Allister answers Nicholson
21 June 2006
Responding to comments by UUP MEP Jim Nicholson, DUP Member of the European Parliament Jim Allister QC said, “It takes a special quality of muddled thinking and a certain detachment from political reality to conclude that sitting on the same public policing body as a PUP member, over whose appointment you had no control, is the same as voluntarily inviting into your Assembly Party a PUP/UVF MLA. The former is beyond your control, the latter is of your own choice and making. Yet, to Jim Nicholson, both are the same!
I’m sure his constituents see the distinction and will note the lamentable lack of judgement and insight which Mr Nicholson’s endorsement of the UUP/PUP pact reveals.
The conscious and deliberate act of inviting the UVF’s primary political spokesman to become your political colleague and ally is incomparable with ending up on a Board upon which political opponents also serve. Though Mr Nicholson can’t grasp that elementary concept, it is clear his voters can as the UUP/PUP pact meets rising disdain”.
