Because you’re a small arm of a big political party and you’re so desperate for candidates that you beg for them in the blogosphere
The crazy thing is that I actually considered it. My dad has been a lifelong Tory and I know it would make him proud. And some of the policies in the manifesto seem, on the surface, to be entirely reasonable. But I’d have real issues dealing with ‘politicians’ as, frankly, I’d not be afraid to call a turd a turd.
None of the ConservativesNI are inspiring. And I’m probably a little too outspoken for them (otherwise they’d have approached me by now!).
That said, their idea for a national system of Dragon’s Dens just speaks to me of blatant marketing. I mean – where does it say that Dragon’s Den is a good way to evoke a spirit of entrepreneurship? It’s a bloody comedy. In comparison it’d be nice to end a year with InvestNI reporting they actually did everything they could and spent all their money as opposed to watching client companies desert Northern Ireland (Seagate), spend a lot of money then go bust (De Lorean), waste millions trying to entice big creative companies over here and utterly fail to get Google to headquarter here all the while making the paper mountain for starting entrepreneurs too high to be tolerable or worth the effort.
Go for it? Sure.
Be a candidate for the Tories? I would except that I have no faith that the political system in Northern Ireland does anything other than line the pockets of the people involved.
Which, if you think about it, is good enough incentive for some….