If Basil wins will the last one to leave the UUP please turn out the lights

It was the Sun which famously stated in 1992 “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.” The News Letter seems to be running a slightly similar suggestion about Basil McCrea winning the UUP leadership race. They are suggesting that many of the current MLAs would refuse to serve with Basil McCrea as leader: thus far only one MLA (John McCallister) has declared for McCrea. Much of this likely to be hyperbole. …

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Thoughts on the UUP leadership: Part 2

I suggested the problems with a Basil McCrea led UUP below. Hence, the only alternative is Tom Elliott. Here again there are problems albeit different ones. Tom Elliott is a pretty hard man to dislike: he is affable, decent, honest and hard working. He has as Alex Kane suggests a much sharper political brain than he is often given credit for. The fact that Elliott speaks in a slow Fermanagh farmer’s lilt and is interested in consensus does not make …

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Thoughts on the UUP Leadership Part 1

The UUP leadership is finally becoming rather interesting. The establishment choice of Tom Elliott may have been the front runner but now the supposed outsider Basil McCrea is in fact becoming if not the favourite, certainly the media darling. McCrea is seen to offer the new dynamic choice of the party. The Belfast Telegraph has pointed out that McCrea is trying to enhance the party’s appeal to younger people. McCrea himself made much of reaching out to disaffected unionists and …

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UUP establishment worried about Basil McCrea?

Basil McCrea launched his campaign with a very interesting speech (copied below) yesterday at the Merchant Hotel in Waring Street, outlining)67 his five pledges for the kinds of changes he wants to make to his party’s approach. It’s fresh, interesting and in places thought provoking. Whether it adds up to a viable platform for change, is a matter for the party’s internal electorate. A good and plausible public speaker, McCrea is not popular with his Assembly colleagues. But his own …

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