Irwin Armstrong, chairman of the Northern Ireland Conservatives, has warmly congratulated Alasdair McDonnell MP / MLA, on his success in the SDLP leadership election, though he noted that McDonnell had got off to an inauspicious start, with his comments about the economy in yesterday’s leader’s speech.
“I’d like to extend my congratulations to Alasdair McDonnell. He’s got a tough job ahead of him and I wish him all the best in his new post”, Irwin commented. “However I am bound to say that Mr McDonnell struck a rather populist, unrealistic note in his maiden leader’s speech to his party conference yesterday.”
“By railing against a ‘Tory plan to devolve cuts’ the new SDLP leader seems to be in denial about the very real threat which the deficit poses to the whole UK economy. The coalition government has taken prompt action to tackle indebtedness and in so doing it has steered clear of the economic crisis now engulfing the eurozone. It also struck a very favourable settlement on the block grant, which the First Minister admitted only last week has ‘insulated’ Northern Ireland from the worst effects of spending cuts.”
“Mr McDonnell cited Alex Salmond approvingly in yesterday’s halting tirade. The SDLP leader certainly has a choice: he can attempt to recreate Salmond’s opportunistic, ethno-nationalist bluster against the government here, or he can choose a more constructive route, helping Northern Ireland to build a sound economy and a shared future, in partnership with London.”
“I sincerely hope that Mr McDonnell will choose to build rather than destroy and that his comments on spending yesterday were just another unfortunate facet of a less than sure footed speech. We need constructive leadership from the SDLP going forward and not cheap rabble-rousing or faulty economics.”