Following the announcement that Tory Leader, David Cameron is to be the main speaker at the UUP conference this year, Nelson McCausland has called upon the party to clarify how merger with the Tories will affect their attitude towards grammar schools. Mr. McCausland also pointed out that for the second year running the headline speaker at the Ulster Unionist Party conference won’t actually be the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Speaking today Nelson McCausland said:
“Last year the headline speaker at the UUP conference was Margaret Ritchie and this year it will be David Cameron. What a sad reflection on the state of 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. He was the Baldrick to Trimble’s Blackadder, now he’s the Rodney to Cameron’s Del Boy – always playing second fiddle, always there for comedy value.
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 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”
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. It is sad that as a result of the actions of Reg Empey the same can no longer be said of the UUP with any degree of certainty.”
