In many ways the Ulster Unionist Party is a mirror image of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in the sense that their respective policies agreed during the talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement were stolen and are now being implemented by Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party.
Most objective observers would agree there has always been a gene pool of thinkers in the SDLP though that pool may be more shallow in recent times.
To illustrate the point about residual depth in the SDLP unlike the Ulster Unionist Party I draw attention to the Scottish independence debate which I am following very closely and that includes monitoring Newsnight and Channel 4 News on this subject.
No one to date within Unionism has matched the thinking of Mark Durkan on this topic. When I say nobody, I mean nobody. His insightfulness from DUP, Conservatives, or SNP point of view is unparalleled.
I did say the intellectual content coming across in the SDLP appeared to have diminished. That said, what I don’t know is whether it is being redeemed by the ongoing performance of Alex Atwood as a minister. He is one minister over whose eyes no one pulls the wool. Privately, I guarantee you, Peter Robinson would love to see the back of him but I have no doubt he admires his capacity to forensically interrogate any subject despite getting up everbody’s nose. Doing the job is what matters. He is not in a beauty contest. While Atwood may well mask other deficits in that party – I would want him on my team.
The Ulster Unionist Party on the other hand simply hasn’t got a Mark Durkan or an Alex Atwood. Being in love with the ministerial job is not what government should be about. It is about leadership, taking unpopular courageous decisions. That includes biting the bullet, closing hospitals, schools etc, taking the hard decisions.
Having listened to John McCallister, Danny Kennedy and Basil McCrea on Good Morning Ulster did you sense there will be an emptying of the DUP ranks to join the Ulster Unionist party?
Not one of them was man enough to say “I want to be leader.’ What we got were meaningless platitudes about Tom Elliott’s values. Is Tom Elliott telling lies to Rodney Edwards on the Impartial Reporter website in stating: “There are some members of the party who want to feed lies rather than truths to these journalists.”
At the end of the day the Ulster Unionist Party has ended up ungovernable because of the many conflicting positions in its ranks, pro Conservatives, pro DUP, liberals, Orangemen and on and on. They have no clothes as argued by their former leader David Trimble when he joined our weekly political podcast – Mallie on Politics Podcast (Episode 3). The DUP are walking around wearing The Ulster Unionist Party’s Good Friday Agreement clothes. How can that party logically criticise the DUP? It is still March in the Ulster Unionist Party. The old people used to say “The March wind kills the old cow.” There are too many old people in the Ulster Unionist Party exposed to DUP gale force wind. One other thing: all you guys with political ambitions in Ulster Unionism: ‘beware the Ides of March’ now looming.
1 Comment
Appearances can be deceptive, I’m not one to judge someone’s intelligence, be it book smarts or street smarts I will say that in either case it’s knowing what you need to know. The SDLP manifesto content was aware of issues surrounding NET’s, the R&D deficiency, environmental conservation, agrifood potential, the potential of cross-border bodies and so on. Taking difficult unpopular decisions for the greater good is one thing, taking them to prove one’s leadership in front of the media is another.
Case and point, Altnagelvin-gate … frankly I believe that not only those in the NW of the island of Ireland cared about this issue, but frankly the people of Northern Ireland thought this satellite radiotherapy centre was important to the region even in a time of austerity needed to be spared. The DUP did what I believe the majority of pro-Union people, (perhaps the majority of UUP supporters) wanted and made sure that the centre had been funded. Populist perhaps … but the UUP sided with unpopularity … and lost the game.
Having a point to prove for the sake of proving a point is the cause of enough stupid behavior in this region.
Now in terms of judging the intellectual deficits, I think that’s rather snobbish. Does it really matter if someone studied law like Attwood and Durkan or Maginness over a medical science like Dolores Kelly or Alisdair McDonnell, or studied mathematics like O’Loan or McCamphill? The voters judge you on your capacity as a politician not whether you’ve studied Quantum Mechanics like O’Loan or Epidemology like McDonnell, and certainly not on your ability to perform “legal talk”. Half the Sinn Féiners have degrees these days in the North, and the majority of those in the South are Middle Class graduates or professionals.
I beg to question what intellectual deficit was present in PJ Bradley over the Autistic Spectrum Disorder bill?
You have moaned and complained about the unfairness and damage of our education system, yet the moment Margaret Ritchie tries to address the issue on those not in education, employment and training, she’s ignored for “style over substance” reasoning, when PJ Bradley argues for mainstream provisions for people with ASD … something the UUP also opposed … something that might save someone with Asperger’s Syndrome from a life of complete isolation and abandon in exchange for a reasonably small effort and expense … he’s somehow part of the SDLP intellectual deficit.
You probably disagree with Sammy Wilson being the biggest philistine since Goliath wrg to Art, but I’m with him on that matter … too much public money is wasted on ‘Expressionism’
I would never judge anyone’s intelligence … I don’t agree with McCausland’s views on Evolution, or Sammy Wilson’s views on Global Warming, yet both are successful and seem to know what their constituents want.
In Politics, that’s the only Intelligence you need.