Hardly surprisingly, Lady Sylvia Hermon has announced that she will not be seeking the UUP’s nomination for the North Down constituency.
This means, presumably, that she may well stand against the agreed Conservative candidate – presumably Ian Parsley. This may mean that the UUP will lose its only MP in the House of Commons. However, that’ll be no great loss. Lady Hermon rarely attends and mostly votes with the Labour government. She is unapologetically “New Labour” – whatever that means these days.
Now that Sylvia is out of the way this means, I presume, that the joint committee will proceed to select candidates from the lists of nominees from both parties. As to how quickly this will happen is anyone’s guess. However, I’m advised that candidates are likely to be agreed this week.
I was due to comment on the selection debacle on this evening’s PM programme on Radio 4 – although the package was bumped off, for obvious reasons i.e. the bomb detonated in Newry by “dissident” Republicans.
But long and short the delayed selection process is a dog’s dinner. One hopes that, from now on, the UUP side of the candidate line-up might start behaving like Tories. But I’m not holding my breath.
Owen Polley has done a great job assessing the quality of the 17 UUP candidates and highlights the dead-wood. You can read his analysis here.
When do we get to know the Tory candidates up for selection in each seat? Are any of those excellent candidates who got ‘tired of waiting’ still in the running?
Bryan, yes I believe that the three who withdrew are back in the race.
Hi Jeff, also did a quick analysis of the sylvia thing on my blog.
Interesting days ahead. Agree the selection stuff should have been well in place by Sep Oct last year.