THE DUP stepped up the offensive on the UUP-Tory pact last night, days ahead of David Cameron's visit to the Province too seal the political deal.
MLA Nelson McCausland said Sir Reg Empey had swapped playing second fiddle to David Trimble, for second fiddle to Mr Cameron.
“He was the Baldrick to Trimble’s Blackadder, now he’s the Rodney to Cameron’s Del Boy – always playing second fiddle, al
ways there for comedy value,” the DUP man claimed.
This was the first of what will probably be a series of DUP attacks on the new partnership, in the run-up to next Saturday’s UUP conference – at which Mr Cameron will speak and former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith is due to attend.
“Last year the headline speaker at the UUP conference was Margaret Ritchie and this year it will be David Cameron,” said the MLA.
“What a sad reflection on the state of Sir Reg Empey’s leadership that he has to draft in headline acts from other parties. The UUP leader clearly has no faith in his own message so he has to use his conference as a platform for other people’s. Poor old Reg: always the warm up act, never the main attraction.”
In a bid to test the foundations of the deal, Mr McCausland queried the Tories’ positioning on academic selection, given Mr Cameron’s policy in England not to promote grammar school education.
But in a sign of how the pact will work, Conservative Central office deferred to the local branch of the party on the matter and it said it was fully supportive of selection being retained.
This was in line with what Sir Reg told the News Letter, last week, that on certain issues the Tory leadership recognised regional differences and were happy to sign off on different regional policies.
But Mr McCausland saw this as curious state of affairs.
He noted: “Mr Cameron has made clear his views on academic selection in the past and it does not sit comfortably with that espoused up until now by UUP education spokesmen.”
David Cameron has said: “In 18 years of Conservative government, we didn’t create a whole big number of grammar schools because parents fundamentally don’t want their children divided into sheep and goats.”
Mr McCausland said: “Does the UUP now believe that the concept of academic selection equates to a sheep versus goats exercise? If so it represents a significant departure from their previously held position that they were in favour of academic selection and grammar schools. As Reg Empey desperately hurries to turn the UUP into the Northern Ireland branch of the Tories it is clear that he has not considered the policy implications of such an approach.
“The DUP believes in grammar schools and in protecting academic selection.”
But the UUP has said it remains steadfastly opposed to scrapping selection.
And a Northern Ireland Conservative spokesman agreed: “Our policy is clear. We fully support academic selection and the grammar schools. Moreover our policy is consistent with our policy in England.
“The party fully supports the retention of selection in areas where it exists and where parents want to keep it. Which is clearly the case here.”
