A Tory vs. Labour dust up in North Down? Yes please!

Two Ulster Unionists have swiftly stepped forward in order to fill the breach left by Sylvia Hermon. Bill McKendry and Johnny Andrews are confirmed supporters of the Conservative link-up and strong proponents of pan-UK unionism.

North Down, which has proved UCUNF’s problem seat thus far, now has a strong panel of possible candidates vying for selection. It’s just a pity it took so long.

Meanwhile members of the Labour party in Northern Ireland are keen to secure Hermon’s services. The honourable thing for the North Down MP to do is to stand under the Labour banner.

It would be an exciting development if the two big British parties were to go head to head in a Northern Ireland constituency. That is the type of politics which we must move towards.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well said, Owen! This is a development that I'd like to see myself, since I'm not at all sure that the SDLP is ever going to get its act together. I would personally incline towards the Labour side of politics myself, but North Down could be a testing ground for these two beasts to slug it out, and, who knows, provide an alternative to sectarian politics in NI in the fullness of time.

Phil Larkin
24 February 2010 at 14:11
Timothy Belmont said…
I'm putting my weight behind Johnny Andrews. We were at school together so I do have a bias, in that sense.

To be truthful, either of them would be a better choice than the sitting MP.
24 February 2010 at 14:44
rutherford said…
The limp fisted treatment of her departure by the UUP leaves a lot to be desired. She is a competitor for votes and even the leadership appears openly wistful?

Weak.
24 February 2010 at 19:56
thedissenter said…
Don't see why they are bothering when Parsley will be the candidate.
24 February 2010 at 20:54
Anonymous said…
I agree it would be a great start for Labour to stand Sylvia, and it is logical for Sylvia, good for Labour.
25 February 2010 at 00:15
Ulster Liberal said…
Why the excitement, given the differences between Labour and the Tories are so wafer thin these days? Both sides have sold out large swathes of their core policies in search of a mandate from a few thousand floating voters in the English Midlands. All the while, British democracy suffers. The thought that PR-guru, Cameron, up to his neck in Rupert Murdoch will be following in the footsteps of Disraeli and MacMillan is a profoundly depressing prospect.

On the positive side, this is my first post on this website and I should say what a fine blog it is.
25 February 2010 at 00:26
Ulster Liberal said…
In theory it is certainly a positive step in the right direction but in practice neither labour or the Tories stand for much these days other than sucking at the teet of Rupert Murdoch and putting all effort into saying anything they believe a few dozen thousand English midland floating voters wish to hear.
25 February 2010 at 00:31
Garza said…
Imagine:

North Down: Lab GAIN Con

or

North Down: Con GAIN Lab

Smiles and beers all around.
25 February 2010 at 00:45
Owen Polley said…
Ulster Liberal - thanks for the kind comment. It would be the connotations in terms of normal politics, no matter how bland, that would excite me. Bring on those debates about small differences in policy, if they replace the current wrangles.

Lord Belmont - My god man! you've been to school with most of the UCUNF stable. ;-)
25 February 2010 at 08:53
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retaine...
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro...
Read more