Speaking (Friday 11^th March) to Mid Ulster TUV annual fund-raising dinner in Cookstown, TUV Leader Jim Allister, in previewing the approaching Assembly election, spoke of two striking features. One, that uniquely in a democracy, the voters were prohibited from changing their government and two, that what was on offer from the 5 government parties, which had brought such deadlock and failure to Stormont, was ‘more of the same’.

“Voters in Scotland and Wales, like voters in the Republic have just done, will be allowed to sack failed parties and change their government, but here in Northern Ireland, because of the absurd system of compulsory coalition, voters are denied that basic democratic right. This is monstrous. It encapsulates all that is wrong with Belfast Agreement devolution. And, it lies at the heart of why Stormont is broken and has delivered unparalleled failure and gridlock for 4 years. Yet, all the other parties have to offer is four more years of the same. Little wonder voter apathy is rising.

“TUV alone stands for the radical change necessary to make Stormont work, not in four more years, or later, but now. Change which will bring basic democracy to Stormont – that which everywhere else takes for granted – the right to change our government and to even have an Opposition. It’s elementary, if you don’t use the basic building blocks of democracy you’ll never construct a democratic and workable system!

“TUV, happily, is also utterly untainted by the lamentable failure of Stormont. Ours is the alternative vision of government formed by those, whoever they might be, who can agree what to do about education, jobs, health, with those who can’t, whoever they might be, in opposition. Then we could have government that works, instead of the dysfunctional hotchpotch that thinks sport, and in particular the GAA, needs money more than health.

“The spending priorities of this regime beggar belief. £61m for the GAA and to match it the same for real football, but shameful shortfall in health; £21m for the Maze Shrine but no money for new factories; £700m for the Dublin/Donegal motorway, but no money for Magherafelt or Cookstown by passes; £400m for useless north/south bodies, £80m slush fund for paramilitary types and a £100m million for Stormont itself to keep 108 MLAs and 15 chauffeur-driven Ministers in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. And, not even an Opposition permitted to challenge any of it.

“Well, come 6^th May - official or otherwise - there’ll be an Opposition in Stormont when TUV arrives, and they’ll know it!”