Dreaming Big Dreams
Driving into Newcastle to attend today's SDLP conference you couldn't help but notice Margaret Ritchie's posters on the lampposts and a giant billboard parked in the car park of the Slieve Donard hotel. It looked more like a general election was underway than an internal party battle.
Ms Ritchie's posters said "Vote for Change" but her final speech to the party faithful before the close of the leadership ballot stressed her long membership of the SDLP and her loyalty to John Hume and Mark Durkan. By contrast Alasdair McDonnell seemed more brutally honest about the plight of the party and what it must do to arrest what he called its current drift. He pledged to increase its Assembly team to 20 at next year's election. But Ms Ritchie seemed to get warmer applause - is that a harbinger for tomorrow?
During our live conference programme the Social Development Minister confided she hadn't been told about the Hillsborough proposal that she should chair a sub-group on reforming the Executive in advance of its publication. She didn't refuse the offer outright but made it clear she wasn't impressed by how the invitation had arrived.
Mark Durkan's final leadership speech contained quite a few good jokes (although none as memorable as Peter Robinson's gold medal for negotiating quip). His best lines included being "the only politician who ever got into hot water for sleeping with his wife", Jim Allister as "the man who takes all the 'fun' out of fundamentalist", the Ulster Unionists "lining up more partners than Tiger Woods" and the SDLP delegates getting plagued so much by both leadership candidates that they had "more messages in your inbox than Selwyn Black".
Tomorrow the party will have a new leader. But can the new man or new woman turn its fortunes around so that the SDLP can "dream big dreams" as its outgoing leader hopes (that's what President Obama wrote as a message to Mr Durkan's four year old daughter). Or with Sinn Fein dominant and the possibility of Fianna Fail encroaching at a council and Assembly level, must the party settle for a more limited role in the future? With the result not due until noon I don't imagine either leadership candidate will be getting the best night's sleep of their lives, whether or not they have any dreams.
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