruth Dudley Edwards knew Trimble better than most of his critics, and maybe even his own colleagues. She quotes a letter in the Irish Times last week which notes the silence that greeted the demise of a politician who played a key role in leading Northern Ireland from war to peace. She concludes that: Hyland [the letter writer] and I are a tiny minority among Irish citizens, to most of whom Trimble is anathema, for as a culture we seem …
There’s quite a few reviews of David Trimble out at the moment, some of them affectionate, more perhaps in the well worn line of the trouble with Trimble is… This one quotes Seamus Mallon who thinks a combination of the man’s natural diffidence over showing emotion and his negotiation skills (“the man never played a decent hand of poker in his life”) were responsible for his downfall.Though it strikes me that few seem to factor in the fact that Trimble …
Interesting discussion at the Young Unionist blog on the Trimble succession. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Guest writer, the Stormont Watchman, argues that David Trimble’s key mistake was in misunderstanding the intentions of Sinn Fein – or what he refers to as “the ideological DNA of the republican movement”. He believes that Ulster Unionist politicians (under the direction of DT)were too keen to close a definative deal with Sinn Fein. Their best long term hope, he argues, may lie in waiting for the DUP to make the same mistake.ULSTER’S BRANCH DAVIDIANS By Stormont Watchman The writer …
Understandably much of the media mind is focused on the David Trimble, some of it intelligently turning over his legacy – what worked and more often what didn’t. Here Steven King puts up a sturdy case for the defence. It’s not dissimilar to the case that Sylvia Hermon put yesterday on RTE, that David Trimble had “delivered the DUP to the middle ground”: David Trimble has finally used up his nine lives, but it’s amazing that he sustained support for …
Alex Kane argues that the problem for Unionism is not so much the differences between the two main parties, so much as its failure to galvanise its own vote. Whilst he readily admits his own party (UUP) has some fundamental challenges ahead, he also beleives that the DUP has yet to truly shoulder the responsibilities of leadership against an unpredictable opponent (namely the Republican movement).By Alex Kane It has not been the easiest of weeks for the Ulster Unionist Party …
The Young UU’s have sparked an interesting discussion on their blog with Sam Foster’s letter to the Newsletter’s questioning Arlene Foster’s sincerity and loyality to the UUP, when she jumped ship after taking her seat in the Assembly elections under that party’s banner. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. …
Is the Doc is making a play to take the former UUP stronghold for the DUP’s Arlene Foster from Michelle Gildernew, in return for a freeish ride for UUP’s Michael McGimpsey in South Belfast? Whatever the gameplan, his prediction of a 9 to 2 sweep looks ominous for his UUP rivals. East and South Antrim look highly vulnerable. So is the other one Upper Bann, North Down, or South Belfast? Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written …
The Newsletter is still enthusiastically promoting the possibility that Unionists can do a deal in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, and impose the only likely hit Sinn Fein is likely to take in the Westminster elections, which are expected in early May. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Alex Kane says that all unionists should focus on giving Sinn Fein a bloody electoral nose in the next Westminster election. He reckons it’s possible that with a DUP/UUP pact that Unionists could take 17 of Northern Ireland’s seats.By Alex Kane I have never really approved of the St. Patrick’s Day junkets to Washington and the White House; because I have never fully understood the need to fatten the egos of a group of Ulster politicians, who, between them, represent …
