Sounds great, but can we believe him?

[Duncer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...hern-ireland-19682526

For too long they were synonymous with the Tories, but I suspect Mike Nesbitt is genuine. I hope so?

[Kerosene]

Isn't this guy just clutching at straws because his party's no longer the dominant political force over there?

Oops, there goes my little cynical streak - again?

[Duncer]

I tend to believe him because the UUP have been so far in the rear for so long that he is/should be past cynical ploys. I hope I'm right?

Then again, he is a politician.

[sandyRoe]

The DUP stood aside while Nesbitt's party helped make the peace, knowing that doing so would cost it the prominent role in Unionist politics. That was as cynical a piece of skulduggery as we're ever likely to see.
I think we in NI have got the government we deserve.

[Duncer]

Nesbitt had nothing to do with that but, apart from that, you are right. Look how the UUP and the SDLP have been marginalised ever since? That is why I think Mike's recent remarks about a government that cancels each other out make so much sense, and why I so much want his dream of inclusiveness to be true. Sadly too many "die hards" will ensure he isn't allowed to make it so.

Who were Trimble and Hume again?

[sandyRoe]

Hume has had a few years of dementia to contend with. Trimble is one of the fossils in the Lords now.

[Duncer]

But both largely unheard of and not particularly regarded, depsite the risks they took.

[ichkeria]

The UUP didn't help themselves with their cosying up to the Tories a few years ago, memorably losing their only MP, a Labour supporter, who resigned in protest at the move and trounced their official candidate at the 2010 election!

Personally I haven't a lot of time for Mike Nesbitt: I remember watching him posing in the Civil Service bar up at Stormont a few years ago, in his days as a TV presenter, and I suppose partly because whenever I think of sports presenters turned politicans I can't (somewhat unfairly!) stop thinking of David Icke.
The obvious retort to complaints about the DUP/Sinn Fein domination of Ulster politics is: "well, present a credible alternative and get yourselves into government instead!"
I suppose the only real reason for their existence now is that they still poll reasonably well in PR elections and the upshot of a single Unionist party would be no choice for voters at the polls determined to vote Unionist.