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Monday 6 September 2010

Circular Firing Squad

The UUP leadership election has got vicious with Basil McCrea making a very misjudged attack on Tom Elliott.  McCrea undertook some shameless ambulance chasing by invoking the name of Peadar Heffron (a police officer and GAA player severely injured in a dissident car bomb attack) to attack Elliott's position on GAA matches.  Although he didn't care enough about Heffron to spell his name right.

McCrea's supporters had argued that Basil was a candidate who offered integrity.  However, this choice of statement would undermine that.  McCrea's desire to keep the GAA story alive has led to a ill-advised move that should enable Eliott to regain his media footing. In any leadership election there is a line between robust and destructive and McCrea's hunger may be pushing it in that direction.

The claim by McCrea that that he's "not going to go negative on a party colleague" is amusing and doesn't stand up to a glance let alone serious scrutiny.  The UUP has specialised in circular fire squads for a number of years and if the contest continues in this manner we may be on the verge of the biggest one yet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sir Reg has stated he wont be making comment either public or private on who he thinks is best suited for the leadership, but is golden girl mizzzz Bradshaw on McRea's 'arm' a possible indication??

McCrea is rapidly looking like a good bet.