I am often asked if I can list reasons why the SDLP is so (apparently) cheerful at the moment. Well of course it helps that Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party are making a few mistakes.

Recruitment is up. New people have joined the Party and old people like myself have re-joined. That much is public knowledge. It is also public knowledge that the SDLP Youth Group is rather talented and energetic. And public knowledge that SDLP has organised successful seminars on  Welfare Cuts, Economy, Agrifood Economy and others.

The placement of mostly youngish SDLP people as “shadow councillors” is public knowledge but the extent of re-organisation and debate within the Party is rightly behind closed doors.

Finance is of course an issue that I dont want any information about. Suffice to say that it is public knowledge that SDLP has not been doing well financially for a number of years. To be frank, the SDLPs donors dont want to be associated with Failure and SDLP has been seen to be failing for several years.

In retrospect the 2011 Assembly Election was “a line in the sand”…or if you prefer “wake up call”. Losing a net two seats….albeit unluckily and seventh place in too many constituencies was a severe blow. Nobody really expected seats to be lost, even narrowly.

Last years leadership contest went surprisingly well. The night of the final hustings at the SDLP Conference ….I felt a universal sigh of relief that it had all been so positive. It could easily have descended into nastiness but all four candidates (Alasdair McDonnell, Patsy McGlone, Alex Attwood and Conall McDevitt) brought something to the contest.

It has been known for a while that SDLP has been getting some very welcome donations. Of course a lot of this comes from within SDLP…table quizzes, golf events, ballots but clearly a lot is coming from people who are prepared to write cheques that they were not prepared to write previously.

I suggest there are two reasons…….Pessimism and Optimism.

Certainly in late August 2011, I joined SDLP because I was pessimistic…..or at least realistic that something had to be done …or as the old Typing Manuals say “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Party”. I suspect other people (including donors) felt the same way. A year later, I stay in SDLP because I am optimistic. I have seen things get better.

I wont have time over the next few days to dwell on this subject. So I take these figures from the BBC website. SDLP has doubled the amount of money it has received in donations over the last year. That has to be a good thing.

The UUP has lost £100,000 in donations which must be a concern. A well-known “lets get alongerist” website likes to label SDLP and UUP as spirally downward with equal momentum. Yet these figures suggest the opposite…….not that the “lets get alongerist” website will dwell on that when it publishes a thread on Party Funding.

A word about the Alliance Party. They received £200,000 in income and spent £250,000. What can we learn from this except not to let the Alliance Party handle a budget?

Well they are operating at a loss. They need more cash. Perhaps Fairy Godfather Quintin at Stratagem will send an email to the nice folks at Rowntree who have contributed £97,000 to the Alliance Party since 2007. I am sure we will read all about it on Slugger O’Toole partner of Stratagem. Or more likely…..we wont read about it.