Stakeholder

So the last of the SDLP lions, Eddie Mc Grady has decided to call it a day. The announcement is not as surprising as some commentators make out.  Mr Mc Grady has been an elected representative since 1961 and to put that in context; President Kennedy was still alive; man had not reached the moon; the Summer of Love was only a dream and Elvis Presley was still in the army. Approaching his seventy-fifth birthday and with nearly fifty years of successful electioneering behind him there can be no doubt that Mr Mc Grady planned to avoid his political predecessor- Enoch Powell’s gloomy prediction that ‘all political lives- unless they are cut off in mid-stream at a happy juncture, end in failure because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs’.

Entering his fiftieth political year , Mr Mc Grady’s career could hardly be described as ‘mid-stream’ but with a whopping majority of some nine thousand votes at the 2005 Westminster election, this could be described as a ‘happy juncture’ to jump the SDLP ship with nothing to prove or owe to his political colleagues.  No doubt the octogenarian, Mr Paisley, who so far has escaped with his reputation in tact, will also be pondering Mr Powell’s warning.

The decision to postpone his retirement announcement until after the SDLP Leadership campaign is already being interpreted by some of his party colleagues as a deliberate move intended not to complicate things for his constituency colleague, Margaret Ritchie in her leadership bid. Others in the SDLP were caught completely off guard by his announcement and are confessing their electoral ‘jitters’ to the media.   They are right to be jittery. While Mr Mc Grady is bequeathing a substantial electoral legacy to his Party through his decisive win over Sinn Fein in 2005; roll on two years and this lead was substantially cut to a mere few hundred votes when the ‘Mc Grady’ name was not on the ticket for the Assembly elections.

Ms Ritchie is now going to tilt for her dream while balancing the jobs of Minister, MLA, Party Leader and Westminster Candidate for the next two and a half months. She has left herself open to criticism by holding down multiple jobs. More significantly Sinn Fein will now pursue her relentlessly as Minister in the Assembly.

It would have been a wiser and more confident move to stand aside from the Ministry –even temporarily- citing preparation for the election by providing her Party with her energy as Leader and her constituency with a 100% commitment as a candidate.

While Sinn Fein is surprised by Mr Mc Grady’s announcement, it would be foolish to believe that Catriona Ruane is a complete electoral albatross. Few doubt that Minister Ruane is a political liability or that her stewardship of Education is underwhelming but Sinn Fein knows their vote and how to get it out. Sinn Fein’s ability to have the most uninspiring candidates elected never fails to surprise commentators.

That said Margaret Ritchie goes into the election with Mr Mc Grady’s substantial majority as an inheritance; as well as being a well known Minister and Party Leader. In football parlance they would say ‘the game is hers to lose’.  It’s a lot of pressure on the SDLP and their new Leader but if successful gives the SDLP time to re-group in preparation for the forthcoming Assembly elections. Every effort of that party should go into holding their three Westminster seats- even at the expense of letting the overall percentage vote slip. People count success by bums on seats not pie charts and graphs.

As for Mr Mc Grady he deserves his retirement. He was not a political giant – all those plinths have been hi-jacked in Northern politics. He was a hard-working and diligent public servant who has dedicated his whole life to the service of others without regard to political ambition and personal sacrifice. Mr Mc Grady took principled stands against violence and for power-sharing. He championed environmental issues long before they were electorally ‘hip’. He was unwisely and unfairly by-passed for his entitlement to a Ministry in the first Assembly because he was not a political toady. That hurt personally and to fair-minded people was unforgiveable but politics is sometimes governed by mean-spiritedness and pettiness. Perhaps there should be a ‘Mc Grady’ plinth; one left empty to remind people of what’s missing in our debased political structures- decency, industriousness and principle –attributes well embodied in Mr Mc Grady’s long political tenure.