Lapses

Yesterday evening Mike Nesbitt seemed to have a number of lapses of memory on the UUP and shared education. He asked what happened to the proposal for a Commission? He seems not to have read the Programme for Government which states:

"Establish a Ministerial advisory group to explore and bring forward recommendations to the Minister of Education to advance shared education (DE)"

As the UUP candidate in favour of staying in government he might be expected to have some awareness of what it is proposing to do.

However, that is more of a minor detail when it comes to his claim on what was UUP policy. He claimed that shared education was the UUP's policy. In 2011 Mike Nesbitt was deeply involved with the central UUP campaign. He was particularly involved with its education policy as he points out on his blog he led the party's Education Press Conference. He kindly provides a transcript (Word 2010 required) from the Conference. It states the following on the UUP and a Commission and Shared Education:

"........"

However, the UUP 2011 manifesto was not quiet on the topic. It stated:

"If anyone wants a genuine debate on creating a single schools’ system, that debate belongs in the Assembly; not in the chamber of a newly created Commission."