Another council by-election
I have just finished presenting this weekend's "Inside Politics". My main guest Jim Allister predicted that his party would force another council by-election, this time in Ballymoney, after the resignation of the DUP Councillor Roy Wilson. So could this be another Dromore?
Whilst we were on air the DUP rang up to deny Mr Allister's assertion that Councillor Wilson had resigned from the party. They said his decision to step down from the council was a personal matter not connected witht he party policy on power sharing.
Either way the contest, as Mr Allister maintained, should prove interesting given the focus on North Antrim in the run up to the next Westminster election.
Jim Allister also talked about the Larry Zaitschek case, his annoyance at Peter Robinson supposedly lumping anti-power sharing unionists together with dissident republicans as "wreckers" and the recent erratic behaviour of Ballymena Councillor Robin Sterling (who does not look as if he will be expelled from the TUV).
During discussions with my two guests, Politics Professor Rick Wilford and former civil servant Bill Smith, we covered a number of topics including Westminster expenses in the wake of the the likelihood of the mandatory coalition being repleced by a voluntary coalition and the supposed diary mix up which saw Martin McGuinness walking in to Downing Street to discuss policing and justice on his own. Rick pointed out that the current mandatory coalition, for all its faults, is more voluntary than people sometimes concede as any of the parties could walk away. Bill, wearing his civil service hat, reckoned that, when it came to the dairy mix up, the "cock up" theory might be more persuasive than the conpiracy one.
Amazingly, on a Drumcree Sunday, we didn't touch on parading. That would not have been imaginable 12 years ago.
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