evidence: But did his mission to restore his party as a serious electoral contender end with his coronation? Aiken’s first act as UUP leader came before his formal acclamation. Many within political unionism thought it heretical, if not suicidal. He promised that his party would run candidates in all 18 of Northern Ireland’s Westminster constituencies. DUP leader Arlene Foster accused him of conspiring to hand North Belfast, where Nigel Dodds is defending a slender majority of 2,081, to Sinn Fein. Initially, Aiken stood firm. The UUP’s larger rival, he claimed, had "besmirched unionism with its corruption and sleaze". Better no unionist MP than one whose presence would weaken the union. [...] But there are other people. If you look back at the history of the Ulster Unionist Party, as I always do when I wander around Queen’s University, I think of the generation of people like Edgar Graham [who was assassinated by the IRA in 1986], and what he could have done. That to me is one of the biggest challenges and concerns because there was an entire generation who could have made Northern Ireland a fantastic place. And that’s why violence and terrorism was just nihilistic. Because what it achieved – it killed thousands of people, it cost billions of pounds, and it’s created this cancer of sectarianism and all the rest of it which we haven’t managed to sort out.