David Burnside

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David Wilson Boyd Burnside (born 24 August 1951) is a Northern Ireland politician, and was Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament for South Antrim.

In the 1970s Burnside served as Press Officer for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party. After the collapse of Vanguard he joined the Ulster Unionists, but took a back seat from politics for many years while working as a prominent public relations consultant based in London.

[edit] British Airways

In 1984 David Burnside was recruited by the British Airways Chairman Lord King to become the company's head of public relations. In this role Burnside is widely acknowledged to have become one of the most powerful PR men in Britain, speaking for King, administering a £5,000,000 budget and receiving numerous PR awards both in the UK and around the world.

His success is perhaps overshadowed by the nature of his departure. British Airways was witnessing the emergence of a dangerous rival, Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic. Virgin, which began with one route and one Boeing 747 in 1984 was beginning to emerge as a serious threat on some of BA's most lucrative routes.

Following a highly publicized mission of mercy to Iraq to fly home hostages who had been held by Saddam Hussein in 1991, Lord King is reported to have told Burnside and CEO Colin Marshall to "do something about Branson". This began the campaign of "dirty tricks", masterminded by Burnside, which ended in Branson suing King and British Airways for libel in 1992. King countersued Branson and the case went to trial in 1993. British Airways, faced with likely defeat, settled the case giving £500,000 to Branson and a further £110,000 to his airline; further, BA was to pay the legal fees of up to £3,000,000.

It was an article written by Burnside (given legal clearance) in BA News, the company's in house newsletter, that prompted Branson's legal action. In January 1993, following the settlement and investigations by BA's lawyers the board decided to sack Burnside. He was awarded a settlement of approximately £400,000 and free first class travel on BA for four years.

[edit] Return to politics

He was selected to fight defend the South Antrim constituency for the Ulster Unionists in a by-election in 2000, but narrowly lost to the Democratic Unionist Party.

However he reversed this defeat in the 2001 British general election. Along with Jeffrey Donaldson (MP) and the Rev. Martin Smyth (MP), Burnside became an outspoken critic of his party leader, David Trimble's support for the Good Friday Agreement, arguing that Provisional IRA slow pace of decommissioning its arms meant that Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, should not be allowed to serve in the power-sharing government.

In 2003 Burnside, Donaldson and Smyth resigned the UUP whip in the House of Commons, launching a strong attack on Trimble's leadership. The trio successfully fought off attempts to discipline them using the courts and in November 2003 both Burnside and Donaldson were elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. However Burnside declined to follow Donaldson when he resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party in December 2003. In 2005 he lost his Westminster Parliamentary seat.

Supporters of Burnside see him as a potential future leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, however he declined to contest the 2005 leadership election.