The Conservatives and Ulster Unionist Party have agreed on nine of their joint candidates for the forthcoming general election.
The nine include former TV presenter Mike Nesbitt who will be the joint Conservative and Unionist candidate in Strangford.
Daphne Trimble has been nominated by both parties to stand in Lagan Valley.
Assembly members Danny Kennedy and John McAlister have also been endorsed by both parties.
Harry Hamilton will stand in Upper Bann, Sandra Overend has been selected for Mid Ulster and Ross Hussey will be the joint candidate in West Tyrone.
Bill Manwaring is to stand in West Belfast, while former rugby international Trevor Ringland will be the joint Conservative and Unionist candidate in East Belfast.
Ringland, Nesbitt, Overend, Trimble and Hamilton - that’s five out of my original six guesses, although I don’t think they were the hardest of predictions I've ever had to make. Several other random points:
1.I was under the impression Tom Elliott in Fermanagh and South Tyrone had already been selected as the joint candidate (no Conservative alternative offered up in the constituency).
2. Four out of the nine selected are standing in constituencies where they should be in with at least a reasonable shout (Trimble, Hamilton, Ringland and Nesbitt). None of the four are certainly what you would describe as *traditional* Unionists but still, it’s curious that the Conservatives seem happy enough to let the UUP do the running there... perhaps they are concentrating their fire on the other two possibles, North Down (Parsley) and South Belfast (McCann??). If the Conservatives and Unionists are to make any gains on their present, er... zero seats, it will surely happen amongst those six.
3. Is there an ideological division starting to occur between the constituencies including and surrounding Belfast and those in the outlying regions?
OK, Cobain in N Belfast and Watson in S Antrim are the exceptions, but the other candidates would tend towards the pan-UK, pro-Conservative, civic Unionism in the three Belfast constituencies, (most probably) North Down, Strangford, Upper Bann, East Antrim, Lagan Valley, South Down. Those who would lean more towards the more culturalist "Unionist Unity" brand, in particular, Kennedy and Elliot are standing in the border constituencies.
4.With McGrady’s retirement there is a strong possibility that Sinn Fein may next time be returned in 6 out of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies. Of course, it would be much better, for a whole host of reasons, that a pro-Union (or even an MP who actually promises to go to the parliament to which they have been elected) wins instead those six... but wouldn’t it be ironic if it's Sinn Fein’s abstentionist policy which contributes in returning a Conservative and Unionist government in the event of a hung parliament ?!
2 comments:
Is there any prospect of the DUP being unseated in East Belfast, this time round?
I recall Bill Craig, the then sitting UUP MP, attending events at Victoria Park; I think he may have been a touch complacent, thus Peter Robinson won the seat by 60 or 70 votes! That's as far as I remember.
There's got to be a chance with the expenses scandals and hardline disapproval of the P&J handling, although, to be fair, Robinson has done a pretty salvage job over the last few weeks.
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