WI: Edgar Graham survives assasination

Edgar Graham, a law lecturer (who recieved widespread praise) at Queen's university who became a member of the brief NI Assembly in 1982, was seen as a rising star within the creaking Ulster Unionist Party at the time of his death on the 7th of December, 1983. He was with his friend Dermot Nesbitt, who would remain in politics to this day, when two masked gunmen shot him point blank in the head. His death came after the death of Robert Bradford, an MP for South Belfast, two years earlier. Let's say either Graham and Nesbitt take a taxi or the gunmen are worse shots - allowing for Graham to be revived.

Graham had fairly obvious political amibtions - he had stood for the UUP's selection contest in Strangford only months earlier - and he was only in his early 30's at the time of his death. His views were quite moderate (?), so perhaps he could end up at the forefront of the Peace Process sixteen years later.

So, what if Edgar had survived?

Here's a good article on him - http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/cr...could-have-changed-northern-ireland-1-5735318
 
He could still be leading the UUP today, by my reckoning he would only be in his early sixties. I think the main question is what would he have done differently from David Trimble? Did Trimble do just what Edgar Graham would have done (which I suspect was always a factor in his political thinking) or were there divergences and, if so, how would those divergences have played out?
 
Graham appears to have been at least quite hardline on issues concerning the IRA - so maybe he has more 'balls' ( :p ) than Trimble.

Perhaps he could have gained the nomination in Upper Bann in 1990 or North Down in 1995 or wrested the nomination in Strangford away from Taylor in 1983. I think he could very well have been leader; maybe the party would have held onto the likes of Jeffrey Donaldson and held Lagan Valley, South Antrim, Upper Bann and maybe South Belfast along with North Down at the 2005 GE?
 
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