Petition should be a multi-party one
While agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiments of the petition in the DUP web page which pledges support for soldiers and policemen, surely such a petition would have more credibility if it was promoted by all pro-Union parties and organisations, not just one particular party?
It is not that this issue has just arisen, it has been going on for a number of years. So it is strange that the DUP did not contact other unionist parties and groupings and push for a pan-unionist petition months, indeed years, ago.
That they chose to use their party web site for this petition – and in the middle of an election campaign – leaves them wide open to suspicions that they are using veterans for political benefit. Of course this might not have occurred to the DUP, but if not, it displays a singular lack of judgement and of respect to those who served.
Tom Ferguson, Ballymoney