Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The media has already established its angle on the North Antrim general election contest. It’s all about Jim Allister and whichever Paisley is nominated to rebuff his challenge. To a degree the preoccupation with the DUP / TUV contest is understandable. After all, in 2005 Senior romped home with more than 25,000 votes and Ulster Unionist candidate, Rodney McCune, was beaten to second spot by Sinn Féin. However, four years have elapsed and Northern Ireland’s electoral landscape looks rather different. Conservatives and Unionists will hope to improve their vote share considerably in the constituency. The TUV’s irrelevance to Westminster politics is manifestly obvious, and the Paisleys‘ reputation has been tarnished, even within their traditional heartlands. If voters in North Antrim need any reminder of the venality which caused the family’s downfall, they need only glance at a whopping £500,000 advice centre in Ballymena. Of course, if UCUNF is to benefit from a fragmented DUP v...

Deirdre Nelson, the Ballymena councillor who recently defected from the DUP, has officially announced her intention to fulfil council duties as a member of the Conservative party. It is, admittedly, a little curious that Nelson’s disillusionment with her former party seems to date from Ian Paisley’s departure as leader. The North Antrim MP’s rabble rousing style hardly conformed to the inclusive, pan-UK unionism which the Conservatives espouse. But that is the type of politics which the councillor explicitly endorsed when she explained her decision to colleagues at the council’s offices at Ardeevin, according to the Ballymena Times . “I have watched, with interest, the recent moves by the Conservative Party to begin to steer Northern Ireland away from sectarian politics into normal UK politics and to ensure that Northern Ireland fulfils (its) role as an integral and necessary part of the United Kingdom, in which all traditions are welcomed. “This, coupled with the recent visit by Da...

Earlier I complained that a lack of Wifi prevented me covering Cameron Direct, live from the Braid Centre in Ballymena. Alas there was no mobile phone reception in the building either, so even the tweeting option was not possible. Perhaps the Conservatives and Unionists leader should have conducted the event in my parents’ house, where they do extend to a broadband connection, which I am taking advantage of. Although given that the town hall was full to capacity, a marquee might’ve been required. Neill Armstrong, one of Ballymena Borough Council’s Ulster Unionist team, and a strong supporter of the Conservative link, introduced Mr Cameron to an audience of nearly two hundred. It appeared, to begin with, that a group of hardcore types was going to dominate proceedings by crying treachery for the entire meeting. But various pre-prepared histories of the troubles could not occlude the genuine concerns of local people, who quizzed Mr Cameron on education, the prospect of an enterpris...

Cameron Direct comes live from Ballymena’s Braid Centre (the town hall in old money) this afternoon. I will be in attendance, all being well, and I had intended to use ‘Cover it Live’ to bring readers a sense of the event, as it happens. Regrettably, I’m informed that Ballymena Borough Council’s new, state of the art, multi million pound facility is not equipped with broadband, still less wireless broadband! Which is surprising, to say the least, in a modern civic building which opened only recently. So it looks like the best I can do is refer you to my Twitter feed, which I shall update by text (in the mean time). Hardly the same, but needs must. Twitter Updates follow me on Twitter

You would not expect the SDLP to play dog whistle politics in the mould of Sinn Féin and neither has the party done so as regards Sunday’s homecoming parade for troops in Belfast. Instead the SDLP has urged nationalists to avoid Belfast city centre at Sunday lunchtime, but this in itself is a problematic intervention, because it implies that the event is exclusive to one community. Although many spectators who wish to attend the parade on Sunday will be unionists, there are nationalists whose family will be involved, no doubt there are nationalists who simply may wish to watch the event and by no means should politicians be invoking a communal imperative that they should stay away. The politics of Belfast dictate that the SDLP must continue occasionally to make sectarian shapes in order not to be outflanked by Sinn Féin. In contrast SDLP councillors in Ballymena, including veteran nationalist representative PJ McAvoy, will be in attendance as the town welcomes back RIR soldiers ton...

At the risk of losing my readership entirely, I couldn’t resist drawing attention to this confluence of famous TV programme, be-afroed Northern Irish singing sensation and the province’s finest village, Cullybackey. Not only has Duke Special produced the theme tune for Northern Ireland’s version of Sesame Street, alongside children from the Diamond Primary School, his newsletter also details venues where the Duke will record his new album, “London, Chicago and Cullybackey”. The attractions of London and Chicago will pale into insignificance when the Duke samples a chicken fillet burger from the Moby Chip . Although if he fancies a drink in Wylies , there’s a possibility his keyboard skills might be required to play the Queen on the trusty Casio at closing time.

The Ballymena Times carries a story regarding dropped charges for possession of bombs by Real IRA members. These characters have been involved in various activities around Ballymena in recent years and really do conform to the stereotype of lowlife thuggery which dissident republicanism brings to mind. The story includes several eyebrow raising details, not least of which is the revelation that when the house containing incendiary devices was raided the defendants allegedly hid them down their trousers. Is that a bomb down your trousers or are you just pleased to see me? There have been suggestions that the thug at the centre of the case, Paddy Murray, is being protected and may be an informer within the group. Of course Sinn Fein’s Daithi McKay interprets this as a “securocrat” plot to sabotage the peace process! Old habits die hard (your party are on the policing boards Daithi). Certainly there should be concerns that such a risible group cannot simply be rounded up and put in p...

The DUP’s hypocrisy has been well chronicled by Ulster Unionist supporters and those of other parties, but naturally enough it has caused particular angst amongst those who have left the party because of it. The irony is that these former DUP members are in many cases acknowledging an analysis which was being advanced by UUP commentators some time ago. Thus we have the fulminations of Councillor Robin Stirling during a debate in the chambers of Ballymena Borough Council as it resumed its business for the year 2008. Stirling lingers on obscure points of theology the casual reader may choose to skim, but his identification of both political and religious hypocrisy is entirely accurate. The only slight irony is that when Stirling points out “we may recall that when David Trimble spoke of 'No Alternative' he was greeted by howls of derision and cries of 'Lundy! Lundy! Lundy! But who is the Lundy now?” and “he presented a bogus resistance to the Belfast Agreement and then s...

Pity the residents of Fisherwick Gardens in Ballymena , the only residents of the town on whom a dissident republican march is to be inflicted. What exactly William Orr, a presbyterian United Irishman, would make of the band named in his honour, and the organisers of this parade, boggles the mind. This bizarre and gratuitously offensive event is universally deplored by every party with an elected representative on Ballymena Borough Council and is welcomed by almost no-one in the town. It will now comprise a 30 minute “march” of 100 metres by a coterie of thugs in quasi-military dress, to a single drumbeat, separated from a diametrically opposed coterie of oh so dissimilar thugs who will congregate to register their opposition through the medium of abuse and intimidation, by an expensively assembled mass of PSNI officers and Land Rovers. All very exciting for the thugs and all very lucrative for the PSNI officers. Not quite as pleasant for those who live in the Fisherwick estate. Every ...