LAT: N. Irish Nobelist (Trimble) Quits as Head of Party

[DeepModem Mom]

N. Irish Nobelist Quits as Head of Party
Moderate Protestant leader Trimble blames parliamentary defeat on the IRA and Sinn Fein.
By Ron DePasquale, Special to The Times


BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble, who helped engineer Northern Ireland's historic Good Friday agreement, resigned as the leader of his moderate Protestant party Saturday after its humiliating defeat in British parliamentary elections.

Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party was swept from nearly all its seats by pro-Britain voters frustrated with the Irish Republican Army and the failed 1998 power-sharing agreement.

Only one Ulster Unionist survived the tumultuous election as Protestant voters shifted to the hard-line Democratic Unionist Party.

Trimble, speaking on BBC Radio, blamed his downfall on the IRA and its political ally, Sinn Fein, accusing them of ignoring the agreement that was meant to lead to the disarming of the militia that has fought British rule in the province....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-trimble8may08,0,5354819.story?coll=la-home-world

[DrDebug]

1. There's no room for moderates anymore

Only extremists like Paisley and Sinn Fein are left. It's typical isn't it. The whole world is become more and ore polarized and the conflicts and gaps are steadily increasing.

[Henny Penny]

2. I don't think that is true....

this election was a first past the post election which means people often vote for parties they don't support in order to keep someone else out.

We have PR for all our other elections and these return a much larger selection of candidates, moderate and extreme.

The Ulster Unionist party have been self destructing for a while and Trimble has been a bit of a lame duck for the last few years, so this result was almost inevitable.

Also I think it is fair to say that there are elements of both SF and the DUP who are quite moderate.

[KittyWampus]

3. Too Many People Have Money & Power Invested In Creating Turmoil

when will we collectively give these leeches the heave ho?

[CONN]

4. Good - He was a puppet

He was no man of peace - he used political extemism to secure top post of UUP leading a banned march of hatred through a catholic area of Potradown
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/n.ireland/marching.html

[Lexingtonian]

5. too bad about Trimble

But it's looking a little like I/P- the moderates are already convinced of peace and equalization measures, so the Right achieves power, and then the Right can no longer distract itself from the facts being the problem rather than the moderates.

Nixon said the Right can do what the Left cannot, as a comment on why LBJ wanted to but could not make the trip to China that he did, and as sad as it is it's wierdly true. The Right gets power and only then (with some amount of fighting) comes to accept the facts...and then decides that no more can be done by fighting and suppresses its crazies.

On the left side of the political spectrum we're always being held up by those whose grudges are worse and ignorance greater, and they always end up saying and doing the opposite of what they advocated in the beginning. They never apologize, either.