I was recently flicking through some of the memorabilia from my late dad’s - Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE - elections campaigns over the years, when I came across a few stickers from his 1983 Westminster General Election campaign in North Antrim - the seat once held for decades by the Paisley dynasty.
A few years ago, I wrote about nearly getting into trouble when Dr Paisley rang my dad at home during that ’83 campaign to get him to stand aside. Here’s the link:
Whilst that campaign was the only election he lost in his political career in North Antrim, it was for me one of the most memorable because of the impact a few ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers caused.
Since Paisley senior had won the Westminster seat in 1970, defeating the then sitting MP Henry Clark of the Ulster Unionists, the UUP had struggled to put up an electoral fight against the Paisley bandwagon.
In the two General Elections of 1974, Paisley senior had been the agreed Unionist Coalition candidate.
In 1979, the year Maggie Thatcher stormed to power, the North Antrim UUP had parachuted in the lawyer Jeremy Burchill (later an UUP Assembly member for East Belfast in the Prior Assembly of 1982-86), but by then Paisley senior was well entrenched in the constituency and romped home with a majority in excess of 18,500.
Boundary changes were to see two new Westminster seats created for the ’83 campaign - East Antrim and East Londonderry. The DUP had its eyes on all three.
Assuming the UUP would fly in another parachute candidate, the original DUP plan was for Paisley senior to run in East Antrim (which comprised a large chunk of his original North Antrim seat), with North Antrim Assembly member Jim Allister (later to become TUV MP for North Antrim defeating Paisley Junior) to run in North Antrim, and high profile Coleraine councillor James McClure to run in the new East Londonderry.
However, the cat was thrown among the political pigeons when the North Antrim UUP association selected dad as the candidate. Whilst dad heralded originally from Tyrone, by 1983, his roots were firmly established in North Antrim through his role as a Presbyterian minister, Loyal Orders chaplain, and lecturer in Ballymena Technical College. In short, he was viewed as a ‘home grown’ UUP candidate rather than a parachute candidate.
The selection of dad as UUP candidate resulted in Paisley senior changing his mind and wanting to run in his original North Antrim, and shifting Allister into East Antrim.
Whilst the UUP knew dad could not snatch North Antrim from Paisley senior, the Jim Molyneaux-led party knew that if dad had a fairly high profile campaign in UUP terms, it would tie down Paisley senior to North Antrim, thus preventing him from spending time canvassing for Allister in East Antrim and McClure in East Londonderry.
The UUP strategy worked. Roy Beggs senior took East Antrim and William Ross took East Londonderry. Ironically years later, the DUP captured both Westminster seats.
The ’83 canvass was literally a bruising campaign for dad. That was the era of the old Fair Hill Saturday market in Ballymena. One Saturday as polling day neared, when dad and his team were electioneering in the market, he was punched and kicked by Paisley supporters.
This is not to say that Paisley senior himself condoned the physical abuse; merely to record that those attacking dad would have been Paisley voters. That specific attack ended abruptly when one Paisley supporter punched dad in the ribs only to hit the butt of dad’s personal protection weapon.
Once the Paisley supporter realised that dad was ‘carrying’, he backed off immediately.
But it was the emergence of dad’s ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers that was to have the unusual effect on the DUP camp and Paisley senior in particular.
It all started when a copy of Paisley senior’s North Antrim constituency canvassing itinerary ‘fell into the hands’ of the UUP team! We knew where and when Paisley senior would be electioneering.
Dad and his fellow canvassers immediately altered their own schedule and would visit the towns, villages, hamlets and estates ahead of the DUP team. The UUP workers would give the kids ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers as those were the days when the primary electioneering technique was a car fitted with loudspeakers.
The car would enter the housing development playing patriotic music followed by someone then using the loudspeaker to announce the arrival of the UUP canvassing team.
It was sometimes known as ‘the ice cream van technique’ in much the same way as an ice cream vendor would announce their arrival in a housing development.
Whilst a party worker would operate the loudspeaker system booming out the benefits of voting for the UUP, dad and fellow canvassers would go door to door. Naturally, all the fuss of the canvass would bring out children. Whilst their parents or guardians would be given election literature, the kids would be given the stickers.
So imagine how Paisley senior must have felt, arriving in a development a short time later to be greeted by kids wearing ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers! During that ’83 campaign, the UUP team handed out as many stickers as they did election leaflets!
But it had an unusual effect. Paisley senior issued a press statement calling on dad to stand aside so that the DUP could give Sinn Fein a hammering at the ballot box.
But in 1983, North Antrim Sinn Fein was a political fringe party - what could sarcastically be described as a ‘two man and a dog outfit’.
Sinn Fein came fourth and polled less than 3,000 votes, well behind the SDLP’s Dr Sean Farren on just over 6,000 votes.
Paisley senior even rang dad at home to ask him to stand aside! It was me who answered the telephone that evening and I honestly thought it was a practical joke when the man on the end of the line said he was Ian Paisley!
Yes, the UUP took a hammering in that election in North Antrim, and dad got a thumping in the Fair Hill market, but thanks to the ‘sticker campaign’, the DUP’s clean sweep strategy of taking three Westminster seats that year across the north west and north east of Ulster literally came unstuck!
In spite of all the in-depth academic electoral strategies at hand, its amazing what a few stickers can achieve!
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News. |
