WITH May's assembly election looming, David Ford is reasonably upbeat about his party's prospects. While keen to avoid specific figures, he believes Alliance can at least retain its eight MLAs and feels up to half a dozen seats are there for the taking. "Eight are rock solid safe and when you look back a couple of elections that wasn’t the case," he says. The South Antrim MLA has now been leader for 15 years and in that time has faced little internal criticism. "I think the reason for that is because Alliance has made progress and we've been seen to[...]