DUP selection turns messy.

The UUP is not the only Northern Irish party whose selection process is turning fractious.

Over at Slugger Drumlin’s Rock highlights the curious case of Dr Phillip Weir.  The DUP’s head of policy was deselected in Craigavon where he currently holds a council seat and subsequently failed to get the nod just down the road, in Banbridge.

Obviously the key adviser to Peter Robinson is not easily discouraged.  He intends to try for selection for a third council seat, perhaps that will be the charm.  This time it’s in Lisburn, where Edwin Poots stands down at the next election, in order to concentrate on his Assembly duties.

Meanwhile the News Letter reports that DUP Belfast city councillor, David Rodway, has also been deselected in favour of leading Orangeman, Tom Haire.

It doesn’t look like Rodway will go quietly.  He claims that he may be suffering discrimination because of his agnostic beliefs.  The Cornishman now says that he’s in talks with UUP leader Tom Elliott.

Rodway describes a small group within the DUP “with a narrow view of politics and religion” who “stiched (him) up”.  Not the type of allegation Robinson will want to hear repeated as he tries to claim the unionist centre ground.

Comments

Michael Shilliday said…
I wonder by what criteria Weir is eligible to stand in three different councils.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/apni/1972/9/section/3
14 February 2011 at 13:04
Anonymous said…
Live, work or pay rates is the usual rule.
14 February 2011 at 15:18
Anonymous said…
did the DUP guy sign a declaration saying he would support the sucessful candidates?

Does anyone know if Paula bradshaw, harry hamilton or David McClarty did the same??
14 February 2011 at 19:38
Anonymous said…
Conseils tres interessants. A quand la suite?
15 February 2011 at 09:59
Anonymous said…
Can you have agnostic beliefs?

I suppose if you are Cornish.
15 February 2011 at 11:19
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 retained a substantial haul of arms.
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