Splintered Sunrise

Well, that was quite the night, wasn’t it? I will eschew the British results for the time being in favour of bringing you the local breakdown by constituency, plus a few brief reflections.

Belfast East
Long (Alliance) 12,839 (37.2%, +26.2%)
Robinson (DUP) 11,306 (32.8%, -19.6%)
Ringland (UCUNF) 7,305 (21.2%, -8.3%)
Vance (TUV) 1,856 (5.4%)
Ó Donnghaile (SF) 817 (2.4%, -0.1%)
Muldoon (SDLP) 365 (1.1%, -1.1%)

The shock of the night, as the First Minister lost his seat, the DUP was decapitated and Naomi Long became the first Alliance candidate ever to be elected to Westminster. Obviously an enormous anti-Robinson vote, largely on his expenses and property dealings, with the TUV vote making up more than his deficit (and David Vance will count that as a result). Turnout fairly stable at 58.4%, so no mass abstention – except maybe an abstention of DUP supporters and high turnout of the anti camp. Naomi Long, whose canvassers had assiduously pushed the idea that she was the candidate who could beat Robbo (see those “Yes she can!” posters on the Newtownards Road), secured the perfect storm, energising her core vote, squeezing Trevor Ringland, pulling in a few hundred nationalist tactical votes and also – having been out canvassing working-class loyalist areas with Dawn Purvis – pulling in the PUP vote. Peter looked a broken man last night, and there has to be a question mark over his continued leadership of the DUP.

Belfast North
Dodds (DUP) 14,812 (40.0%, -2.9%)
Kelly (SF) 12,588 (34.0%, +7.1%)
Maginness (SDLP) 4,544 (12.3%, -4.5%)
Cobain (UCUNF) 2,837 (7.7%, -1.8%)
Webb (Alliance) 1,809 (4.9%, +2.0%)
McAuley (Ind) 403 (1.1%)

Deputy Dodds hanging on as predicted. This was always going to be a long shot for Gerry K – the SDLP vote is too high and the UUP vote too low for a South Belfast-style result – but he did put a squeeze on Allbran, whilst pulling in young voters in Glengormley to add to his inner city core. Note the swing of 3% from unionist to nationalist, essentially a working out of demographic change, which shows North Belfast – now the only unionist seat in the city – moving into marginality. And a decent result from Billy Webb in an area where Alliance have done poorly in recent years. Turnout stable.

Belfast South
McDonnell (SDLP) 14,026 (41.0%, +10.9%)
Spratt (DUP) 8,100 (23.7%, -5.9%)
Bradshaw (UCUNF) 5,910 (17.3%, -4.9%)
Lo (Alliance) 5,114 (15.0%, +7.7%)
McGibbon (Green) 1,036 (3.0%)

Big Al winning more easily than expected, and would probably have won – albeit narrowly – even if Maskey had not withdrawn. Note the slump in the unionist total, partly I think due to unionists staying at home – turnout down 5% here – but also liberal unionists, Paula Bradshaw’s target market, voting Alliance, Green, even SDLP. Anna Lo more than doubling the Alliance share and making her Assembly seat solid in an election where she could have been squeezed. Adam McGibbon will also be pleased, but Jimmy Spratt very disappointed. Paula Bradshaw might be relieved not to have done even worse, and looks to have a lock on an Assembly seat if she runs next year – she had a good campaign that her result belies.

Belfast West
Adams (SF) 22,840 (71.1%, +2.5%)
Attwood (SDLP) 5,261 (16.4%, +0.3%)
Humphrey (DUP) 2,436 (7.6%, -3.3%)
Manwaring (UCUNF) 1,000 (3.1%, +0.6%)
Hendron (Alliance) 596 (1.9%, +1.8%)

Nothing really to see in the stronghold of Teflon Gerry, as the Great Leader once again has the safest seat in the north. Alex Attwood still flatlining, Shankill voters not bothering. Notable, though, that turnout slumped by 13.5%, while there were upwards of 500 spoiled votes after dissident republicans encouraged vote-spoiling. Evidently there’s potential for someone to put up a challenge, but no such candidate is on the horizon.

East Antrim
Wilson (DUP) 13,993 (45.9%, -1.0%)
McCune (UCUNF) 7,223 (23.7%, -1.4%)
Lynch (Alliance) 3,377 (11.1%, -3.6%)
McMullan (SF) 2,064 (6.8%, +1.4%)
McCamphill (SDLP) 2,019 (6.6%, -0.8%)
Morrison (TUV) 1,826 (6.0%)

Nudie Boy remains secure, with both UCUNF and Alliance falling back slightly (with no disrespect to Gerry Lynch, a new Alliance candidate would always struggle to match Neeson). A notably poor performance from the TUV, who had made a lot of noise around Larne, and rather a decent one from Oliver McMullan. Turnout down by 6.6%.

East Londonderry
Campbell (DUP) 12,097 (34.6%, -6.3%)
Ó hOisín (SF) 6,742 (19.3%, +1.9%)
Macaulay (UCUNF) 6,218 (17.8%, -1.9%)
Conway (SDLP) 5,399 (15.4%, -3.9%)
Ross (TUV) 2,572 (7.4%)
Fitzpatrick (Alliance) 1,922 (5.5%, +3.1%)

Gregory Campbell wins with a decreased majority. What we see is Willie Ross (a poor result for him) taking votes from Campbell, and a creditable return for Alliance’s Barney Fitzpatrick not allowing Lesley Macaulay to capitalise. On the nationalist side, SF establish a clear lead over the SDLP even without Francie Brolly in the frame. Turnout down by 8.4%.

Dreary Steeples
Gildernew (SF) 21,304 (45.5%, +7.3%)
Connor (Ind) 21,300 (45.5%)
McKinney (SDLP) 3,574 (7.6%, -7.2%)
Kamble (Alliance) 437 (0.9%)
Stevenson (Ind) 188 (0.4%)

Didn’t I say this one would be too close to call? In the end, SF’s military-style organisation just about pulling it off for wee Michelle, with not only her own vote mobilised but the SDLP vote halving, and that SDLP Assembly seat looking under serious threat. In fact, the SDLP must be breathing a quiet sigh of relief, because had Michelle lost then Fearghal McKinney’s name would be mud and the SDLP would struggle to ever get anyone elected here again. Unionists mumbling about court action, and a few glares being directed to spoiler independent John Stevenson, but note that turnout was actually down over 6%, and Connor couldn’t even poll the combined DUP-UUP vote from 2005. It may be that our popular agriculture minister is just not effective enough as a hate figure, even for Fermanagh unionists.

Foyle
Durkan (SDLP) 16,922 (44.7%, -1.7%)
Anderson (SF) 12,098 (31.9%, -1.4%)
Devenney (DUP) 4,489 (11.8%, -2.2)
McCann (PBP) 2,936 (7.7%)
Harding (UCUNF) 1,221 (3.2%, +0.9%)
McGrellis (Alliance) 223 (0.6%)

The SDLP advantage in Foyle not dented at all, with Eamonn McCann doing rather well but taking votes equally from SDLP and SF. Turnout slumping from 70% to 57.5%. In an Assembly election, this would confirm the status quo of three SDLP, two SF and one DUP, with McCann probably the runner-up.

Lagan Valley
Donaldson (DUP) 18,199 (49.8%, -8.5%)
Trimble (UCUNF) 7,713 (21.1%, -1.8%)
Lunn (Alliance) 4,174 (11.4%, +0.5%)
Harbinson (TUV) 3,154 (8.6%)
Heading (SDLP) 1,835 (5.0%, +1.5%)
Butler (SF) 1,465 (4.0%, -0.3%)

Jeffrey Donaldson winning by a mile as expected, with the decrease in his share all going to the TUV, and Daphne Trimble unable to make an impact. Aside from the swing from DUP to TUV, the other results are remarkably stable. Turnout down by 6.6%, but then there was no drama about the result here.

Mid Ulster
McGuinness (SF) 21,239 (52.0%, +4.4%)
McCrea (DUP) 5,876 (14.4%, -9.1%)
Quinn (SDLP) 5,826 (14.3%, -3.2%)
Overend (UCUNF) 4,509 (11.0%, +0.4%)
Millar (TUV) 2,995 (7.3%)
Butler (Alliance) 397 (1.0%)

Martin McGuinness wins easily in his fiefdom, actually increasing his share at the expense of the SDLP, who will have been suffering some knock-on from Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Quite a good performance from Walter Millar at Ian McCrea’s expense, which makes the Assembly election interesting. Turnout down by 12.3%.

Newry and Armagh
Murphy (SF) 18,857 (42.0%, +0.6%)
Bradley (SDLP) 10,526 (23.4%, -1.7%)
Kennedy (UCUNF) 8,558 (19.1%, +5.2%)
Irwin (DUP) 5,764 (12.8%, -5.5%)
Frazer (Ind) 656 (1.5%)
Muir (Alliance) 545 (1.2%)

Little drama here, as Conor Murphy slightly extends his dominance. Rather interesting that Danny Kennedy performed so well, which would boost his chances of taking over the UUP leadership. Turnout down by 13.3%.

North Antrim
Paisley (DUP) 19,672 (46.4%, -10.4%)
Allister (TUV) 7,114 (16.8%)
McKay (SF) 5,265 (12.4%, -1.8%)
Armstrong (UCUNF) 4,634 (10.9%, -4.1%)
O’Loan (SDLP) 3.738 (8.8%, -2.2%)
Dunlop (Alliance) 1,368 (3.2%, +0.2%)
Cubitt (Ind) 606 (1.4%)

Baby Doc retains the seat bequeathed him by an Dochtúir Mór with some ease, thanks not least to his inherited cushion, as Jim Allister’s challenge proves to be a damp squib. This return would see Allister easily take an Assembly seat, but he might be the only one for the TUV. If you look further down the line, there’s obviously lots of tactical voting here, but it’s not exactly clear in which direction. Turnout down by 7.3%.

North Down
Hermon (Ind) 21,181 (63.3%)
Parsley (UCUNF) 6,817 (20.4%, -30.0%)
Farry (Alliance) 1,876 (5.6%, -2.0%)
Kilpatrick (TUV) 1,634 (4.9%)
Agnew (Green) 1,043 (3.1%)
Logan (SDLP) 680 (2.0%, -1.1%)
Parker (SF) 250 (0.7%, +0.1%)

Lady Sylvia by a landslide, beating the whippersnapper Parsley by better than three to one and confirming her status as monarch of our own wee California. Sylvia soaking up lots of centre-ground votes as well as DUP votes, and Parsley polling less than the UUP (minus Sylvia) did at the 2005 local elections. Basically, the Lady is unbeatable as long as she wants to run. Turnout stable.

South Antrim
McCrea (DUP) 11,536 (33.9%, -6.4%)
Empey (UCUNF) 10,353 (30.4%, +0.9%)
McLaughlin (SF) 4,729 (13.9%, +3.2%)
Byrne (SDLP) 2,955 (8.7%, -2.5%)
Lawther (Alliance) 2,607 (7.7%, -0.6%)
Lucas (TUV) 1,829 (5.4%)

The end of the road for Reg Empey’s leadership of the UUP, as UCUNF fails to take its top target (or indeed any target). Mel Lucas, performing reasonably for the TUV, shaving enough votes off Singing Willie to make the seat marginal, but Reg failing to pick up support, either from Alliance or from nationalist voters. One may salute his audacity in trying to win tactical votes from Crumlin, but it just didn’t work out for Reg, and one can’t help suspecting that the embarrassing Adrian Watson might have stood a better chance. Mitchel McLaughlin consolidating his position as lead nationalist challenger. Turnout down 8.2%.

South Down
Ritchie (SDLP) 20,648 (48.5%, +1.6%)
Ruane (SF) 12,236 (28.7%, +1.7%)
Wells (DUP) 3,645 (8.6%, -7.6%)
McCallister (UCUNF) 3,093 (7.3%, -1.5%)
McConnell (TUV) 1,506 (3.5%)
Enright (Green) 901 (2.1%)
Griffin (Alliance) 560 (1.3%)

In the end, Margaret Ritchie holding on very comfortably, not only maintaining Eddie McGrady’s cushion but even extending it a little. Lots of tactical voting here – Jim Wells reported loads of loyalists in Kilkeel voting for Ritchie – but it must be said that Caitríona Ruane has been an unsuccessful minister (even SF implicitly recognised that by making the talented John O’Dowd the education spokesman) and a weak and polarising candidate. Unionist votes for Ritchie would be at least matched by SF voters backing Ritchie or staying at home. If the Shinners are serious about taking this seat within the next decade, they’d better headhunt a new candidate.

Strangford
Shannon (DUP) 14,926 (45.9%, -8.8%)
Nesbitt (UCUNF) 9,050 (27.8%, +6.4%)
Girvan (Alliance) 2,828 (8.7%, +0.5%)
Hanna (SDLP) 2,164 (6.7%, -1.8%)
Williams (TUV) 1,814 (5.6%)
Coogan (SF) 1,161 (3.6%, -0.1%)
Haig (Green) 562 (1.7%)

The DUP vote hit here by the Iris Robinson scandal, but Iris’ majority too big a mountain to overcome and so Gun Boy defeats TV Boy as predicted. Mike Nesbitt actually doing rather well, taking some votes directly off the DUP as well as some tactical votes. Debbie Girvan will be pleased that she avoided a squeeze and managed to maintain Kieran McCarthy’s base. But this belongs firmly to Ulster Scots-speaking pig farmer Jim Shannon, who has proved that his many years of hard, plodding constituency work as a councillor and MLA, though often overlooked by the party leadership in the past, was not in vain, and he’s saved the local DUP from what could have been a meltdown.

Upper Bann
Simpson (DUP) 14,000 (33.8%, -3.7%)
Flash Harry (UCUNF) 10,639 (25.7%, +0.1%)
O’Dowd (SF) 10,237 (24.7%, +3.8%)
Kelly (SDLP) 5,276 (12.7%, -0.2%)
Heading (Alliance) 1,231 (3.0%, +0.8%)

Upper Bann now becomes a three-way marginal, with David Simpson leaking some votes but Flash Harry, despite a creditable performance, being unable to capitalise. A very good result from John O’Dowd, with demographic change meaning that Upper Bann can no longer be reported simply as an intra-unionist contest. Turnout down by 9.2%.

West Tyrone
Doherty (SF) 18,050 (48.4%, +9.5%)
Buchanan (DUP) 7,365 (19.8%, +2.0%)
Hussey (UCUNF) 5,281 (14.2%, +7.3%)
Byrne (SDLP) 5,212 (14.0%, +4.9%)
Bower (Alliance) 859 (2.3%)
McClean (Ind) 508 (1.4%)

Again, the result here was never really in doubt, but the 27% scored by hospital campaigner Kieran Deeny in 2005 made things a little unpredictable. Deeny had particularly squeezed the SDLP and UUP votes, but many of his votes seem to have gone here to Pat Doherty, who managed to raise his vote despite a 14.2% slump in the turnout. Ross Hussey will be pleased with his performance, while the SDLP did poorly, now languishing below an Assembly quota, and will not have been helped by the Fermanagh effect.

And that’s it for our whistle-stop tour. We’ll be back with some thoughts about what this means, but in the meantime, discuss.

Rud eile: Have only just heard that Peter Hadden, long-serving leader of the Militant/Socialist Party in Belfast, has died. That’s very sad news indeed. RIP.

2005 result:
Gildernew (SF) 18,638 (38.2%)
Foster (DUP) 14,056 (28.8%)
Elliott (UUP) 8,869 (18.2%)
Gallagher (SDLP) 7,230 (14.8%)

2010 candidates: Rodney Connor (Ind), Michelle Gildernew (SF), Vasundhara Kamble (Alliance), Fearghal McKinney (SDLP), John Stevenson (Ind)

OK, we’re on the home straight now, and let’s just take a breathless rush through the constituency that’s impossible to call – all we know is that the turnout will be high and the result tight.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone is a big sprawling constituency making up the southwestern corner of the north. It includes the whole of Fermanagh district, and most of Dungannon district (minus the Coalisland area). The biggest urban centre is Enniskillen with a population of around 13,000, while Dungannon has about 10,000. Otherwise, it’s very rural, with lots of little villages sitting in some genuinely beautiful countryside – Lough Erne is justly a popular tourist destination.

The sectarian breakdown is 55.6% Catholic to 43.0% Protestant as of the 2001 census, although the sectarian age pyramid would make the actual electorate slightly more even. There are some very Catholic villages like Roslea and Belleek around the border; some very Protestant areas like Lisbellaw and Ballinamallard in northern and central Fermanagh; and generally you find a lot of the usual west-of-the-Bann patchwork, where if you drive through the area you’ll find a strongly republican village followed by a strongly loyalist village et cetera. One oddity – Fermanagh has an extremely low percentage of Presbyterians, with the large majority of local Protestants being Church of Ireland. For complicated cultural reasons, that means there used to be a very high UUP and very low DUP vote, until local UUP MLA Arlene Foster defected along with Jeffrey Donaldson.

Basically, the setup of a slim nationalist majority that could be won by unionists in certain circumstances – demography has been generally making the area more Catholic, but the transfer of the massively republican Coalisland area to Mid Ulster in the 1995 review evened things up again – has marked the history of the constituency as one marked on both sides by unity intrigues and paranoia over vote-splitting. So it was in the 1950s and so it is now – back in those days it was the monolithic Unionist Party, with perpetual bickering between the Nationalist Party and Sinn Féin. (For trivia fans, the unsuccessful SF candidate in 1966 was none other than Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who had previously been abstentionist TD for Longford-Westmeath, and who of course is still knocking around hardline republican politics today.)

We’re not, though, simply talking about the drive to keep themmuns out. We’re also talking about the two tribes talking completely different discourses. Border unionists see themselves essentially as a community under siege, who merely want to remain loyal British subjects in a hostile environment. Border nationalists have their own memories of gerrymandering and discrimination, compounding being put into a statelet that they never asked to be part of in the first place. This total lack of mutual comprehension, let alone empathy, is what inspired the famous Churchill quote about the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone.

Put this into the context of the Troubles, and let’s leave aside such a nakedly sectarian attack as the infamous Enniskillen bombing of 1987. If we rewind to Operation Harvest in the 1950s, one of the military directives from Seán Cronin was that, while the British army and regular RUC were fair game, the B Specials were not to be considered legitimate targets – they were considered to be Protestants in uniform, and the targeting of the B Specials as opening the door to sectarian warfare. This was literally incomprehensible to northern IRA members, who could not conceive of the B Specials not being legitimate targets. Fast forward then to the Troubles, and a key factor here was the Provos’ assassination campaign against Protestant farmers who were members of the UDR or the RUC Reserve. To republicans, this was part of the military campaign; to border unionists, these men were being killed for being Protestants. Fermanagh unionists even use the word “genocide” – which is putting it very strongly, especially given their inability to admit any wrongdoing by unionism – and don’t need much encouragement to talk about sinister plots to drive Protestants off the land.

This background is invaluable when you talk about the most important event in FST electoral history, the election of Bobby Sands at the height of the 1981 hunger strike. Fermanagh unionists, obviously not having an insight into the impact of the hunger strike, regarded Sands as nothing more than a gunman, and got the shock of their lives when 30,000 of their neighbours voted the gunman into parliament. This explains why Ken Maginnis’ election in 1983, and his occupancy of the seat until 2001, had such totemic significance for unionism.

The opposite can be said of Michelle Gildernew’s narrow victory in 2001, in an election marked by some pretty sharp practice it must be said, which border nationalists saw as a vindication; and her emphatic holding of the seat in 2005. Now, I remember when Michelle was picked as SF candidate, and it would be fair to say that there was some disaffection in republican quarters, on the grounds that this was a traditional republican constituency that needed a traditional republican candidate – which was to say, an IRA man, not some young woman from the political side.

Michelle, it must be said, is a fairly inoffensive candidate for a Shinner, and as agriculture minister has arguably been the most effective figure in the Stormont Executive – certainly, she’s assiduous at getting money for farmers, and you regularly read quotes in the local papers from wee Paisleyite farmers talking about how much they love Michelle and how she’s the best minister they’ve ever had. In a PR election, she might even pull in a preference or two; but this is to miss the point. This election is not about the person of Michelle Gildernew, or about abstentionism; from the unionist point of view, it’s about exorcising the ghost of Bobby Sands, and raising the unionist flag again in border country.

And this is what lies behind the candidacy of Rodney Connor, the former chief executive of Fermanagh council who’s been drafted in to front for the DUP/UUP/Tory/TUV/Orange Order grand alliance. Again, the point is not that Rodney Connor is personally sectarian – the word is that he isn’t, and was a scrupulously fair chief executive – but that he is the pan-Prod candidate. This also, of course, makes a liar of David Cameron, since the whole premise of the UCUNF boondoggle was to eschew pan-Prod politics and run Conservative and Unionist candidates in every constituency.

Theoretically, this should make Connor the slight favourite, but there’s going to be an almighty tactical squeeze on the SDLP, as the unionists need the SDLP vote to hold up respectably. There’s been a lot of puffery from both the SDLP and the unionists that their new candidate, former UTV political correspondent Fearghal McKinney, was a strong candidate who would seriously boost the SDLP by virtue of having been on teevee. (This would be the Mike Nesbitt theory.) The wishful thinking element of this was shown up by McKinney’s poor performance in his Politics Show debate with Gerry Kelly, when he appeared completely lost without a script. Also, never underestimate the SDLP’s ability to throw away a position through sheer incompetence.

But the important point is that the pan-Prod candidacy effectively put a gun to the head of moderate SDLP-voting nationalists and asked them whether they’d rather be represented by a moderate unionist like Rodney Connor or by Michelle Gildernew. Unionists have never learned that, if you ask a question like that, you might not like the answer. The likelihood is that, whether Gildernew wins or loses, SF’s populist Save Michelle campaign will see the SDLP vote squeezed to buggery. Having regained the FST seat, local nationalists are unwilling in the extreme to see the Orangemen get it back. There are, for instance, quite a few hardline republicans in south Fermanagh who wouldn’t usually vote, but may well do under these circumstances.

This is impossible to call, of course. In such a tight scenario, this will come down to organisation, to getting the vote out. I do know that SF down in the southwest have been throwing the kitchen sink at this constituency, but whether that will be enough will be apparent later. If they can pull it off, it would be a major triumph and Michelle would be well set to hold the seat indefinitely; if Connor squeaks through very narrowly but the SDLP vote collapses, they can probably console themselves with a moral victory and set about the business of wiping out the SDLP in the rural west.

Phew! And that’s it, all eighteen constituencies covered. Now for some caffeine, till we wait for the results. There will be plenty through the night at Slugger, and over at 1690 An’ All Thon yer man will be providin’ the Ulster Scots results service.

2005 result:
McGrady (SDLP) 21,557 (44.7%)
Ruane (SF) 12,417 (25.8%)
Wells (DUP) 8,815 (18.3%)
Nesbitt (UUP) 4,775 (9.9%)
Crozier (Alliance) 613 (1.3%)

2010 candidates: Cadogan Enright (Green), David Griffin (Alliance), John McCallister (UCUNF), Ivor McConnell (TUV), Margaret Ritchie (SDLP), Caitríona Ruane (SF), Jim Wells (DUP)

Unless something very strange happens in Foyle, South Down is the most competitive seat between the two nationalist parties, and a tough test for new SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie. Few people expect her not to win, but she’s having to work for it.

South Down takes up the rural south-eastern corner of the north, comprising most of Down district, nearly half of Newry and Mourne district, and a slice of Banbridge district. It’s a sprawling area, and one of the most rural constituencies. The main urban centre is Downpatrick, which might have a cathedral (Church of Ireland) and a link to the eponymous saint, but whose population is still only around 10,000. The resort town of Newcastle, with its spectacular Mourne mountains setting and more pound shops than you could shake a stick at, has something over 7000. The fishing community of Kilkeel is smaller yet, and below that you’re into the villages like Ardglass, Castlewellan, Warrenpoint, Rostrevor, Crossgar, Katesbridge and Rathfriland.

The sectarian breakdown according to the 2001 census was 69.6% Catholic to 28.7% Protestant, with the latest boundary review (the border with Strangford moving a few miles south) making the constituency slightly more Catholic. There is a fairly mixed population in the north towards Ballynahinch and the west towards Banbridge; Newcastle is around 70% Catholic and Downpatrick about 90% so; Kilkeel has long been a loyalist enclave, but new housing developments make it less so.

Yet, for 37 years this was a unionist seat, with Capt Lawrence Orr taking it for the UUP when it was recreated in 1950, and holding it until 1974 when he was replaced by Enoch Powell. Enoch was a huge catch for the UUP, and their leadership were very proud to have landed him, though given the tensions he would provoke with such figures as Jim Kilfedder, Harold McCusker and John Carson, he wasn’t an unmixed blessing – nor was he universally popular even among South Down unionists. Enoch survived a whole series of tightly fought elections, made even tighter, ironically, by the boundary review he had extracted from the Callaghan government, which boosted the north from 12 seats to 17. By 1987, Enoch could hold out no longer and Eddie McGrady took the seat comfortably, soon converting it into a safe nationalist seat and specifically an SDLP fiefdom.

Now, it may seem unimaginable these days, but Eddie McGrady was once a thrusting Young Turk on our political scene. Back in the 1960s, when he was a mere councillor in Downpatrick, Eddie was an early example of a nationalist politician who broke with the sclerotic example of the old Nationalist Party, building a formidable personal machine in the town which he took with him wholesale into the newly formed SDLP in 1970. Eddie of course was a fief in a party composed of semi-autonomous fiefdoms, but Eddie’s fiefdom was unusual in that it wasn’t solely a matter of personal rule, but he also had something resembling an SDLP organisation to back him up. It didn’t get the name of the South Down and Londonderry Party for nothing.

Eddie was also an exception to the SDLP’s fatal error of retiring all their popular figures at the same time, in that he has hung on longer than the rest of the founding generation. In fact, Eddie (74) was quite recently talking about his plans to run for yet another term, until Margaret Ritchie talked him out of it. And so it is that Margaret, despite her not being a double-jobber having been an asset in her party leadership campaign, is now campaigning to be a double-jobber. She didn’t have much option in that the other dominant SDLP figure in the constituency, PJ Bradley, is 70, which may point up something of an age issue for the South Down SDLP. Taking the raw figures from 2005, Eddie has bequeathed Margaret a good solid 9000-plus majority. So what brings South Down into play?

The obvious threat is the quite sharp rise in the Sinn Féin vote in recent years. Before the ceasefire, SF used to lose their deposit in South Down, polling some votes in the rougher bits of Downpatrick and some more in Castlewellan, but little elsewhere. They had serious trouble even getting councillors elected, and didn’t even campaign in many areas where they had potential support. But that has changed quite a bit lately, with the party doubling its share of the vote in the last ten years.

Factor in here that Eddie McGrady obviously had a strong personal vote, even pulling in some support from liberal Protestants. (This is not unique to Eddie, of course. In South Belfast you’ll find quite a few unionists who, if push comes to shove, would rather be represented by Alasdair McDonnell than Jimmy Spratt.) There has also been a rather obvious tactical vote by unionists to keep Caitríona Ruane out. In the 2005 Westminster election we saw a result of
SDLP 44.7%, SF 25.8%, UUP 9.9%
but in the local government election (under PR) the same day we saw
SDLP 34.5%, SF 24.1%, UUP 15.7%
The picture is muddied slightly by the intervention of independent and Green candidates in the council election, and that Dermot Nesbitt undoubtedly lost some votes to the DUP’s Jim Wells, but the fact remains that Nesbitt’s Westminster vote was only 64% of the UUP’s council vote, and while some went to Wells, much went to McGrady.

The squeeze will probably be tougher this time. The 2007 Assembly election saw SF coming in a mere 328 votes behind the SDLP (31.4% to 30.7%), which will have concentrated minds. And, while I’m not sure Margaret Ritchie will have Eddie’s personal appeal, a hate figure will do just as well for a tactical squeeze; and unionists really can’t stand Caitríona Ruane. Unionist politicians find it hard to even say her name, just spitting out the word “Ruane” with a visible grimace. There are, I think, a number of reasons for this. Caitríona reminds me in some ways of a junior edition of Bairbre de Brún, in that she’s a southerner (not necessarily an asset in the north), has a somewhat grating, pedantic speaking style (although so does Ritchie), and further winds people up by being a fluent Gaeilgeoir and showing off her command of Irish at regular intervals (oddly, Martin McGuinness’ horrible Irish doesn’t seem to bother anyone).

Most of all, though, it has to do with the 11+. Some of this isn’t Caitríona’s fault, in that she inherited the mess from McGuinness, plus the direct rule ministers who followed him; and it’s undoubtedly the case that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the non-selective policy favoured by the nationalist parties (plus the PUP) and the pro-grammars policy of the two big unionist parties. Nonetheless, a minister with more political savvy would have gone out, campaigned for her policy, maybe tried to broker a compromise. Caitríona, though, has sailed serenely onwards, waiting for reality to catch up with her, while post-primary selection has descended into chaos, with the grammars operating a pirate 11+ exam. (Actually, two pirate exams, with the Catholic and state grammars operating in parallel.) Be that as it may, the unionist middle class is absolutely convinced that education has gone completely down the pan, and it’s all Caitríona’s fault.

So, given all that, I’m expecting a Ritchie victory, though with a lower vote than Eddie had, and heavily reliant on unionist tactical voting. (Which, as Joe Hendron can tell you, is a precarious basis for your majority. If you don’t look like you’re going to win, those tactical votes will disappear like snow off a sheugh and you definitely won’t win.) What’s interesting, though, is what all this says about the state of the SDLP, who really shouldn’t be in any trouble here.

I’ve mentioned before the problem faced by the SDLP in retiring their top tier (Hume, Mallon, Rodgers, Hendron, McGrady) in a short space of time, and how that makes them look exposed without obvious heavyweight successors. Certainly, Adams’ “check out our leadership” theme looks designed to expose what Brian Feeney (the best leader the SDLP never had, in my opinion and Brian’s) calls “weakness in depth”. If you look at the three candidates defending seats, you have Mark Durkan, who doesn’t want to be leader, Alasdair McDonnell, who the party members don’t want to be leader, and Margaret Ritchie, who got to be leader because she wasn’t McDonnell.

But a lot of this is secondary. There’s been grumbling about Margaret’s performance in the debates, but SDLP members knew her style when they elected her – the only mistake was to be over-rehearsed, when she’s always at her best when most spontaneous. SDLP members and voters also grumble about their ramshackle organisation and how most of the leadership seem to hate each other. But that’s always been the case – it’s just that it didn’t matter so much when the party was on the up. No, I think there are two interconnected problems, one sociological and one political.

One of my favourite political quotes comes from the late Gerry Fitt, circa the founding of the SDLP in 1970. Gerry, as you’ll recall, was a former docker and a Labour man by inclination. One day Gerry bumped into an old mate who asked him how he was getting on in his new party. Gerry’s immortal reply was, “I’m up to me arse in fucking teachers.” At this point in time, at the start of the Troubles, the Catholic bishops were actively encouraging professional types to get involved in politics lest the Provos or (even worse) the Sticks take the lead, and this is what shaped the core SDLP cadre. But now, with a massively expanded Catholic middle class, and a hell of a talent pool in it – some 70% of the legal profession is now Catholic – where are the new professionals showing leadership? The party doesn’t even have reliable cheerleaders in the media – Brian Feeney is effectively a Shinner these days, as is Jude Collins. Tom Kelly in the Irish News makes the odd stab, but that’s about it.

What’s perhaps a bigger problem is that the SDLP doesn’t have a post-peace process narrative, something to set itself apart from SF. What it has in the way of ideology is John Hume Thought, with its emphasis on post-nationalist European social democracy. But I don’t know what relevance post-nationalist European social democracy has to the farmer in Tyrone or the single mother in Andersonstown or even the young professional in Glengormley. But being constrained by Hume Thought means you’ve got a nationalist party that can’t use the resources of nationalism – it’s not only that the SDLP doesn’t hold an Easter commemoration, but it’s hard to even imagine them evoking the memory of, say, Collins or de Valera.

I’ve said this before, but if the SDLP came out as a Christian Democratic party – which is what most outsiders think it is anyway – with a CDU-style emphasis on family, church and nation, it would be more in tune with its actual base. It could develop a narrative of the SDLP being the party of success and SF the party of failure, with an explicit affinity with the Catholic entrepreneurial class. It could run populist campaigns around the defence of grammar schools – rather than agreeing with the thrust of the Ruane reforms but criticising her implementation of same – and the shocking level of criminality and anti-social behaviour in west Belfast. The UCUNF project shows that this sort of reorientation is always painful, but something along those lines might give the SDLP the distinct identity that it lacks these days, and thereby a sense of purpose.

I don’t know if Big Al might have done something like that had he won the leadership, but he gives some sign of actually thinking about this problem. However, the party elected the safety first candidate. Perfectly honourably, most SDLP members are very attached to their left-of-centre identity; it’s not their fault that there’s another party that can strike that pose more convincingly.

A bit of a quick tour around the other candidates. The DUP’s Jim Wells, despite losing some of his voters in Ballynahinch to Strangford, will easily come third – the DUP wasn’t far off taking both unionist Assembly seats last time, and will have their eyes on the percentage. The UUP has been in long-term decline here, and with the added pressure of the tactical squeeze, I expect John McCallister to do horribly, with many of his natural voters decamping to Margaret Ritchie. With little recent history of dissident unionism in the area, I can’t see the TUV doing much business. Finally, Alliance have a very poor track record in this area, and are likely to be beaten badly by the Greens, who polled 3.5% in the Assembly election and have two councillors in the area.

Right, that’s seventeen out of eighteen. I hope to knock out Fermanagh and South Tyrone before any actual results are in.

2005 result:
Donaldson (DUP) 23,289 (54.7%)
McCrea (UUP) 9,172 (21.5%)
Close (Alliance) 4,316 (10.1%)
Butler (SF) 3,197 (7.5%)
Lewsley (SDLP) 2,598 (6.1%)

2010 candidates: Paul Butler (SF), Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP), Keith Harbinson (TUV), Brian Heading (SDLP), Trevor Lunn (Alliance), Daphne Trimble (UCUNF)

There won’t be any surprises in terms of the result in Lagan Valley, aka the Kingdom of Jeffrey. As with several other constituencies, it’ll be a matter of watching the percentages to see what’s bubbling under the surface.

Lagan Valley is a mainly suburban constituency with rural parts located to the west and southwest of Belfast. In local government terms, it consists of most of Lisburn district (except for the nationalist estates in the east which belong to the West Belfast constituency, and Glenavy ward in the north, just transferred to South Antrim) plus the Dromore area of Banbridge district. Its hub is the large town of Lisburn, minted as a city in 2002, which is a prosperous commercial centre with a booming population. There is a complex of mostly working-class estates linking Lisburn to Belfast. Outside Lisburn you get small towns like Hillsborough (where the castle is), Moira and Lambeg, and some way further out is Dromore. Much of this is commuter belt, although Lisburn itself has enough commercial vitality to be a hub in its own right rather than a dormitory town. Indeed you find lots of (Protestant) Belfast people going to Lisburn to do their shopping. Note, however, that the Belfast accents stop at Seymour Hill, and that Lisburn people are very touchy about not being a mere suburb.

The sectarian breakdown according to the 2001 census was approximately 80% Protestant to 15% Catholic, with a fairly dramatic shift of 6% from Catholic to Protestant taking place in the boundary review, which removes the two concentrations of nationalist voters in Dunmurry/Lagmore and Glenavy. The notional result therefore strengthens the DUP, UUP and Alliance positions, with the notional votes for the nationalist candidates heading down into lost deposit territory – the transfer of Lagmore into West Belfast cuts away half of Paul Butler’s vote at a stroke. That means that nationalist candidates will have to appeal to a scattered electorate, which is however becoming more numerous by the year. Lisburn is getting a bit of west Belfast creep[1] – but, in the absence of discrete nationalist areas, the most you can really do is whack up a few posters and hope for the best.

So then, the battle is within unionism, and it’s a very unequal battle in which the personality cult of Jeffrey Donaldson looms large. In years gone by this was the constituency of veteran UUP leader Jim Molyneaux, who racked up enormous majorities in election after election. On his retirement in 1997, Old Lemonsucker handed this fiefdom on to his anointed successor Jeffrey, who quickly (this was about the time of the GFA negotiations) established himself as spokesman for the UUP’s right wing. This led to several years where Jeffrey would intrigue constantly against David Trimble, making his leader’s life impossible by calling endless meetings of the Ulster Unionist Council, but painting himself into a corner where he could command a solid 40% of the UUC but couldn’t get an actual majority and take over the party he had once seemed destined to lead.

And so it was going into the 2003 Assembly election, where in Lagan Valley the UUP slate, headed by Jeffrey, polled a hefty 46.2% to the DUP’s 20.5%. However, almost immediately after the election Jeffrey, along with his fellow factionalists Norah Beare (Lagan Valley) and Arlene Foster (Fermanagh-South Tyrone) defected to the DUP. This led to the statistically very odd result in the 2005 Westminster election where the DUP vote rose by 41.3%, the UUP vote fell by 35%, but the same man as before won the election. (In 2001 the DUP’s Edwin Poots had come in third after Alliance; such was the Donaldson factor.) This was confirmed by the DUP taking three out of six Assembly seats – effectively ratifying its two gains by defection – in 2007.

So Jeffrey was quite a major catch for the DUP. However, he hasn’t really shone much in his new party. Denied the Executive department he must have hankered for, he was appointed director of elections, the idea being that with his appeal to the traditional UUP voter base (specifically with his Orange connections, an area where the DUP was historically weak; it helped, too, that although devout he wasn’t a raving fundie), he would finally succeed in killing off the UUP and establishing the DUP as the monolithic unionist party. Unfortunately for Jeffrey, his stint as elections supremo has coincided with the rise of the TUV, while the UUP-UCUNF may not be making great strides forward but has stubbornly refused to die.

So the question will be not whether Jeffrey wins, but how much he wins by. We can certainly expect his majority to be down on last time, but his cushion is so big it won’t affect the outcome. There is uncertainty over the placement of the other candidates, and their percentages, especially as a curtain-raiser for the Assembly election.

From the UCUNF corner, anyone running against Jeffrey in the short term is on a hiding to nothing. It’s perhaps significant that rising star Basil McCrea chose to sit this one out; the candidate, instead, is Daphne Trimble, wife of David, and indeed Lord Trimble himself has been out on the stump. It’s fair to say that not much love is lost between Jeffrey and the Trimbles, but that puts them well in tune with the rump Lagan Valley UUA, who to a man regard Jeffrey as a wee rat. This makes it a grudge match in a quite literal sense, and harsh (occasionally borderline defamatory) words have been exchanged.

The TUV, meanwhile, are running that personable wee man in the orange tie who caused the DUP so much hassle in the Dromore by-election. We don’t know, as ever with TUV candidates, just how well Keith Harbinson is going to do. In the last Assembly election Bob McCartney, with no organisation behind him, got 2%, which we can take as rock bottom for dissident unionism. On the other hand, we might look at the 13.4% Edwin Poots got in 2001 as indicating a good result for someone more hardline than Jeffrey. I think – and this is a gut instinct – that Harbinson will do rather well, possibly edging up into double figures. But that’s just a stab in the dark.

Alliance usually do all right here, and Trevor Lunn is sitting on a 10% vote or thereabouts. He doesn’t really have to worry much about his Assembly seat, given Alliance’s ability to soak up transfers. Speaking of which, we should note that Jeffrey has been a very hardworking constituency MP who evidently has a big personal vote, and whose transfers in PR elections go all over the shop. Jeffrey can be relied on to outperform the DUP, and that’s why only a fool would bet against him for the moment – he’s about as safe here as Gerry is in West Belfast. If he slips badly, though, the DUP should be worried.

[1] We can be more specific here in geographic and social terms. While the old town of Lisburn remains hardcore loyalist, the private estates between Lisburn and Twinbrook are quite mixed. This is also distinct from, say, Poleglass being a massive estate full of people relocated from the Lower Falls – we’re talking about respectable people moving out of Andersonstown or Twinbrook to get away from the hoods. There’s an exact parallel with Kilcooley being an estate of Shankill people dumped on the outskirts of Bangor, and those private estates in Bangor with lots of respectable people who moved out of the Shankill or Sandy Row to get away from the hoods.

2005 result:

McCrea (DUP) 14,507 (38.2%)
Burnside (UUP) 11,059 (29.1%)
McClelland (SDLP) 4,706 (12.4%)
Cushinan (SF) 4,407 (11.6%)
Ford (Alliance) 3,278 (8.6%)

2010 candidates: Michelle Byrne (SDLP), Sir Reg Empey (UCUNF), Alan Lawther (Alliance), Mel Lucas (TUV), the Rev William McCrea (DUP), Mitchel McLaughlin (SF)

It’s all to play for in unionism’s tightest contest. And, with Reg Empey having put his leadership on the line, South Antrim will determine whether or not the UCUNF project has any life in it.

In geographical terms, South Antrim is a bit like Strangford in that, while it’s got a strong rural element, it isn’t nearly as rural as everyone thinks it is. Most people’s idea of the area comes from driving up by Templepatrick and Aldergrove to the International Airport, which is bang in the middle of nowhere. Yet, over 40% of the constituency’s population isn’t in the Antrim local government district – which does indeed tend to the rural – but in Newtownabbey. Yes, that includes the more rural bit of Newtownabbey around Ballyclare, but also quite a tranche of north Belfast suburbia. People are always surprised to realise, for instance, that the New Mossley estate is in South Antrim, so loudly does the estate scream North Belfast.

Antrim town itself is a smallish working-class town with a bit of a tradition of light industry, though as in other areas that’s been changing as the north moves towards a call centre economy. There are bits of Antrim that are quite down-at-heel and are known for having a drug problem, although you have to factor in a lot of community work that’s gone towards turning that around. As for the villages in the Antrim district, quite a few still have the village feel – I’m thinking, for instance, of Toome in the far west of the constituency, which is spiritually part of South Derry – whilst others are being drawn into the greater Belfast commuter belt. A canonical example is Crumlin, which is full of young Catholic families who’ve moved out of Belfast. In one or two villages, this outmigration has led to low-level sectarian tensions.

The 2001 census gives the constituency (on its new boundaries) as being 67.6% Protestant to 28.1% Catholic. The new boundary revision, which sees South Antrim lose Glengormley to North Belfast but gain Glenavy from Lagan Valley, theoretically makes it 2.3% more Protestant than it used to be, but outmigration from Belfast and especially the rapid demographic shift in the Crumlin-Randalstown area probably cancels that out. But yes, this is basically a unionist seat. The only question is, which unionist party holds it.

In days of yore, South Antrim was the definitive UUP heartland. The bloated pre-1983 South Antrim constituency was long represented by Jim Molyneaux, who at one point had the largest personal vote in the House of Commons. In the 1983 revision, Jim opted for Lagan Valley, while South Antrim fell to Clifford Forsythe. Clifford was, it’s fair to say, one of the silent unionists, an MP who you often forgot about. Yet he kept being returned with thumping majorities, helped along by the DUP not standing against him. Though it’s fair to say that the UUP in the area had some strength of its own – for a long time it held an absolute majority on Antrim council, which is no mean feat under a PR system.

In this century, however, South Antrim has been very keenly fought, beginning with the September 2000 by-election that was called after the death of Clifford Forsythe. In an early test of post-GFA opinion, the DUP fancied a go, and as luck would have it, they had an ex-MP going spare in the form of gospel-singing Free Presbyterian cleric Willie McCrea, who had been ousted from Mid Ulster by Martin McGuinness in 1997 and didn’t look like winning his old fiefdom back. McCrea beat the UUP’s David Burnside by a majority of just 822.

And so it was that South Antrim came to resemble an electoral yo-yo. In the 2001 Westminster election the by-election result was almost exactly reversed, with Burnside scoring a majority of just over a thousand; in the 2003 Assembly election the DUP nosed ahead by 298; then McCrea bounced back in 2005 with a 3,448 majority. The new DUP-friendly boundaries increase his notional majority to 4000, but this is still the DUP’s most vulnerable seat, not least because of McCrea’s polarising character. So it’s in South Antrim that the UCUNF boondoggle needs a victory if it’s going to prove it has some legs.

But of course, you’re then reliant on the UUP not making a complete balls of things. In the 2007 Assembly election the party slumped to barely 20%, and a completely disorganised campaign, which saw three poorly balanced candidates chasing one-and-a-half quotas, lost them one of their two seats to the benefit of Sinn Féin. As we’ve recounted here, the local UUP’s overwhelming choice for the Westminster election was popular Antrim mayor Adrian Watson, who might have stood a good chance as a UUP candidate but was vetoed by the UUP’s Tory partners. Watson’s problem was that he is a bed and breakfast proprietor who several years ago made some incautious remarks on Stephen Nolan’s radio show about his reluctance to have homosexual rumpo on the premises; and, as we know, Team Cameron are deeply sensitive about that issue. And so it was that, just before the election, UCUNF was left bereft of a candidate, and Reggie himself had to step into the breach.

Can Reggie pull it off? It’s not impossible – he’s not a bad stump candidate, as his 2005 performance against Peter Robinson showed. On the other hand, the big complaint about Singing Willie in South Antrim is that you can’t dig him out of Magherafelt and get him to actually set foot in the constituency. Will running a blow-in from East Belfast neuter that argument? It would certainly have been impossible for Reggie if Adrian Watson had run as an independent, but Mr Watson seems to have been mollified.

There are a number of other factors. One that might work against Reggie is the popular reaction against Cameron’s pledge to slash the public sector here – South Antrim, like most areas of the north, has lots of public sector workers and they do tend to vote. A further complication is that Burnside used to pull in something of a tactical vote from Catholics in the area to keep out the hated McCrea – that might still be operative, in that Willie hasn’t become cuddly and non-sectarian in the interim, but the Orange Pact in Fermanagh makes an appeal for tactical votes more difficult.

The other factor here is Cllr Mel Lucas contesting on behalf of the TUV. One might have though Willie McCrea was sufficiently extreme a DUP rep to be bulletproof on his right flank, but the nature of unionist discourse is such that there will always be someone willing to say “Singing Willie, you’re a Lundy.” In this instance it’s Mel Lucas, a Wee Free himself who knows exactly what language to deploy. As is the case elsewhere, we don’t know how many votes the TUV will get. In the last Assembly election, Bob McCartney for the UKUP pulled in 2.3% (while Lucas, then a DUP candidate, got 7.4%), so the McCartney score can be taken as a sort of ballpark minimum for dissident unionism in the area. What we can say with confidence is that any votes Lucas takes will come directly off McCrea.

As for the nationalist candidates, Sinn Féin has long underperformed its potential in South Antrim, mostly due to poor organisation and infighting. Pre-ceasefire, Henry Cushinan used to stand in every election and would regularly lose his deposit, getting a substantial vote from the strongly republican village of Toome, a few from Randalstown and very little elsewhere. There were some well-advertised problems with SF’s Antrim town cumann several years back when some founding members resigned – largely, as far as I could see, over personality clashes – amid claims that the late Martin Meehan had brought a bunch of heavies up from Belfast to take over. As a result, the SDLP was in the lead here as recently as 2005, but then Mitchel McLaughlin, having failed to oust Mark Durkan in Foyle, was sent down to South Antrim to break new ground and seems to have succeeded, topping the 2007 Assembly poll with 16.5%. He’ll want to build on that, while the SDLP’s novice candidate Michelle Byrne will be looking to stay up in double figures at least, if not close the gap on McLaughlin.

This is also the stomping ground of Alliance leader David Ford, and the party tends to do quite well here, pulling in 13.1% in the Stormont election. Cllr Alan Lawther would be delighted to get the same sort of vote Fordy pulls in, but he may be vulnerable to a tactical squeeze from Reg Empey. Likewise, any nationalist tactical votes for Reg will come off the SDLP pile rather than the SF one.

2005 result:
Dodds (DUP) 13,935 (45.6%)
Kelly (SF) 8,747 (28.6%)
Maginness (SDLP) 4,950 (16.2%)
Cobain (UUP) 2,154 (7.1%)
Hawkins (Alliance) 438 (1.4%)
Delaney (WP) 165 (0.5%)
Gilby (Dream Ticket) 151 (0.5%)

2010 candidates: Fred Cobain (UCUNF), Nigel Dodds (DUP), Gerry Kelly (SF), Alban Maginness (SDLP), Martin McAuley (Ind), Billy Webb (Alliance)

One of the most comical sights of this election has been granted to residents of North Belfast, who can see the Cameron-approved slogan “Vote For Change” on a poster bearing the image of Fred Cobain. Yes, it’s plus ça change in North Belfast, with the same four major-party contenders as last time, and the main interest being in watching the percentages – no major change is to be expected here, although the area does have a track record of weird results.

North Belfast is the northern quarter of Belfast City Council, plus adjoining areas of Newtownabbey – in the latest boundary revision it’s gained Cloughfern from East Antrim and five wards in the Glengormley area from South Antrim. The sectarian balance is 52.7% Protestant to 44.0% Catholic, with the gap narrowing (although more slowly than in South Belfast). The stereotypical image of North Belfast is one of sectarian violence, of peace walls, and of urban deprivation – which is all true, in that the area had the highest casualty rate during the Troubles, there are lots of interface areas where segregated communities rub up against each other, and there are areas of quite serious poverty. There are also, however, some quite pleasant leafy areas, a few of them still mixed; and there is a lot of exurban development at the Newtownabbey end. Some of this is nice commuter-belt housing, but there’s also the enormous loyalist estate of Rathcoole, which has a deservedly fearsome reputation.

Where the stereotypes ring most true is in the working-class inner-city part of the constituency, especially in the interface areas around the Crumlin Road and Duncairn Gardens. Housing is still a flashpoint issue here, as working-class loyalist areas like Tigers Bay are in long-term decline (those who can afford to move out do so) while working-class republican areas like Ardoyne and New Lodge have very long housing lists, and the situation can’t be eased because the Housing Executive will not have Catholics moving into designated Protestant areas. This is not without good reason, because the one thing guaranteed to drive North Belfast Prods buck mad is the threat of “encroachment”, and because you would need to be an extremely brave Catholic to move into some of these areas anyway. Unsurprisingly, there is often trouble in North Belfast during the marching season, due to the combination of friction at interfaces and Ardoyne having a large population of unemployed spides who don’t need much excuse to riot.

So, onto that intriguing electoral history. We just covered the 1979 result in East Belfast, but the North Belfast result that year was odder yet:

McQuade (DUP) 11,690 (27.6%)
Walker (UUP) 10,695 (25.3%)
O’Hare (SDLP) 7,823 (18.5%)
Dickson (UPNI) 4,220 (10.0%)
Cushnahan (Alliance) 4,120 (9.7%)
Lynch (Republican Clubs) 1,907 (4.5%)
Carr (NILP) 1,889 (4.5%)

A bit of a historical curiosity this, and it just shows you how unpredictable a contest can be when there’s a crowded field. With the UUP having deselected sitting MP John Carson – and that’s a story in itself – the DUP’s Johnny McQuade came from nowhere to take the seat on the lowest percentage for a winning candidate in that election, and one of the lowest ever; McQuade, who would then have been in his late sixties, was also one of the oldest first-term MPs ever. Note also almost 30% of the vote going to the four centre-ground or left candidates – during the 1980s the constituency would return respectable votes for Alliance and for perennial Workers Party candidate Séamus Lynch. Both the specifically liberal and specifically socialist votes in North Belfast have fallen by the wayside in more recent years.

McQuade did not contest again in 1983 – he died the following year – and the seat was taken over by the UUP’s Cecil Walker, who held it for the following eighteen years. During that time we had all sorts of dramatic events, notably the rise of Sinn Féin in the area and to a lesser extent the PUP, but Cecil seemed immovable, not least because the DUP didn’t challenge him. Then there was that fateful 2001 televised debate in Crumlin Road Courthouse, where the 76-year-old Walker looked old and confused, and gave the impression of not understanding the questions. To be scrupulously fair, Cecil was quite deaf by that point and probably didn’t hear half of the questions, but the impression of him as a doddery old man stuck, and while Cecil dropped from first place to fourth (in percentage terms, from 52% to 12%), Nigel Dodds stormed to victory.

Nobody really expects Deputy Dodds to lose this time around, although some optimistic Shinners fancy Gerry Kelly to pull off a surprise. This is unlikely. In the 2007 Assembly election, it’s true that the SF vote was up at 30.6% – not a million miles off the DUP’s 37.6% – while the SDLP were squeezed down to 13.7%, but it’s hard to see what – except for the long slow effects of demography – can push the Kelly vote up much further. There’s a solid SDLP vote in the middle-class areas around the Antrim Road, as evidenced by the SDLP’s continuing local government strength in the area, and the new voters in Glengormley are somewhat more likely to be SDLP than SF. This should at least slow down the drift from SDLP to SF, though not arrest it, and Kelly – a notorious IRA hard man rather than a Sinn Féin Nua smoothie – is not the most obvious candidate to apply a tactical squeeze. It’s also undoubtedly the case that Allbran is one of the SDLP’s strongest candidates in personal terms.

The perfect storm would also require a dramatic surge in the UCUNF vote, which I just can’t see. Deputy Dodds is a solid character, rather than a loose cannon in the Sammy Wilson mode, and is unlikely to implode; while Fred Cobain is not exactly likely to set the world alight. In the last Stormont election, Fred had less than 60% of a quota and only held his Assembly seat thanks to some spectacular quota-squatting on the part of Nigel Dodds, whose transfers leaked all over the place and only delivered two DUP seats when they could have been in with a shout for three. There has even been speculation that UCUNF is deliberately running a weak campaign in North Belfast so as not to help Kelly over the finishing line, but I think that misoverestimates Reggie and the boys. What is remarkable is that Fred Cobain, a trade union man, a self-described socialist, a Labour Unionist of the old John Carson school, would be running on the Tory platform, especially given Sylvia Hermon’s treatment. One can only explain this by reference to the likelihood that Sylvia will win, while Fred won’t.

As for the former centre ground, Alliance’s recent form in North Belfast is around the 1% mark, although the boundary revision boosts that to a notional 3% or so. At least there won’t be a tactical squeeze on Alliance, whose voters don’t have anywhere else to go in a race between Nigel Dodds and Gerry Kelly. Meanwhile, joke candidate (though he swears blind he’s serious), 19-year-old Martin McAuley will get a few votes from his mates, but they probably wouldn’t have voted otherwise. If McAuley manages to beat Cllr Billy Webb, there will be more than a few red faces at Alliance HQ.

2005 result:
Robinson (DUP) 15,152 (49.1%)
Empey (UUP) 9,275 (30.1%)
Long (Alliance) 3,746 (12.2%)
Devenny (SF) 1,029 (3.3%)
Muldoon (SDLP) 844 (2.7%)
Greer (Cons) 434 (1.4%)
Bell (WP) 179 (0.6%)
Gilby (Dream Ticket) 172 (0.6%)

2010 candidates: Naomi Long (Alliance), Mary Muldoon (SDLP), Niall Ó Donnghaile (SF), Trevor Ringland (UCUNF), Peter Robinson (DUP), David Vance (TUV)

Heard the one about the First Minister, the Lord Mayor, the rugby player, the two bloggers and the headmistress? If you’re a voter in East Belfast, that’s your choice.

The East Belfast constituency consists of the eastern quarter of the Belfast City Council area, plus about half the area of Castlereagh council, stretching out into the suburbs. Economically it tends to be quite prosperous, including such areas as the proverbially wealthy Cherryvalley; there are more run-down areas such as the huge radial estates of Tullycarnet and Ballybeen, as well as (very noticeably) the Newtownards Road below the Holywood Arches, and especially the tiny nationalist enclave of Short Strand; there are large areas like Gilnahirk that have more of a suburban feel; and there’s the traditional core of the respectable working-class areas, though said respectable working class are more likely to be in the public sector now than the traditional (and long limping towards extinction) shipbuilding and engineering industries.

The other thing you need to know about East Belfast is that’s it’s by far the most Protestant constituency in the north, more so even than North Down. At the 2001 census, even taking the “community background” question, East Belfast on its current boundaries (believe it or not, the latest revision has made it even more Protestant) gave a Catholic population of 7.6%. It’s even starker if you break it down to the micro level. There are 23 local government wards in East Belfast. Of these, Ballymacarrett (the ward including Short Strand) is 50.8% Catholic; the next highest percentage is Ballyhackamore with 11.7%; none of the other 21 wards has a Catholic percentage in double figures, and two-thirds of them have less than 5%. To wax MasterChef for a moment, Belfast doesn’t get more Protestant than this.

This, moreover, is the constituency that’s been represented by Peter Robinson for the last 31 years. So, given that he’s the party leader, the First Minister, and has so many years of incumbency behind him, how come he only has a majority of 6000? And why have the DUP in East Belfast been jittery?

Let me take you all the way back to 1979, when Peter won the seat in the first place. The result then was virtually a three-way tie:

Robinson (DUP) 15,994 (31.4%)
Craig (UUP) 15,930 (31.2%)
Napier (Alliance) 15,066 (29.5%)
Agnew (UPNI) 2,017 (4.0%)
Chambers (NILP) 1,982 (3.9%)

It’s worth recalling that Bill Craig was one of the biggest names in unionism at the time, the incumbent East Belfast MP, former Vanguard leader, occupant of numerous ministries in the old Stormont. That he would be pipped by the 31-year-old whippersnapper Peter Robinson would have seemed outlandish before the votes were counted; doubly so that Oliver Napier would have been breathing so closely down Craig’s neck, the closest Alliance has ever come to winning a Westminster seat. When you get into a three-horse (or indeed four-horse) race, very strange things can happen. North Belfast, believe it or not, has an even more extensive record of bizarre results.

Longtime East Belfast residents will tell you that, when Peter first got elected and only had a tiny majority, he was a most assiduous constituency MP. Then, however, came the unionist pact, and in more recent years the DUP tide, and he had got a bit lazy. He and Iris had also become notorious, despite their huge personal votes, of costing the DUP seats at council and Assembly level through some of the most egregious quota-hogging ever seen in the north. He’s never really been happy at Westminster either, with his heart really having been in Castlereagh council – until, that is, he got to be the Stormont big shot.

Don’t get me wrong, Peter is clearly starting from a very strong position. In fact, the recent boundary change, bringing Dundonald and Ballybeen in from Strangford, should strengthen it even further, boosting his notional majority from 6000 to around 8000. Dundonald votes DUP overwhelmingly, as does Ballybeen to the extent that Ballybeen votes at all. And yet…

There has clearly always been an anti-Robinson vote in East Belfast, it’s just a case that nobody has ever managed to come through as the clear anti-Robinson candidate. Think of East Derry, where Gregory Campbell is facing a pincer movement – Lesley Macaulay could have an obvious appeal to the nice unionists in Coleraine, and Willie Ross to the dour Prods of Limavady – but the odds are that his opponents will cancel themselves out. In East Belfast, with Robbo facing challenges from three sides, the odds increase that the pincer movement will become what Mick refers to as a circular firing squad, and that the incumbent will do a Houdini.

If you go around East Belfast and look at whose posters are most in evidence, you would conclude that this is going to be a two-horse race between Naomi Long and David Vance. This clearly isn’t the case – although it does show you which parties have their tails in the air – but it is clear that the DUP leader has been running a curiously low-profile campaign. One would almost think that neutralising the anti-Robinson vote was the DUP’s top priority. And it’s true that the knock-on effects of the Robinson Affair will be most keenly felt next door in Strangford. We don’t as yet know, in terms of Peter, whether his strategy of exonerating himself and pinning the blame on his mentally ill, hospitalised wife will do the job. What we do know is that lots of Peter’s neighbours in Dundonald are still scundered at the way he sold his back garden, and they will not have been mollified by recent headlines about Fred Fraser letting Peter have that strategic bit of access land for the small consideration of just five of your Ulster pounds. All legal and above board, of course, but it made Fred look dodgy (not that Fred will care, where he is now) and it made Peter look dodgy. This was not helped by Peter giving tetchy interviews accusing Reg Empey, Trevor Ringland and Jim Allister of being liars. (Reg and Trevor made noises about consulting their legal teams; Jim of course is his own legal team.)

So, with Robbo looking tired and irritable in his media appearances, the question arises of whether anyone can beat him – and that 8000 majority isn’t an impregnable cushion. Let’s say for talk’s sake that a couple of thousand DUP voters defect to the TUV, and let’s further suppose that another couple of thousand are lost to abstention. Then things become interesting, and we start to wonder who has the momentum.

Alliance people are talking up Naomi Long’s chances, and indeed are taking a leaf out of the books of their Lib Dem colleagues by presenting the voters with some tendentious stats meant to prove that only Naomi can beat Robinson. Actually, Naomi is the strongest prospect Alliance have had since the heyday of John Alderdice – she’s East Belfast born and bred with the accent to prove it, much less posh than Alderdice (which broadens her appeal considerably), and has the characteristic ability of the East Belfast woman to speak for forty-five minutes before drawing breath. She’s also enjoyed a high profile in the last couple of years, did extremely well in the last Assembly election, and being the incumbent Lord Mayor surely doesn’t hurt. But it’s still difficult to see her picking up enough momentum to dislodge Robbo.

Over in the UCUNF corner, meanwhile, we have former Ireland rugby international Trevor Ringland, a relative political newcomer. Trevor’s task will be to hold and improve upon Reg Empey’s 30% score from 2005, hoping that if he gets above say 35% he could be within striking distance of a weakened Robbo. This will be tricky, for political and psephological reasons. First, the psephological reason. If we look at the 2005 result and we see 30% for the UUP and 12% for Alliance, it would seem obvious for the UUP to put a tactical squeeze on Alliance. But first look at the context, where in the 2003 Assembly election Alliance had a horrible time everywhere, with their vote in East Belfast halving to 9%. That 9% probably represents the solid phalanx of militant Alliance voters in places like Ballyhackamore and Cherryvalley, the irreducible hard core who will never vote any other way. So it’s hard to see how the Alliance vote could be squeezed much more.

Then we look to 2005. The Westminster election showed a result of
DUP 49.1%, UUP 30.1%, Alliance 12.2%
but the local government election the same day gave a return of
DUP 43.0%, UUP 25.2%, Alliance 17.5%, PUP 4.9%
which would suggest there was already a considerable tactical vote for Empey from natural Alliance supporters, on the basis that he was best placed to beat Robinson. If we then zip forward to the 2007 Assembly election, we have a return of
DUP 37.6%, UUP 22.0%, Alliance 18.8%, PUP 10.3%
and on that basis it isn’t terribly clear who the obvious challenger is, especially when you consider that Dawn Purvis’ 10.3% would scatter to the four winds. With both Long and Ringland claiming to be the only candidate who could beat Robinson, the likelihood increases that they’ll cancel each other out.

The political problem is that Trevor Ringland, like Paula Bradshaw in South Belfast, is on the liberal wing of the UUP, and it’s not that difficult to imagine him as an Alliance candidate. Paradoxically, an old-school unionist like Reg might have been better placed to take votes directly off the DUP and to tactically squeeze Alliance; a liberal unionist might be less able to appeal to wavering DUP voters or wavering Alliance voters. Nor, incidentally, is the Tory link necessarily a vote-winner in East Belfast, which contains lots of public sector workers who will have noted David Cameron’s remarks about slashing the public sector here. We’ll just have to see how Trevor does.

The joker in the pack, in more ways than one, is ace blogger and virtual one-man army David Vance. Guilty pleasure alert: I like David Vance, in the same way that I like Jim Allister – I rarely agree with anything he says, but he livens things up considerably. While there is little in the way of reliable polling here, and you have to take reports from the parties with a pinch of salt – TUV canvassers report a warm reception on the Lower Newtownards Road and Ballybeen, with the Swish Family Robinson message going down well – there is simply no way of knowing how well David will do. The last time a dissident unionist stood in East Belfast was Denny Vitty for the UKUP in the 1998 Assembly election, and he only got 3.4%. My instinct – and it’s only an instinct – is for a higher TUV vote, but it’s impossible to predict.

As for the nationalist parties, who are on a hiding to nothing in this constituency, it’s all about bragging rights and gearing up for the next local government election. One presumes Niall Ó Donnghaile will pull in SF’s usual thousand-odd votes from Short Strand and virtually nothing from anywhere else, while Mary Muldoon, having once again drawn the SDLP’s short straw, will get some votes from the Strand but not many, and will mostly be hoping for votes from scattered middle-class Catholics in Ballyhackamore and Cherryvalley, most of whom will probably be voting for Naomi Long anyway.

And if you’re into that sort of thing, the Belfast Telegraph has a poll out with constituency breakdowns. Given the historically shocking unreliability of polls here, not least due to punters giving pollsters what they think the pollster might consider to be the politically correct answer, take with a heaped teaspoon of salt – some of the figures look credible, but there’s more than a few that are literally incredible. Mark adds the necessary caveats, and Turgon is as sceptical as I am.

2005 result:
Simpson (DUP) 16,679 (37.6%)
Trimble (UUP) 11,281 (25.5%)
O’Dowd (SF) 9.305 (21.0%)
Kelly (SDLP) 5,747 (13.0%)
Castle (Alliance) 955 (2.2%)
French (WP) 355 (0.8%)

2010 candidates: “Flash” Harry Hamilton (UCUNF), Brendan Heading (Alliance), Dolores Kelly (SDLP), John O’Dowd (SF), David Simpson (DUP)

The Upper Bann constituency was created back in 1983, substantially hived off from the old Armagh constituency, and indeed it was represented from the outset by the UUP’s Harold McCusker, who had held the Armagh seat since 1974. Harold was an odd, prickly character, seen as something of a hawk but not entirely averse to new thinking (as in the “Task Force” episode, where his criticism’s of the UUP’s lackadaisical leadership were quickly sat on), and also an old-style Labour Unionist, of a sort that’s almost disappeared now, with a substantial working-class base. He did a lot of the heavy lifting in the UUP’s negotiations with the Callaghan government, and was known to have an uneasy relationship with his colleague in the next-door constituency, Enoch Powell, whose High Toryism could not have been more alien to Harold. Such was the UUP in the days when it was a broad umbrella.

The constituency comprises north Armagh and a bit of west Down, namely the Craigavon local government district and half of the Banbridge district, including Banbridge town. The core of it, population-wise, is the Craigavon conurbation, comprising the towns of Lurgan and Portadown, and in between the lost city of Craigavon, a complex of estates and roundabouts – a bit like Milton Keynes – inhabited by people largely decanted from Belfast in the 1960s, the aim having been to create a mixed working-class city. This never really materialised. Both Lurgan and Portadown are very sharply divided into orange and green ends, and the Craigavon estates have become very much one thing or the other. The rural area northwest of the conurbation around the Lough Neagh shore is almost entirely Catholic; the villages to the immediate south and east almost entirely Protestant. On the other hand, the Banbridge area is much more mixed and generally a bit calmer.

As well as being strongly segregated, there’s also quite a bit of deprivation in the estates of the Craigavon conurbation. Not surprisingly, it’s also a hotbed of violent sectarianism. It was in fact in Loughgall, a few miles away in the Newry and Armagh constituency, that the Battle of the Diamond took place in 1795; but it was in this area, in the years immediately following, that the Orange Order grew up. In Lurgan and Portadown, some things have not changed a fierce amount in the interim. During the 1970s and 1980s this was the hub of the “Murder Triangle”, where the Mid-Ulster UVF of Robin Jackson and Billy Wright did their work; this was the site of the annual Drumcree protest in the 1990s; and there has been a lot more low-key stuff, like that unfortunate incident in 1988 where no fewer than seventeen past and serving unionist councillors were surcharged and disqualified for discrimination. On top of that you have insularity: it’s not just that Protestants and Catholics in Lurgan hate each other, they hate everybody outside Lurgan as well. As I say, the less populous Banbridge end of the constituency is a lot less mad – I like Banbridge, which is a nice mixed provincial town, although there’s been some unrest there more recently.

Now then, the polls. The 2001 census clocks in Upper Bann as about 55% Protestant and 43% Catholic, although the nationalist share has underperformed that, partly due to the sectarian age pyramid and partly due to tactical voting. You see, when Harold McCusker died in 1990 the by-election to replace him was won by David Trimble, who was then – and for quite a while afterwards – regarded as an Orange hardliner. Certainly, Trimble’s performance over Drumcree in the mid-90s could scarcely have been better calculated to alienate his Catholic constituents. However, there is some evidence that in the post-ceasefire period Trimble was actually the beneficiary of nationalist tactical voting to keep the DUP out.

This was probably decisive in 2001, when Trimble had a majority of barely 2000 over the DUP’s David Simpson. But it didn’t do him much good in the 2005 landslide, when Simpson overturned that majority and better, to cruise home with a majority of over 5000. Nonetheless, this is still the DUP’s second most vulnerable seat after South Antrim, and if the UCUNF project is to show any signs of life you’d expect it to be giving Simpson a run for his money. Note also the lack of a TUV candidate in an area where the TUV might be expected to have a base; there has been trouble in the Upper Bann TUV, and the party did poorly in the Lurgan council by-election, due not least to candidate David Calvert not being hugely popular even amongst TUV supporters. The TUV is calling for a vote for UCUNF in Upper Bann, so that makes things interesting.

In a way, Upper Bann is our own political equivalent of The X Factor. The incumbent Simpson is a well-known gospel singer, although I must stress that when I say gospel I mean he sings in the style of Willie McCrea rather than Aretha Franklin. On the other hand, UCUNF candidate Flash Harry is famed around the north and even beyond as a highly successful Freddie Mercury impersonator. Flash Harry may be an electoral novice, but after years of packing in the crowds for his renditions of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”, he’s a natural performer with the kind of name recognition that money can’t buy. Actually, both Simpson and Flash Harry have business experience in their day jobs, but it’s the singing that catches the imagination.

The other thing to bear in mind is the increasing nationalist vote in the constituency, and in particular the Sinn Féin vote, which has gone from around 10% pre-ceasefire to over 25% at the 2007 Assembly election, and given John O’Dowd’s increased media profile, some of the more excitable Shinners have been talking up his chances. But for this to happen you’d need a perfect storm – an almost even split in the unionist vote, plus O’Dowd taking a large tactical vote from the SDLP. This is rather unlikely, especially since the SDLP vote is now at a level where it’s hard to see it being squeezed further, and sitting MLA Dolores Kelly, who was the first ever nationalist mayor of Craigavon, is a seasoned campaigner in the area. No, Upper Bann is one of those seats, like North Belfast or East Derry, that could conceivably become marginal in coming years, but not just yet. A shorter-term aim would be to push up the SF vote a few points – the party had nearly two quotas at the Stormont election, but only pulled in one seat (while the UUP, with fewer votes, scored two) thanks to a lack of transfers and poor balancing.

There’s little to be said about candidates outside the two blocs. Alliance used to have a small but significant vote in this area pre-ceasefire, as did The Workers Party via former Craigavon councillor and party president Tommy French, and the late Malachy McGurran before him in the old Republican Clubs days. However, there is no WP candidate this time, and in recent years Alliance in Upper Bann has been bumping along around the 2% mark.

It’s difficult, in short, to see Simpson actually losing in Upper Bann, and it would be a major upset if he did. But if Flash Harry can run him close, not least thanks to TUV tactical voting, it could give the DUP the kind of scare they gave Trimble in 2001.

Right, we’ve already run the DUP and TUV election broadcasts. But we’re being equal opportunity here, so for the viewing pleasure of those of you outside Norn Iron here are broadcasts from the other parties. First, the Shinners:

Now, Reggie’s CUNFs:

And now the SDLP:

And also Alliance:

Now, the Greens. I quite like the Green one:

Because we’re not afraid to go outside the mainstream, here’s Eamonn McCann:

There’s no election broadcast for Sylvia Hermon, but here’s the Grauniad‘s John Harris on the battle for North Down:

Finally, as an extra special bonus, let’s go across the water for the Mebyon Kernow broadcast. Love that Cornish countryside:

2005 result:
Murphy (SF) 20,965 (41.4%)
Bradley (SDLP) 12,770 (25.2%)
Berry (DUP) 9,311 (18.4%)
Kennedy (UUP) 7,025 (13.9%)
Markey (Ind) 625 (1.2%)

2010 candidates: Dominic Bradley (SDLP), William Frazer (Ind), William Irwin (DUP), Danny Kennedy (UCUNF), Andrew Muir (Alliance), Conor Murphy (SF)

Here’s another constituency that’s dead easy to call. The main interest here will be how much Conor Murphy can stroll back in by, and who wins the rather even tussle between the two unionist parties.

Stereotypically, outsiders tend to identify the Newry and Armagh constituency with Newry town and the semi-independent Republic of South Armagh, what the Brits used to call “bandit country”. Although these are part of the constituency, and the core of Conor Murphy’s vote (in the 2005 local government elections SF pulled in a 76% vote share in the Slieve Gullion electoral area centred around Crossmaglen and Forkhill), the constituency is a lot bigger than that would imply, including the whole of Armagh district and the western half of Newry and Mourne district. Or, to put it another way, the whole of County Armagh except for the Craigavon conurbation, plus Newry.

Newry is freshly minted (since 2002) as a city rather than a town, but it’s a small city with only around 30,000 inhabitants. In some ways, Newry is a bit of a success story of the peace process years – it used to be a bit of a dump, and it’s still a basically working-class town with a fair amount of deprivation, but today it fairly bustles with cross-border trade. Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, has had city status much longer, but is even smaller with a population of just 15,000. Below that you’re into the villages. And not just republican villages, either – on the north-eastern side of the constituency you’ve got very very Prod villages like Richhill, Hamiltonsbawn, Markethill and of course Tandragee, home of Tayto crisps. According to the 2001 census just over two-thirds of the population was Catholic, just under one-third Protestant, and as is usually the case outside greater Belfast, these figures are mirrored almost exactly in the voting figures. These proportions are mirrored in Armagh city; Newry is over 90% Catholic, with Protestants a distinct minority even in Windsor Hill; generally, the rural sectarian divide is on a northeast versus southwest axis.

It’s strange to recall, and it seems an age ago now, that Newry and Armagh was once a unionist seat. That was between its creation in 1983, when Jim Nicholson won it for the UUP, and the 1986 by-election when Séamus Mallon took a seat he would go on to hold for the next nineteen years. For most of that time Mallon was invulnerable, though Conor Murphy gave him a scare in 2001 and then, to nobody’s surprise, took the seat on Mallon’s retirement in 2005. This was as clear an illustration as any of the problems that the SDLP’s retiring of most of their popular people – Hume, Mallon, Hendron, Rodgers – at the same time would lead to. They were all pretty much of retirement age of course, but not much thought had apparently been given to bringing up a new generation. I have a lot of time for Dominic Bradley – he’s a hardworking public representative, very much on the nationalist wing of the SDLP, one of the Assembly’s handful of fluent Gaeilgeoirí and in many ways a great candidate for this area – but, with no disrespect to Dominic, he’s not Séamus Mallon, and he’s faced the same problems as anyone trying to take over from one of the SDLP’s venerable fiefs.

The story of Newry and Armagh in the past decade or so has been one of the inexorable rise of the Sinn Féin vote, which in the past three Westminster elections has gone from 21% to 31% to 41%. In the 2007 Assembly election the breakdown was 42.1% to SF and a mere 19.8% to the SDLP (three seats to one), with a further 4.4% to independent republican Davy Hyland that would probably stretch the lead even further. Given that Murphy now has the advantage of incumbency, and a high profile as regional development minister, a further strengthening of his position would seem likely.

What will also be interesting is what we hear informally from the tallies, because the nationalist vote has a distinct geographical aspect to its breakdown. Going by the 2005 local elections, SF is totally dominant in Slieve Gullion, has a solid lead over the SDLP in Newry city and the villages immediately to the west of it such as Camlough, and a smaller but still handy lead in Armagh city, while the two parties are more or less level pegging elsewhere. Shifts there could give us a sense of what might happen in next year’s local elections.

On the unionist side, this is one place where I’d expect to see UCUNF open up a clear lead over the DUP. Their candidate, UUP deputy leader and longstanding Bessbrook representative Danny Kennedy, is very well liked locally and a strong campaigner. The DUP had a bit of a problem at the last Assembly election due to the implosion of their local wunderkind and ace vote-getter, Paul Berry, after that unfortunate sports massage incident. Berry’s replacement as MLA and Westminster candidate, Richhill councillor William Irwin, is a solid rather than exciting candidate, but then young Mr Berry proved just a bit too exciting for the DUP in Armagh.

Rounding out the candidates’ list we have Andrew Muir of Alliance (a party that rarely stands here and usually gets about 1% when it does) and mad loyalist and serial protester Willie Frazer. Willie’s previous candidacies in the area tend to net him in the region of 600 votes, so we’ve got a benchmark for him. One may also see him as a sort of ersatz TUV candidate, though he’s probably too mad for the TUV, so if he manages to significantly improve on his benchmark it might tell us something about how hardline the mood is amongst border Prods.