Colourful, caustic McCartney plays by different rules

Sometimes you think Mr Bob McCartney wandered into the wrong constituency, writes Suzanne Breen.

Sometimes you think Mr Bob McCartney wandered into the wrong constituency, writes Suzanne Breen.

North Down's golden coast is a prosperous, polite place where politics should be a gentleman's sport.

The UK Unionist leader plays by different rules. Canvassing in Bangor on a crisp afternoon, he declares the trio of Ulster Unionist candidates running against him aren't up to much.

"There is Alan McFarland, an ex-army man I'm fed up beating at the polls.

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"Leslie Cree who was in the Home Guard - sorry Vanguard (unionist political group) with Trimble.

"And Diana Peacocke whom nobody had heard of until she appeared on the posters. The three of them are so lightweight, they'd need to be tied down in case they blew away."

Shankill Road born and bred - his father worked in a shipyard, his mother in a mill - McCartney spent three decades at the bar and lives in a handsome house in Cultra, one of the constituency's most exclusive addresses.

"But I haven't been bought off. I say what I think. People recognise that, in an age of spin and deception, I'm honest. It doesn't mean they like it or will vote for me. But they know I'm straight."

He lost his Westminster seat at the last election - could his Assembly one follow? "There is no danger of that unless they steal the ballot boxes and bring in replacements."

He says his firm unionist views shouldn't be confused with sectarianism. He dislikes the Progressive Unionist Party, the UVF's political wing.

"Their election broadcast talked about time ticking away for the agreement. How many ticking bombs have they left outside Catholic homes?" Yet PUP leader, David Ervine, "talks as if he is an amalgam of Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and the local probation officer".

The Women's Coalition is also denounced. "I've three daughters, all professional women and feisty feminists. They cringe when they hear the rubbish trotted out by the Women's Coalition." In the last Assembly, McCartney was left on his own when his four colleagues defected, saying they could no longer work with him. The five current UK Unionist candidates have signed a declaration to resign their seats if they leave the party.

There are working-class estates in North Down, too, where McCartney chats to residents about non-constitutional concerns. He pledges to "fight tooth-and-nail" against water charges.

The Assembly is "overstaffed, underworked and overpaid", he tells a Bangor man. "It's an expanding monster. Wales has twice our population yet its Assembly has just over half the members.

"The First and Deputy First ministers were on £100,000 and the other ministers £80,000. For what - a day and a half's work a week? That's not democracy, it's snouts in the trough."

Two voters ask about the chances of "getting rid of Trimble". McCartney thinks they're improving by the day. He claims the UUP leader's "head was turned" by Nobel peace prizes, invitations to meet the Queen, and access to presidents and prime ministers. Trimble is the "worst type of politician - a weak man blessed with intelligence". McCartney would like to see Jeffrey Donaldson take over but declares: "In terms of energy and clarity of mind, I can give them all a run for their money."