David Wilson Boyd Burnside (born 24 August 1951) is an

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it l ...

(UUP) politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

. Burnside was also a

Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs; ; ) are representatives elected by the voters to the Northern Ireland Assembly. About The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 elected members – five from each of 18 constituencies, the boundaries o ...

(MLA) for South Antrim from 2003 to 2009. In the 1970s Burnside served as press officer for the

Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party The Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP), informally known as Ulster Vanguard, was a unionist political party which existed in Northern Ireland between 1972 and 1978. Led by William Craig, the party emerged from a split in the Ulster Un ...

, and he unsuccessfully contested North Antrim for the party at the

1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election The 1973 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly took place following the publication of the British government's white paper ''Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals'' which proposed a 78-member Northern Ireland Assembly (1973), Northern ...

. After the collapse of Vanguard he joined the

, standing unsuccessfully in the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly but then took a back seat from politics for many years while working as a prominent

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

consultant based in London which led him to set up his own PR company. He also served in the

Ulster Defence Regiment The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...

. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Constitution Reform Group (CRG), a cross-party pressure group chaired by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, which seeks a new constitutional settlement in the UK. The Constitution Reform Group's Act of Union Bill 2018 was introduced as a

Private Member's Bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...

by Lord Lisvane in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

on 9 October 2018, when it received a formal first reading. The bill has been described by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

as "one to watch" in the current Parliament.

British Airways

In 1984 Burnside was recruited by the

British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...

Chairman Lord King to become the company's head of

. In this role Burnside is widely acknowledged to have become one of the most powerful PR men in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

, speaking for King, administering a £5 million 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 potentially strong rival,

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, West Sussex, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic A ...

. Virgin, which began with one route and one

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...

in 1984 was beginning to emerge as a serious threat on some of BA's most lucrative routes. Following Virgin's highly publicized mission of mercy to Iraq to fly home hostages who had been held by

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

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", 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 million. 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. Following the case Burnside was awarded a settlement of approximately £400,000 and free

first class travel First class is the most luxurious and most expensive travel class of seats and service on a train, passenger ship, airplane, bus, or other system of transport. Compared to business class and economy class, it offers the best service and most co ...

on BA for four years.

Return to politics

Along with several prominent current Ulster Unionist politicians, Burnside was a member of the Vanguard Movement. He was press officer for the organisation from 1974 to 1977. He was selected to defend the South Antrim constituency for the Ulster Unionists in a by-election in 2000, but narrowly lost to the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist, Ulster loyalism, loyalist, British nationalist and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who ...

candidate Rev. Willie McCrea. However he reversed this defeat in the 2001 general election. Along with

Jeffrey Donaldson Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson (born 7 December 1962) is a Northern Irish former politician, who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 2021 to 2024 and leader of the DUP in the UK House of Commons from 2019 to 2024. He was t ...

(MP) and the Rev. Martin Smyth (MP), Burnside became an outspoken critic of his party leader,

David Trimble William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a Northern Irish politician who was the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002 and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 20 ...

's support for the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...

, arguing that the

Provisional IRA The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...

's slow pace of decommissioning its arms meant that

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

, the political wing of the IRA, should not be allowed to serve in the power-sharing government. On 23 June 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. Burnside successfully retained his Assembly seat in March 2007. He declined to contest the 2005 leadership election. Burnside resigned as an Assembly Member in June 2009 to concentrate on his business interests. His seat was taken by Antrim councillor Danny Kinahan. David Burnside was revealed to have taken a group of prominent Russians, including a close ally of Vladimir Putin, to the 2013 Conservative summer fundraising party and introduced them to David Cameron.

Rangers Football Club

Burnside was linked to a potential Rangers takeover in 2007"Burnside not put off Rangers bid"
BBC Sport,5 March 2007. but nothing came of it. There was not enough investment available for the move.

References

Sources

*Gregory, Martyn. ''Dirty Tricks: British Airways' Secret War Against Virgin Atlantic''. London: Virgin, 2000.
BBC Profile

Glasgow Rangers Burnside Article

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burnside, David 1951 births Living people Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Antrim constituencies (since 1922) Ulster Unionist Party MPs Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Northern Ireland MLAs 2007–2011 UK MPs 2001–2005 Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party politicians British Airways people People from Ballymoney People educated at Coleraine Academical Institution Ulster Unionist Party MLAs