Responding to Robin Newton’s comments on his selection to run for the Westminster General Election in East Belfast, TUV candidate David Vance said;

“I note Mr Newton seems unaware that I reside in County Down, not County Armagh. I presume facts do not really matter to the DUP these days. He condemns me because I live outside the constituency even though I live closer to it than Nigel Dodds does to North Belfast or Ian Paisley does to North Antrim. Will Mr Newton now also criticise his colleagues or better still invest in a Satnav so he can improve his geographical bearings as well as his political compass? I can understand his tragic desperation to misrepresent TUV policy and assuage DUP guilt over breaking solemn election pledges by sharing power with IRA/Sinn Fein but the real question for Robin Newton, and his boss Peter Robinson, is this; Where have they been as unemployment soars, infrastructure collapses and business suffers in East Belfast? I think the DUP would do better to explain their serial failure and neglect of East Belfast to the electorate rather than take their enormous salaries and invent trite press releases concerning my Party. It’s time we removed political weaklings from East Belfast.”