Career
Campbell is the current Chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party, having served as Vice Chairman in 2005. He was elected to Lisburn Borough Council in 1989 and served until 1993. Elected Member of Northern Ireland Forum in 1996, where he was Chairman of the Agriculture and Fisheries Committee. Was a member of Ulster Unionist Party Talks team in the All-Party negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement. In 1997 Campbell contested the UUP selection meeting to succeed Sir Jim Molyneaux, however he lost out to party colleague Jeffrey Donaldson. Campbell also contested the selection meeting in South Antrim following the death of Clifford Forsythe. The selection was marred by internal division, with South Antrim MLA Duncan Shipley-Dalton claiming that UUP HQ were trying to foist Campbell on the constituency. Shipley-Dalton pulled out and Campbell lost out to anti-agreement candidate David Burnside.
He became a senior policy advisor and Chief of Staff to David Trimble whilst First Minister of Northern Ireland between 1998 and 2004.
Between 2005 and 2012 he was Chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party. In the run up to the Ulster Unionist Party leadership election, 2012 both candidates made clear that he would be replaced. It was announced in April 2012 that Lord Empey would become Chairman.
Read more about this topic: Robert David Stewart Campbell
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)