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Wednesday 10 November 2010

Immediate

Apparently Harry Hamilton, the UCUNF Upper Bann candidate in the 2010 Westminster election, has told a local newspaper, the Banbridge Chronicle, that he has "no immediate future in the UUP".  This follows his failure to be selected as an Assembly candidate.  There is some ambiguity in that comment but it's hardly a ringing endorsement either.  So is a third Westminster candidate heading for the door?

Judging from the local papers the UUP have been fighting like a bag of cats over the Assembly selections and in the interests on internal harmony they have made the unwise decision to run three candidates.  They have failed the getting it test and learned little from their near miss in 2007.

I've never met the man but he came across in the documentary about his campaign, Queen and Country, as a decent bloke. Although he was a bit naive and inexperienced in terms of campaigning.  An eve of poll leaflet is a standard tool, primarily to push turnout rather than change minds.  He and his campaign manager came across as entirely blindsided by the DUP using one and thus tried to blame it falsely for the result.  Regardless, the result he achieved - a comparable performance with Trimble in 2005 - was creditable especially when the media fascinated on one aspect of his life, the Freddie Mercury impersonations.

2 comments:

Owen Polley said...

I doubt it was the concept of issuing a leaflet on the eve of an election which bothered him. Still, it could've been worse. He could've been a candidate in South Belfast suffering the contemptible, quasi BNP guff that Jimmy Spratt was putting through doors.

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha! Get over yourself Polly. Whilst you were crying in to your lap-top about how unfair it all was, the DUP were out tramping the streets and banging doors in South Belfast. Anyway, the candidate who you praised to high heaven has now abandoned the Tories and their UUP puppets. Does that now make her a quasi-nationalist?