Boyd Douglas for East Londonderry
18 March 2011
Boyd Douglas for East Londonderry
TUV is pleased to announce that its Assembly candidate in East Londonderry will be the deputy Mayor of Limavady, Boyd Douglas. Boyd was unanimously selected at a meeting in Coleraine this week.
Boyd Douglas
Deputy Mayor of Limavady, Boyd is married to Kathleen, with 4 adult children; they live on the family farm in the Roe Valley. Wide experience: represented East Londonderry in Stormont 1998-2003 and served 14 years on Limavady Council, where he has led the fight for rates reductions. Elder in Boveagh Presbyterian Church and Chairman of Burnfoot Community Association. From a renowned Unionist and Orange family, Boyd Douglas brings integrity and principle to politics. He will not let East Londonderry down, either in faithful constituency service or in resisting the Sinn Fein agenda.
Speaking of his selection, Boyd said, “Though public service has been part of my life and upbringing, returning to Stormont has not been a burning ambition. But while I’ve watched the past 4 years of failure and deadlock, with virtually nothing done for East Londonderry, I’ve concluded it requires us all, myself included, to try and make things better.
“This is a vital election. We’ve seen four years of miserable and expensive failure at Stormont. The vital issues of education and health have suffered particular damage under the failed Stormont regime, with Ruane’s rampage through education leaving a dire legacy. Yet, as the water crisis proved, there is no accountability in Stormont. Ministers are unsackable. And under the absurdity of mandatory coalition we are even denied an Opposition and the fundamental democratic right to change our government. What the people in the Republic recently did in changing their government, the Belfast Agreement system denies to us.
“Unemployment has more than doubled under the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition, yet the recent budgetary response is more interested in wasting £400m on the useless north/south bodies than creating a strategy for jobs or tackling the runaway waiting lists in our Health Service. I find it unacceptable that £60m can be found for the GAA and others, while health goes short. Turning the health budget into a political football has not served anyone’s interests, nor has the ban on an Opposition in Stormont done anything but aid bad government. The terrorist-inclusive government of DUP and Sinn Fein has failed.
“We need real change at Stormont and we need it now, not in four or more years. It’s time to restore the basic building blocks of democracy, the right to an Official Opposition, the right to vote failed parties out of office and coalition built on common purpose, not compulsion. Only then, will we see devolution that works.
“As all who know me will verify I am a politician claiming no airs or graces, but with a deep love of my country and for the well-being of the people of East Londonderry, I believe I can give them the solid, dependable representation they need and desire. Stability, consistency and vigour are what I will bring to Stormont on behalf of all of East Londonderry.
Welcoming Boyd Douglas’ candidature TUV Leader Jim Allister said “East Londonderry is an area where TUV believes we can win a seat. Growing disillusionment with the non-delivery of Stormont and the realisation that by voting again for the parties that have presided over such failure will bring more of the same, is causing TUV’s demand for democratic change to resonate with the voters. More and more agree that we must have an Opposition and must be allowed the basic right to change our government.
“In Boyd Douglas we present a candidate of integrity, whose word will be his bond. Last year Gregory Campbell was re-elected to Westminster on a solemn manifesto pledge that he would stop double-jobbing and resign from Stormont “within weeks”. Now having binned that pledge the part-time MP, part-time MLA is standing again. It is such contempt for election pledges which brings politics into disrepute. Boyd is a man of his word and will give East Londonderry the dependable unionist representation it needs.”
