UUP – Page 19 – Slugger O'Toole

UUP’s very public contest for leadership…

Mick Fealty on March 21, 2012, 12:37 pm

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There are two striking differences between the UUP’s leadership campaign and that of the SDLP’s is its the current campaign’s brevity and the very public nature of this one versus the party only meetings of the minor nationalist party. Both main contenders have already racked up to public interviews, one each for the BBC’s Sunday Politics and then UTV on Monday Here’s John McCallister speaking to Paul Clarke: And Mike Nesbitt: It has already had an interesting effect, not least …

Without Opposition, “the UUP remains trapped, un-influential and jointly culpable…”

Mick Fealty on March 19, 2012, 11:30 am

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Alex Kane on the virtues of embracing opposition for the UUP: …it strikes me that the UUP is in the same position as Clegg: it cannot be true to itself and carve out its own identity (which makes it hard to attract new votes) and it shares the general unpopularity of the Executive (which means it may lose people who voted for it last time). Mike is right when he says that the UUP’s structures and organisation still need work …

Learning from the Tories: A road map to recovery for parties in trouble?

Mick Fealty on March 17, 2012, 12:50 pm

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Noel Whelan’s op ed piece is an intelligent structural rip from Tim Bale’s address to the recent Fianna Fail Ard Fheis on lessons to be drawn from the Tory come back after more than 13 years in the political wilderness.. Professor Bale was drawing on his recent study The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron… As Whelan suggests there are lessons here for all former incumbent parties here, north as well as south… You should really read the whole thing… …

Can the new UUP leader put an end to the party’s inexorable drift?

Mick Fealty on March 15, 2012, 1:33 pm

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Liam Clarke in the BelTel, frames the leadership contest within the UUP: In its heyday the UUP was the party of the Union. Later it became, with the SDLP, a party of the peace process. Since then it has struggled to define a new role for itself and support has drifted away. It has flirted with the Tories, the DUP, and the SDLP and before that the PUP as it sought allies to halt its decline. At each stage it …

John McCallister joins the UUP leadership race

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 13, 2012, 7:25 am

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This morning, John McCallister – UUP Deputy Leader of the Assembly Group – has thrown his farmer’s cap into the ring to replace Tom Elliott as leader of the UUP. In a statement McCallister calls himself an “unashamed liberal progressive unionist” and makes a couple of his policies clear: UUP shouldn’t be allowed to float into the orbit of the DUP. If elected, the UUP would go into opposition at Stormont. The question now is whether Mike Nesbitt (who managed …

Tom Elliott hands the poisoned chalice on

Turgon on March 12, 2012, 4:56 pm

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As referred to extensively below Tom Elliott has announced his decision to step down as UUP leader and Danny Kennedy has now announced his decision to stand. There has been much analysis both in the press and in blogs about the decision: as ever the best to my mind is Alex Kane’s in the News Letter. Tom Elliott was elected by a considerable margin over Basil McCrea even if one leaves out the votes from Fermanagh. At the time I …

Tom Elliott’s first post resignation interview…

Rodney Edwards on March 9, 2012, 6:35 pm

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Tom Elliott, who resigned as Ulster Unionist leader last night, says he quit because of growing tensions within the party. He also says there has been an “uneasy atmosphere” in the Ulster Unionist Party in recent days and claimed that some of his colleagues have been making life difficult for him by briefing journalists “lies”. In an exclusive interview with The Impartial Reporter, Mr. Elliott says he has “no regrets” about his time in charge, adding: “I would have liked …

Elliott off – what next for the UUP?

Dewi on March 8, 2012, 8:25 pm

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Tom Elliott has obviously had enough. (from UTV) Mr Elliott has said he will not seek re-election to the position at the annual general meeting, in just over three weeks time. In a statement outlining his decision and the reasons behind it, he said some “obstruction and hostility” began immediately following his election as leader and has been “relentless” since then. The party’s AGM is scheduled to take place on Saturday 31 March. “It has been a great privilege for …

“the game for the UUP is virtually up unless it is able to come to terms with … the unpalatable reality”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 19, 2012, 8:26 pm

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Tom Eliott wielding scissors at the opening of David McNarry's Saintfield Advice Centre Opening

The king of the UUP-scourging quote is back. David McNarry, the man who gave us the line “the party will close ranks and anybody who wants to be a hypocrite will get their photograph taken” has given up his early Lenten abstinence from the media. The UUP member and independent MLA at the centre of the party’s most recent fracas has emerged and spoken once again to the News Letter, despite the ongoing disciplinary process and the instruction to all …

UUP and the SDLP: Two parties in search of a script?

Mick Fealty on February 9, 2012, 9:00 am

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Very good column from Fionnuala O’Connor on Tuesday re what what’s happening to two parties in continuing decline. She starts with the semi public spat between Margaret Ritchie and her chosen successor, the retired school head, Sean Rogers: Surely between them a keen new player and a former leader could have avoided such a petty row, or at least kept the daylight from it. It’s as if they don’t realise the SDLP image has taken a battering. The old rules …

UUP: Confused boxer without a decent right or left?

Mick Fealty on February 2, 2012, 12:30 pm

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There isn’t really an upside to the UUP’s problems at the moment. Although they were never what you might even remotely call political friends, Mr McNarry’s exit bears a lot of resemblance to the early departure of Trevor Ringland. Already the consequences are closing in. So early in his career as leader to have lost allies or potential allies from both the right and the left, is a little more than careless. His problem is – not dissimilar to the …

McNarry: “the party will close ranks and anybody who wants to be a hypocrite will get their photograph taken”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 1, 2012, 9:10 pm

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Tom Eliott wielding scissors at the opening of David McNarry's Saintfield Advice Centre Opening

It’s the story that keeps on giving. And that looks to be David McNarry’s intention. Now free of having to notify the UUP press office about media interviews and statements – something that Tom Elliott has adhered to as Party Leader – David McNarry is everywhere. This morning’s News Letter. The Belfast Telegraph. Though nothing fully authored by him in the Irish News. [Ed: Maybe he’s saving that as a treat for Thursday?] In recent days he has appeared on …

UUP must get over its permanent identity crisis…

Mick Fealty on January 23, 2012, 9:18 pm

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Alex Kane’s column from the News Letter today in which he tells the UUP (and the Tories) more than a few uncomfortable truths: Putting it bluntly, the UUP needs a convincing answer to one simple question: what is the point in voting for the UUP rather than the DUP? If they don’t have a convincing answer to that question then the DUP vote will remain steady, non-voters won’t be attracted and some of the UUP’s own voters may choose to …

Cryptozoology: Unionist outreach to Catholics

Turgon on January 11, 2012, 9:00 am

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Cryptozoology according to wikipedia is “the search for animals whose existence has not been proven.” Here in Northern Ireland we have our own version of this: not monsters in Lough Erne (though the pike can get pretty big) but rather the political version. The two most sought after fantasy animals are the fabled Garden Centre Prod and the unicorn that is the Unionist Catholic. These creatures probably hide in the Craigantlet and Castlereagh Hills in the case of the Garden …

Tories and the UUP go their separate ways…

Mick Fealty on January 4, 2012, 8:29 pm

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Acrrmoniously, according to Ken Reid. The Tories, at last, are to properly organise in Northern Ireland and run against the UUP… The BelTel points out the obvious problem for them: …there is an obvious difficulty for the Tories before they have even organised strongly here. By promoting themselves, first and foremost, as a pro-union party – which should be an unsaid given – they will undoubtedly divorce themselves for a sizeable minority of the population. That begs the question of …

Local Political Reaction to EU Crisis Summit Outcome

Pete Baker on December 10, 2011, 4:09 pm

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How have our local political parties reacted to the outcome of the EU crisis summit? Well, neither the Green Party nor the Alliance Party appear to have noticed… The “Conservative and Unionist” MEP, Jim Nicholson, has, unsurprisingly, “welcomed the use of the British veto over a new EU-wide treaty by Prime Minister David Cameron”. “David Cameron was correct in effectively vetoing a new treaty and keeping the United Kingdom out of this new economic accord agreed at the EU emergency summit, …

Text of John McCallister’s speech to Sinn Fein

Turgon on November 26, 2011, 7:24 pm

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Mick has John McCallister’s speech to the Sinn Fein meeting in Newry on video below. I thought it might be worth reproducing the text as well. Willie Frazer is one of the few unionists to criticise the speech saying “We have nothing to apologise for” McCallister’s apology was for the failures of the old Stormont regime to live up to Carson’s injunction: We used to say that we could not trust an Irish parliament in Dublin to do justice to …

Unionists highlight Troubles border murders

Turgon on November 19, 2011, 7:42 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph is reporting that at the meeting of government ministers from Northern Ireland and the RoI in Armagh, Arlene Kelly and Danny Kennedy presented Enda Kenny with details of more than 150 republican murders in border areas during the Troubles. They have called on the RoI government to apologise for the fact that the IRA killers were able to escape across the border following these murders. Mrs. Kelly said: …that they should remind the Irish Government of today …

Conservatives winding up the UUP?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 10, 2011, 11:41 am

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If you tilt your head towards East Belfast, hold your breath and listen carefully, you’ll be able to hear the sound of chuckling from UUP HQ. Jeff Peel has blogged this morning about an audacious, bold, and unlikely-to-be-considered offer from the Conservative Party to the UUP. I was today forwarded a letter that has been sent to all members of the Conservative Party in Northern Ireland. The letter suggests that the Conservative Party chairman, Lord Feldman of Elstree, has addressed …

UUP conference preview – #uupconf (and a preview of what Tom won’t say in his speech!)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 21, 2011, 9:00 am

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What do you think Tom Elliott should say in his UUP conference speech on Saturday? I began last year’s UUP conference preview post with a fantastical vision of a Barcamp-style UUP ‘un-conference’, complete with delegate-suggested sessions. I also imagined the delegates writing Tom Elliott’s speech by scribbling suggested sentences on post-it notes and then knitting the fragments together in a “sensible and compelling order” to produce his address. This year I tried to go further and asked attendees and panellists …