With or Without UUs?
We are heading into a potentially busy fortnight. As we've already noted the Ulster Unionists are due to hold their North Down selection meeting on Friday March 5th. With that in mind the Conservatives and Unionists should then be moving to confirm their remaining 9 candidates. Over the weekend the Newsletter reported that the former senior police officer, Norman Baxter, had counted himself out of the running in Fermanagh South Tyrone. This has put paid to speculation that he might emerge as a single unionist candidate to fight Michelle Gildernew.
The DUP also have some interesting selection meetings coming up - I hear Monday March 8th has been pencilled in for North Antrim and Wednesday March 10th for Strangford. Should Ian Paisley Senior's reticence about talking about North Antrim in his recent Newsletter interview be taken as a sign that he intends to bow out? If so will it fall to Ian Paisley Junior to take on Jim Allister in a head on struggle for the soul of hardline unionism? So far as Strangford is concerned, will the DUP trust to the local profile of hunting, shooting and fishing man Jim Shannon to contrast itself with the celebrity candidacy of Mike Nesbitt?
Amidst all these beauty contests, however, some other dates could change the political context in which the Westminster election takes place. Next Saturday March 6th I shall be in Dublin for the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis. But north of the border there is a potentially more significant gathering so far as the future of the Hillsborough deal is concerned.
The Orange Order's Grand Lodge is expected to reconsider what progress has been made on parading. Its members are likely to want to know more details of what the DUP Sinn Fein working party on parading has in mind before indicating if they are happy with the marching elements of the deal. The timing of this meeting is important, as it falls a few days before March 9th, the date pencilled in for MLAs to hold a cross community vote requesting the transfer of justice powers from Westminster to Stormont. The DUP has previously indicated that if they weren't happy with the way the deal is being implemented their MLAs might not walk into the lobby.
Of course the Orange view is only one element amongst the DUP's often repeated requirement for "community confidence". That brings us to today's "Inside Politics" during which Nigel Dodds told me that progress would not be able to happen if the UUP voted against or abstained in the vote on March 9th. The DUP Deputy Leader described it as potentially "a very very serious situation."
My UUP guest Fred Cobain expressed a degree of incredulity. How, he asked, could Peter Robinson talk so passionately about his belief in the Hillsborough deal, then have his deputy indicate that DUP MLAs won't back it if their UUP counterparts don't join them in the yes lobby?
Equally, though, the DUP ask how David Cameron can publically endorse Hillsborough, whilst his local allies in the UUP seem to take such a different line?
Tomorrow Peter Robinson is due to make some remarks on education - might these nod at the UUP concerns about academic selection, which they have linked to the overall deal?
And come March 9th will UUP support be essential, as some DUP sources insist, or is it just an added extra for the First Minister? Can Hillsborough live with or without the UUP?
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