They're going to get you too? Another one of the UUP's young stars bites the dust.
In the Belfast Telegraph on Wednesday, and on this blog yesterday, I suggested that Tom Elliott must find a role for the younger generation of UUP activists who backed Basil McCrea. Their energies, I hinted, would find another outlet, if they weren’t harnessed in the party’s interests. Prominent among this group is Paula Bradshaw, widely acknowledged as a ‘rising star’, who performed creditably for UCUNF (given the circumstances) in South Belfast. She is considering her political future after being denied the opportunity to run for the Assembly elections. One selection meeting doesn’t constitute a ‘night of the long knives’, but it will be interesting to see whether this pattern is repeated elsewhere. Harry Hamilton, one of the more exciting prospects unearthed by UCUNF, has already ‘bitten the dust’ in Upper Bann. It’s early days, but after its choice of a ’grey man’ as leader, will the UUP throw away the chance to brighten up its candidate list for the Assembl...