Jon Burrows has learned the hard way that politics is about more than making populist pronouncements.

Just when the former policeman and Stormont novice thought he could do no wrong, having seen the Ulster Unionist Party enjoy an unprecedented uplift in the polls, he made a misstep that exposes elements of both naivety and arrogance.

He isn’t the only politician opposed to the removal of emergency general surgery at Causeway Hospital but by going against a decision that has been rubber-stamped by his party colleague Mike Nesbitt, he publicly undermined his own health minister.

Mr Burrows claimed quite bizarrely that he was “separating church and state”, suggesting it was possible to decouple his role as a constituency........

© The Irish News