Comment 15 here wonders why I haven’t blogged the party conference. The answer is that I wasn’t there, unfortunately I could only make the UUC on Friday night. Gareth Gordon has a pretty good report on the BBC, which they have online here. The most interesting element of course being the invitation of a Nationalist to address conference, who finished by using the traditional Unionist battle cry – no surrender.
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
Is the best way to overcome the legacy of conflict simply to forget about it? Author and journalist David Rieff spoke on this subject last week in a seminar at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) at Trinity College Dublin. Rieff has recently written a book titled, Against Remembrance (published in Ireland by Liffey [...] read our review »
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
Turgon,
I’m sure you have answered this elsewhere. But Bob McCartney provided a clear choice for people who wanted to rule out government with Sinn Fein. It was patently obvious that getting into government with SF was the DUP’s objective once the polls were over. Why didn’t you vote for Bob ? Why did you vote for the DUP knowing that they would be in government with SF ?
>no power sharing with SF without further movement from them
What movement is that exactly Turgon?
Comrade Sralin,
As I have repeatedly said I did not vote DUP last time. I did not vote for McCartney as I feel that he although a fairly good analyst of politics and sharing many of my views; is a pretty hopless leader and was a non credible candidate.
Briso,
I have different views from other members of the prodiban but I would have thought disbandment of the army council, an end to criminality by the IRA; full and complete SF cooperation with the police when crimes are actually committed rather than what we saw recently. Not having leading SF members announcing they would not go to the police, not having leading SF members telling us that future republicans going back to violence. That would be enough for some.
“The talent is there, the second raters you think so much of in the DUP, will have to deal with many, many undelivered promises.2
I don’t- and I won’t be voting next time out unless Jim Allister has a runner.
But seriously, where is this rich vein of virgin talent in the UUP?
The last batch -Donaldson, Foster, King, etc were let go to the DUPes by the good ol’ boys who are still running your party- Jim Wilson back as chief exec, Ken Maginnis as treasurer- in a fit of pique.
A clutch of untried YUs, virtually no women, Basil Mccrea the nearest thing to a poster boy and the rising star some farmer from south Down whose name I’ve forgotten. Still, better than the 2002 election and “secret weapon” Cecil Walker, I suppose…
The funniest thing coming out of conference is the, in effect, hay list, er, I mean A List Reg now thinks he can roll out. As Bro Darth says, the sheer volume of talent will blow the DUP away. Seriously, they needn’t even bother standing next time out. 12 nill, 12 nill, 12 nill. Singalong! 12 nill, 12 nill, 12 nill! Hypnotic, ain’t it? Oh and look: here’s the Gimp with the Koolaid.
Darth,
“…the rising star some farmer from south Down…” is John McCallister. Unlike McCrea, who is ideologically rootless and happy to hitch his star to any useful bandwagon, McCallister is genuinely likeable and an increasingly impressive performer.
More important, he is building up a fan base in the media and gathering support from some UUP figures (and MLAs) who don’t like the good ol’ boys and who view McCrea with some suspicion.
I suspect Empey will hang on comfortably until 2009 (having had a good EGM and conference). I picked up from a very reliable source that McFarland is about to be rehabilitated to the inner circle, another move that will strengthen the leader. I’m also led to believe that McCallister is being groomed and prepared for a much higher media profile.
Porlock
“I’m also led to believe that McCallister is being groomed and prepared for a much higher media profile”
Well, they wouldn’t be grooming him for Westminster now, would they?
BonarLaw,
No, my understanding is that the plans for McCallister do not include a go at Westminster next time round.
Anyway, South Down has already approached someone else (a she as it happens)who is not at present a member of the party. And no!!! It’s not Margaret Ritchie.
Porlock
If I lived in South Down I would be very tempted indeed to vote Ritchie for Westminster.
The excitment in UUP circles is now almost palpable. There seems to be the beginings of belief that they are about to regain their “rightful position”.
All this has a rather flimsy basis in fact at the moment. That is not to say that it is impossible but there remain very significant obstacles. It is currently a revival in the media with little evidence elsewhere.
This mini revival is, I would submit, led by the recent failures of the DUP. The continuing allegations regarding the Causeway, the PR disaster which was the UDA money, the reaction to the Quinn murder; and over all of it the continued feeling that the DUP have much too cosy a relationship with SF. Indeed a feeling that the DUP and SF are carving up government between themselves whatever the other parties and the public think.
So the DUP may temporarily be out of touch with the views of the unionist electorate. The DUP may very well recover and the crisis may be more in the heads of the media and politicos rather than reality. Even if it is true there are problems for the UUP.
The UUP have achieved very little in government. Empey has done little of obvious note and McGimpsey’s major decision was not to make necessary reform in the NHS. I am very dubious about there being an “A list” of UUP stars waiting in the wings.
Even if the “A list” did exist and are extremely talented there are still very significant problems. The severe atrophy of the local party structure is a major problem which is very difficult to rapidly solve.
One of the major complaints about the current dispensation is that it is a carve up involving the four main parties with the major two having the lion’s share of the power. The UUP were, however, one of the major architects of this system. They propose some reform but by far their main aim is surely to take the DUP’s position and have their own hegemony of power with one of the nationalist parties.
This leads on to the next problem. The UUP complain (rightly) that the DUP seem far too friendly with SF. Yet what is the likehood of the UUP standing up to and fighting SF in government? This from the party of “No guns, no government”. Unionist voters who are disenchanted with the current system are in danger of being offered more of the same but with the UUP having a “love in” with SF. There is little evidence of a real appetite from the UUP to completely reassess the current system (which they helped create) but instead there is the appearence that the UUP would like to get themselves into what they see as their natural place of being the main unionist party. Maybe they would not be as quick to get their snouts in the trough as the DUP but I am unsure and I suspect they want a bit of dictatorship themselves.
The segment of the party which seems to want a complete renegotiation seems to have done fairly badly in the latest conference and in McNarry has a leader who is unlikely to provide a major break through within the UUP let alone in the electorate at large.
All this leads on to the other option which the disgrubtled unionist voter could take. One could argue for a complete reanalysis of the nature of the current agreement with an end to mandatory coalition, proper cabinet government with collective responsibility, a serious look at ending the mutual veto. There also remains the issue for many unionists of SF in governemt with the army council still extant and some members unwilling to support the police properly, a problem which recent events will have done nothing to allay.
So I still feel that the unionist electorate will be anxious about returning en mass to the UUP. Once bitten twice shy and all that sort of thing; even leaving aside the problem of lack of leading personalities etc.
Of course anyone who knows my views knows where this is going.
The stage is set for an attempt by the prodiban to offer a genunine alternative to the current arrangements. I have outlined the options before but to those who say renegotiation is impossible I would suggest that that was said before the DUP gained the predominant position in unionism.
Of course all the problems of no “A list” apply far more so to the prodiban, the lack of a grass roots party is even more a problem for the prodiban than it is for the UUP. The challenge is as I have frequently stated before massive. However, if the unionist electorate want an alternative to the DUP then yes there is the UUP which I would argue is not very disimilar to more of the same and anyway they have tried that before and rejected it. To quote Robert Frost in “The Road Not Taken”:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
I have made my choice; I wonder how many of the unionist electorate will agree. Well even if (when?) we fail at least it can be like Mallory trying to scale our own version of Everest.
I find this all interesting. Fundamentally the DUP has always been a party of protest by opposing the reforms of our ex-PM Terence O’Neill whose only crime to include the SDLP more to the more recent media claims by the now first minister that Sinn Fein must disband etc. Now that they are in the driving seat of unionsim it appears they have diluted their zeal for the poison of power. The DUP may be no worse now than SF but the UUP cannot escape the blame for they have allowed this to happen!