Profile: David Ford

By Gareth Gordon BBC Northern Ireland political correspondent

Alliance Party leader David Ford does not seem interested in the politics of personality. He is probably unique among political leaders in not using his photograph on election posters.

On the one hand, it's an admirable stance in a land which already has its fair share of "colourful" politicians.

On the other it may point up a problem - can Alliance attract back the kind of voters who have been deserting the party without a "name" leader to rival a Trimble, a Paisley or an Adams?

David Ford was unanimously re-elected as party leader in February

"Leadership is about two things... it's about having a vision and having the charisma to persuade people to follow you and help to bring that vision about," says one senior party source.

"To bring about change you must have a fire in the belly; an evangelical zeal to get people to notice you and I think that is where we are falling down."

But David Ford's enemies seem thin on the ground - if they exist at all. He was unanimously re-elected as Alliance leader in February - a conclusion so foregone the party didn't even issue a press release afterwards.

Canvass opinion about the quiet man at Alliance's helm and the same themes keep re-occurring - straight laced; takes his politics very seriously; well meaning; number cruncher.

But his reputation as a political thinker finds respect among his peers.

The government has taken seriously some of the party's ideas for finding a way out of the current political impasse - even the prime minister's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, is known to have been impressed.

And no-one could doubt his instinct for political survival. Just take the fight to save his assembly seat in South Antrim for example.

It is as a champion of the Agreement and devolution that he's best known

His main rival, Sinn Fein's Martin Meehan, seemed to declare himself the winner on a live television programme with Ford by his side. But the Sinn Fein man spoke too soon. While he may have been ahead on first preferences, transfers from other parties eventually brought Ford home by 180 votes.

His picture may not have appeared on the lamp posts but could the clincher have been his decision to put up a poster just before polling day with the stark message: "Ford or Meehan - You Decide?"

In fact, Alliance managed somehow to save all six of its assembly seats although the party's overall vote fell from 52,636 to 25,372 - down 2.8%. David Ford's vote, however, was up.

David Ford was born in England in February 1951, but having a mother from Northern Ireland meant he was a frequent visitor to the province, eventually moving there permanently after attending Queen's University.

His reputation as a political thinker finds respect among his peers

He got his first taste of politics early, handing out leaflets for the Liberal Party in what became a famous by-election victory for the party in his home town of Orpington in 1962.

It would stand him in good stead for his fight against the odds as a party leader in his own right in later life.

His entry into full-time politics was in 1990 when he became Alliance's general secretary.

A strong supporter of the then leader John Alderdice, he was first elected to Antrim Borough Council in 1993.

When Alderdice's successor, Sean Neeson, resigned in 2001 following poor election results, David Ford won the leadership election, comfortably beating his now deputy Eileen Bell.

He has been a tireless campaigner for a better railway network and has a strong interest in agricultural and environmental affairs.

But it is as a champion of the Agreement and devolution that he's best known. It's a stance which has even earned him the perhaps unfortunate sobriquet "a self-confessed horse's ass".

Actually the man who made that insult, the UK Unionist leader Robert McCartney, was only partly correct.

David Ford is bitterly opposed to the assembly's designation system

David Ford had actually described himself as willing to be "the back end of a pantomime horse" in order to save the process - a reference to his decision to re-designate his party from "other" to "unionist" in order to help re-elect David Trimble as first minister after he had lost his assembly majority.

It was a tactical manoeuvre - in fact David Ford is bitterly opposed to the assembly's designation system - but it worked at the time although not even David Ford could save the assembly when it was eventually brought down by the "Stormontgate" spying affair.

And there it remains - arguably Alliance suffers more than most from the lack of an assembly platform - the party regularly complains that it's media coverage is squeezed in much the way that its vote is squeezed by the four biggest parties.

Ironically, David Ford's profile has been latterly raised by regular appearances of his caricature on the BBC's satirical look at the sometimes farcical world of Northern Ireland politics "The Folks on the Hill."

But the real David Ford leaves the jokes to others. After all, leading the largest cross-community party in the entrenched world of Northern Ireland politics is no laughing matter.