Long to step down from Stormont
NAOMI Long insists she is pressing ahead with plans to resign her Assembly seat, in line with the Alliance Party's commitment on dual mandates.
"I made the commitment to do give up the Assembly seat if I was elected, and will do it," she told the News Letter. "The timing depends on a couple of things: we have to put through a process in the party to get a replacement, and we have to see that the budget gets through and feel that there is a degree of stability in that Liberal-Conservative coalition."
Yet the scenario facing the newly elected Alliance Party MP for East Belfast illustrates some of the issues surrounding a ban.
If the current Westminster parliament proves short-lived, and collapses late next year, Mrs Long will be jobless if she loses her battle for re-election.
The Assembly election will already have been held, as will the local council elections.
If Mrs Long has also stood down from Belfast City Council by then, it will be three or four years before she gets another chance to stand for elected office.
Many critics will be unsympathetic and say: 'that is the nature of politics'.
When the Political Review researched Mrs Long's re-election prospects last week, even her opponents praised her constituency work.
So a wider question for wider society is: how many people are themselves prepared to step forward and make such a commitment to public service in the face of the risk of sudden joblessness at middle age?
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Weather for Belfast
Monday 13 February 2012
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