Ritchie chosen for South Down seat
SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie has been selected to stand in South Down at the general election
Sunday March 21 2010
SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie has been selected to stand in South Down for her party at the general election.
She follows SDLP veteran Eddie McGrady, who recently announced he was stepping aside after holding the seat since 1987.
The party leader, who also serves as an MLA and Executive Minister, is likely to go head-to-head with Sinn Fein Education Minister Caitriona Ruane.
The SDLP has been replaced by Sinn Fein as the lead voice of nationalism in Northern Ireland, but Ms Ritchie said she believed her party would take on its rivals during the campaign.
She told party members at a SDLP selection convention in Newcastle: "I believe the electorate have been extremely unimpressed by our opponents' behaviour and record in Government, and are ready to embrace a new agenda from the SDLP, providing we present it well.
"We have tended to lose ground where we have been seen as just a pale version of our opponents - given the similarities in some of our policies like policing and justice.
"Yet we could not be more different from them."
She added: "We are better on the economy. Our focus is on modern policies that will support economic development and job creation - their approach is to fight an outdated class struggle where people come second to dogma and ideology.
"That is what their attack on grammar schools and more recently prep schools is really all about. It is class warfare cynically disguised as child welfare.
"We are the only party to have presented economic alternatives to the head-in-the-sand policies of DUP/Sinn Fein."
