Some graffiti in Carrickfergus yesterday afternoon. It is just outside the railway station, There is similar graffiti in other parts of the town.

There is much speculation how the DUP will fare in next week’s election.

In loyalist, Carrickfergus, ths graffiti is obviously the work of loyalists.

Where exactly is Unionism?

Certainly (I hold) there is the Alliance Party and whether or not they claim to be neutral, the obvious best hope for unionism is a stable society where people just get along and accept a status quo. That is the only thing that can defeat the Demographics. Even if most unionists cannot see this, you can bet that round the Alliance Party know it.

And the Ulster Unionist Party. Rather like St Augustine who said “Please GOD, make me good …but not yet”….the UUP (as under Doug Beattie now) go thru periods of reaching out to Catholics/nationalists and telling us they have changed. They too know that they cannot do much about the Demographics but not really changing enough to be convincing advocates for “a union of people”.

And the Democratic Unionist Party. The party of unionist protest for five decades…well they cannot change. Time has finally caught up with the dinosaurs. They were riding high when Theresa May’s government needed them as voting fodder. Arlene, Nigel and Jeffrey strutted up Downing Street for the TV cameras like they owned the place…and so briefly they did. Now Arlene is a commentator on GB News (the English equivelant of Fox News), Nigel is Baron Dodds of Duncairn in the House of Lords.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh your leg off at the incompetence.

DUP wanted the hard Border that would actually undermine the relaxed, invisible Border that the Good Friday Agreement produced.

Of course DUP was opposed to the Good Friday Agreement, undermined the UUP and then operated the Agreement (or the bits they liked) when in office as “First Minister”.

I am now laughing my other leg off.

So the Tories have abandoned DUP and introduced a border …in the Irish Sea.

The stupidity of DUP is stunning. The dreaded Protocol…an issue that only resonates with DUP themselves and the protestors that they used to lead.

Do Nationalists really want to bail the DUP out of the crisis they created? Our Agreement and living together only works because no side could win…except if the other side made a mistake, a fatal error…the error that DUP made.

A hard Border was a calculated insult to nationalists. Triumphalism of the worst kind.

I feel like I am a passenger on the Belfast to Cairnryan ferry and as I watched from the viewing deck, someone crept up behind me and tried to throw me overboard. The person who intended to do me harm, slipped and fell over the guard rail and is down in the icy water appealing for me to throw him a lifebelt.

How to respond? Well let me see….if I had a third leg, I would laugh it off.

It really is that simple.

DUP are of course the party founded by Rev Ian Paisley. But his real successors in the “Never! Never! Never!” rhetoric is Jim Allister and the TUV. Traditional Ulster Voice are the true Paisleyites, mostly like Paisley first got to a Stormont and Westminster MP in the towns and villages of County Antrim. Jim Allister and Kate Hoey.

If the TUV…currently Allister is the only MLA make any gains next week, it is likely to be in County Antrim…Paisley Country.

Now TUV are men (mostly) in suits and they don’t do graffiti outside Carrickfergus Railway Station.

“DUP Out” is not exactly what I would expect in Carrickfergus. It is a bit like the Romanians turning against Caesescu (sp) in 1988. What does it say about DUP’s electoral prospects next week.

Well this is the reason I have visited twelve constituencies in the last three weeks. Another six to visit plus some follow ups early next week.

Looking at this election is NOT just about useless opinion polls and useful data…it is about gut feeling and being around to see the graffiti.

Anyway, I will be writing up three constituencies over the weekend.