Anonymous Generosity
During yesterday's Inside Politics I was joined by a lecturer/student combination - Pete Shirlow from Queen's University and 19 year old Martin McCauley who is one of his law students. Martin stood in North Belfast as an independent, on a platform which included not just his jokey posters ("Tough on Crime, Tougher on Women Drivers") but also a raft of serious policies including That could be quite a challenge for our new MPs given the volcanic ash problems.
Chatting to Martin I observed that his adventure in North Belfast (where he got 403 votes) had been quite an expensive experiment, as he would have forfeited his deposit. However he told me that during his campaign his agent had taken a call from a female well wisher who had said she wanted to make a donation. Team McCauley called at the door expecting to get £20 for their troubles, but instead their anonymous benefactor handed over £500, covering the entire cost of the deposit.
On the topic of lost deposits, an electoral reform pressure group, has calculated that nearly £1 million was lost in deposits across the UK, with UKIP and the Greens paying out the most. Regional Top Up suggest lowering the threshold to 1% (which would have saved Martin McCauley his cash). perhaps another way to rule out frivolous candidacies, without skewing the system towards the rich, would be to provide an option for unsuccessful candidates to perform, say, 80 hours community service.
So far as I know no one is pushing Martin McCauley for Ulster Unionist leader. But if Sir Reg Empey's interview with me is to be believed failure to hold an elected position should be no bar to putting your name forward. The Ulster Unionist Executive resolved to press ahead with the selection of Assembly candidates prior to a leadership contest in the autumn, and Sir Reg told me that any party member is able to stand for election as leader, not just an MLA. The suspicion in some quarters is that this delay could be calculated to build up the profile of some of the unsuccessful Westminster candidates, like Mike Nesbitt.
Some may argue that risking everything on an unelected leader would be crazy. But this is a party which just threw away it's only safe Westminster seat, in North Down, so don't rule anything out.
Whoever is the next leader, he or she will have to make some big decisions about the future direction of the UUP - is it towards the DUP, or closer to the Conservatives? The puzzling thing about the direction agreed this weekend is that the Assembly candidates are supposed to be selected before they know what the chosen path forward will be.
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