Lest we forget…we all go back to the polling stations in just six weeks to vote on whether the “United Kingdom” should leave the “European Union”.
At this point in time, I am undecided but the other five adult members of my family are…surprisingly in my view….voting to Leave.
Almost 9pm.
All day, the Beatles song “When I’m 64” is in my head.
For good reason…in a little over three hours, I will be 64.
Funny how things turn out. The album…or “LP” as we called it before Pop became Rock…and an actual art form….was released in the summer of 1967. It sorta draws a line between old Beatles and new Beatles.
My best friend H bought the LP and we listened to it, that Saturday night in his sister’s house in Raglan Street. And we proclaimed it brilliant. Being 64 seemed old. And it is.
For the record …in the early 1970s, H joined the Alliance Party and later moved to Belgium. The life in cosmopolitan Europe seemed very different. At Christmas and during the summer, he would come home and tell me all about it, ridiculing our narrow provincialism.
In February 1979, he phoned me from Belgium to invite me to his wedding. It was bad timing. Our family was just about to move to Dungannon. And when we did move…I never sent him my address. I never saw or heard from him again. Until by chance, I bought the Irish News one morning and his death notice was there….early 40s, cancer. He died in Europe.
It is a strange thing. Thats how it was in the 1970s. If you moved to another house in Belfast, changed jobs….as people migrated to Belgium, Birmingham or New Jersey, friendships broke up. For those of us who lived in Belfast, the biggest memory is the Dark Winter Nights….street lights broken….warm fires and television.
The Troubles happened outside. Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, playing tennis in St Dominics School and playing football in Falls Park, Botanic Gardens, Woodvale Park and junior Legion of Mary dances in Derryvolgie Avenue are actually more vivid memories than anything in the 1970s.
It was just bad timing. A 17 year old in 1969 was just unlucky. A 17 year old in 1964 was lucky…and a 17 year old in 1978 was just born into it all. For the unluckiest generation it was Life Interrupted. Thats the bit that I cant really forgive…..that in Raglan Street listening to Sgt Pepper or summer nights at Barrys Amusements at Bellevue or doing O levels in 1968 and the Christian Brothers school re-locating from the Lower Falls to Glen Road…all the optimism was ripped from us in August 1969….on the very same weekend that American teenagers were in Woodstock.
Inevitably birthdays become more nostalgic. Oddly I can remember a blue-iced bithday cake with #4. And my mother was there …and I guess my father was at work and I suppose my paternal grandparents were there and uncles and aunts (childless then and when they died in the 1980s and 1990s.
That is realy my only regret. That as a childless uncle and aunt breathed their last, I wasnt there. And really raising my own children is no real excuse.
The older I get, Life is more about Nostalgia. Ask me the names of the Manchester United team that won the FA Cup in 1963 or the European Cup in 1968….I have no problem. I have little or no interest in Football now.
Last week I passed two memorials …Republican memorials near Holy Child School in Andytown and at Beechmount Avenue…and of course some names killed in the 1970s were boys I knew from the 1960s.
My Life was Interupted…only. I am luckier than they were. At what point does “remembering” stop? The parents of those young people are probably dead …memories only retained by siblings, themselves now slightly older or younger than me….and stories told to nephews, nieces, grandchildren. What really can it mean to children of the 21st century?
But even if the 1970s seem like a TV show where someone pressed the “Pause” button for an entire decade…Life did actually start again.
Rather like sixty years ago parents, grandparents and childless uncles and aunts came to see me on my fourth birthday….then people all unborn sixty years ago will visit me tomorrow…a wife, two sons, two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren.
Compared to those who migrated to Belgium, Birmingham and New Jersey…or the many young men of twenty with names engraved in marble stones at points along the Falls Road…this is a pretty sweet life.
So soon after the election and it seems inappropriate to be discussing the next Deputy Leader of SDLP. Fearghal McKinney has just lost his seat. He was an excellent Deputy Leader.
The Deputy Leader should come from within the Assembly Party, now reduced to just twelve people, six of them going into the Assembly for the first time but I think it is fair to say that one of the newcomers Nichola Mallon,,has experience of Stormont as a Special Advisor and I count her as a potential Deputy.
There are two ways of looking at the role of a Deputy Leader. It might be a person most likely to succeed the Leader…or it might be the traditional pair of safe hands, a conduit between Leader and Party. It is not perhaps a good idea to be overtly ambitious or even to be seen as ambitious.
This is particuarly the case with SDLP, who have a young Leader (about 34). If Colum Eastwood is a successful Leader, he might be leading SDLP in twenty years. Alternatively SDLP might be locked into a rather unfortunate system where lack of success, general discontent and ambition (a constant jockeying for position) means that we have Leadership elections every five years.
Indeed a successful Colum Eastwood might be the candidate for SDLP for Foyle at Westminster if Mark Durkan gives up that role. But that is at least four years away and an ambitious Deputy Leader, elected this year will have to wait four years, possibly ten for a chance to be Leader.
I do think SDLP should be electing a Deputy Leader. I do not think SDLP should be electing the “Leader We Want After Colum”. The Party needs a few years to think about that and should not be handing the advantage to someone unproven at Stormont.
Apart from Colum, there are eleven MLAs….McGlone and Attwood are veterans from 1998. Durkan (a fellow Derry man and therefore unlikely) is from 2011. McCrossan and Hanna are from late 2015. The other six (Mallon, Mullan, McPhillips, McGrath, McNulty and Bradley) were elected last week.
The word on the street…the metrotextual street suggests it could be Nichola Mallon or Claire Hanna. Excellent people.
But part of the movement behind them is on the basis of GENDER BALANCE. The logic suggests if the Leader is a man, the Deputy must be a woman. So with just three women (Nichola, Claire and Sinead Bradley) in the Assembly Party, that is very limiting.
If there had been just one woman in the successful twelve…should she be returned uncontested for Deputy Leader? I dont think so…after all we supported Dan McCrossan in West Tyrone on the (correct) basis that the he was the right person (male or female). we are a Party based on FAIRNESS….the right person for the right job.
A straight contest between Nichola and Claire does not do either justice. It trivialises the Deputy Leadership contest as a choice between “Baby SDLP” and “Scary SDLP”. Yet the election of either would install them as favourite as “Leader After Colum”. We are not ready for that.
The best way to advance the ambitions of Nichola and Claire is to limit them…for a few years.
Arguably there is no reason why Fearghal McKinney should not continue as Deputy. After all it is primarily a Deputy Leader is a conduit between the Leader and the SDLP membership. If it has to be a MLA….then Patsy McGlone is the man for the job. Staying in office for (say) three years would give the Nichola, Claire and maybe Daniel a chance to make their case.
Claire is quite properly a favourite with the Bloggerati but that does not necessarily mean she is well known in SDLP branches way out west. She does have a perceived weakness. Her statement that no Party is a perfect fit, you join the one that fits best ….that might be a good one liner but may not play too well with men and women who find the Party ok …and are suspicious of Claire for customising the Party to appease her “progressive” friends outside the Party.
No…Claire might be the leading contender…but at this stage …gaffe-prone. She still has a bit to learn. Deputy Leader is not the place for on-job training.
As the dust settles on Assembly Election 2016, possibly a good time to look at the Parties.
DUP
will be happy with going out of the old Assembly with 38 seats and coming back with exactly the same number is a good performance. It means that the transition from Peter Robinson to Arlene Foster went smoothly and the big hitters such as Sammy Wilson and Gregory Campbell confined to Westminster did not adversely affect results.
Few people with any taste for decorum will miss Campbell and Wilson from the Assembly.
More women on the benches.
Minimal vote percentage drop.
Seats: 38 (no change).
Sinn Féin
Will also be happy. The loss of just one seat to People Before Profit is an irritation. But they can still supply an army (sic) of election volunteers sheltered under gazebos outside West Belfast polling stations. Gerry Adams is gaffe-prone and increasingly a liability but they were not affected. They traded seats with SDLP (lost Fermanagh-South Tyrone and gained Upper Bann) and they will be happy with that. Elsewhere showed no real progress.
They NEED to be in Government and whether Sinn Féin or just a rank and file member of the Felons Club need to tell each other and the electorate that merely being in Stormont is enough. To admit that it is a long way short of what nationalists had expected in 1998 and that the “Conflict” was in some way a success.
But the vote share is down 2.9% and thats a worry.
Seats: 28 (minus 1).
UUP
For all of “TV Mike’s” bluster, the UUP made no progress. A marginal loss of vote-share and just one MLA in the entire City of Belfast. Very much second-fiddle to DUP in the rest of Norn Iron. No change in the number of seats. But the Party has the look of one created by Nesbitt rather than the one left to him by people like Reg Empey and Tom Elliott.
Now that there are fewer government departments, UUP might choose to take the one due to them because of the number of seats won on Thursday. With fewer members of the Executive, the UUP influence would be proportionately stronger.
SDLP
SDLP will look on this election with a mixture of emotions. It was the best campaign but this did not translate into votes. It should have been better but as the results came thru on Friday, they will think it could have been worse.
They did lose three MLAs …Fearghal McKinney to the Greens, Gerard Diver to the People Before Profit and Dolores Kelly to Sinn Féin. On the upside, they took a seat from Sinn Féin….so a net loss of two seats.
The new Assembly Party is smaller, younger and looks inexperienced and they have the problem of finding a new Deputy Leader. Only Attwood and McGlone survive from the era of the Good Friday Agreement. Eastwood and Durkan are part of the 2011 intake, Hanna and McCrossan were co-opted in 2015 and the other six are all first elected on Thursday.
The Party is entitled to one Department in the new Executive. But whether they accept it is problematic. Choosing Opposition seems more dignified as well as pragmatic. The Opppsition benches look a better place to re-group. The Party will probably enter a period of reflection and have one of their usual “conversations” or “consultations” with members. No Party ever has genuine consultations. But it might all be part of Deputy Leadership campaign.
SDLP have always been the Party of the Good Friday Agreement. And there is thinly disguised that the Party resents not reaping the benefit. True, Sinn Féin have jumped on the bandwagon….but really SDLP might be the first to jump off the bandwagon.
SDLP vote dropped by 2.2% (and the combined nationalist vote fell by 5.1%).
The writing is on the wall.
Nationalist voters are apathetic at the institutions or disenchanted with the institutions.
The number of nationalist seats in the 108-member Assembly falls from 43 to 40. The Demographic Time Bomb? It has been examined by the experts and declared to be a hoax
The race is now on. Which nationalist Party will repudiate it first?
The unionist analysis is correct. “The Union is safe”
Seats: 12 (minus 2).
ALLIANCE
The biggest losers, although their vote share was only marginally down and they lost no seats. But with the threshold for the right to be Minister in the Executive being raised from eight seats to ten, Alliance failed in their target of gaining the two seats necessary to claim a Department.
In the outgoing Executive, they had two Departments being gifted the Department of Justice by DUP-SF, propping up the very people they regard as extremists. Of course they might still keep Justice thru another shabby deal but the election has put some manners on them.
They deserve failure. While other parties are vilified for half-hearted “outreach”, the Alliance Party has never tried to reach more than twenty-five miles beyond Belfast City Centre.
Really they did even look capable of adding a second seat in South Belfast, North Down or East Antrim or a third seat in East Belfast.
The interesting thing about Alliance is would anyone other than David Ford or Trevor Lunn retained South Antrim or Lagan Valley. If Ford as expected resigns as Leader and appointed to the “House of Lords for services to whatever it is David Ford does”, will he resign from the Assembly and a completely unelectable (in 2016) substitute be co-opted.
Co-Option is a GOOD thing. Extremely civilised. It is right and proper that someone is co-opted to replace a MLA who has died or suffering serious illness. It is much better than a bye-election and a seat just going to the biggest party in a constituency.
But it is important not to abuse that very civilised arrangement. Simply resigning is not a good enough reason.
The way seems clear for Saint Naomi Long to become Leader of Alliance and give us yet another rendition of “I’m just a wee girl from Bloomfield” speech.
Seats: 8 (no change).
TUV
Pretty much a disaster for Jim Allister. I certainly thought there were gains to be made in the Antrim constituencies. But Allister went out of Stormont as the sole MLA for his Party. And thats how he returns.
Seats: 1 (no change)
GREEN PARTY
Perhaps the biggest phoneys in Norn Iron politics. They are NOT socialists. If you think they are, ask an unemployed miner or steelworker. Of course there are not any in Norn Iron…which is the reason that Greens get elected. They have expanded their usual policies to include Abortion Law reform. Clare Bailey has championed this for years and is now MLA for South Belfast.
Seats: 2 (minus 1)
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT
Hailed as the big winners in this election but some perspective is needed. They have two seats. The West Belfast victory was expected but the Foyle victory less so. They will probably stage a few publicity stunts at Stormont, probably some nonsense about dress code if they show up in scruffy Tshirts and jeans. Ultimately there are only two lobbies at Stormont. There is nothing really new about PBP except they have designated themselves as “Other” rather than “nationalist” or “unionist”.
The Revolution has not started.
Certainly a little extra cash for Eamonn McCann (now 73) to supplement his pension. You might consider him a great socialist. I consider him a spoofer. I first heard him make a speech in 1968/69 and he hasnt shut up since.
A pain in the arse.
Seats: 2 (plus 2)
I should add that there is one Independent, a unionist, Clare Sugden who has held her seat in East Derry. She was co-opted on death of David McClarty during the last Assembly.
If you were the last German soldier to be mortally wounded in Berlin in April 1945, you might think it wasnt worthwhile. Conversely if you were the last Russian soldier to be mortally wounded, you might think it was at least worthwhile. Losing and Winning.
Looking back, the fall of Stormont in 1972 was a good day …for nationalists. Likewise Good Friday in 1998. Although there were some later twists and turns during the course of the day, it was around 8.45am when BBC Radio Ulster finally said it was all agreed. Memory plays tricks….but as I recall, we had almost arrived at my wife’s workplace and as we stopped the car, I said “thats it…we made it”.
Of course others we knew did not live thru it. Not just the people who were killed, including those who were prepared to kill. It is a simple fact of life that if you were born in West Belfast in 1952 and 1958, then we had family,school-friends, neighbours, co-workers who were killed. In my wife’s case it includes a female cousin. Strangely, we both know where we were on a certain day at the funeral…long before we ever met…My wife, then a schoolgirl following the coffin and me, a 20-something standing outside the crowded church.
Of course other relatives like my father or friends like Harry simply died of natural causes in the 1980s and 1990s and they never saw the “end game” either.All those people who prayed at Clonard or who took part in their own services or cross-community vigils…many never lived to see it.
The Good Friday Agreement was a compromise. Compromise is a good thing. We signed up to it because we could compromise without being compromised. Nobody won and nobody lost. Or so we were told.
And yet it was a Big Lie…albeit a Big WHITE lie. Unionists were told it was a series of obstacles to a United Ireland. Nationalists were told it was a series of stepping stones to a United Ireland. At least one tribe was being lied to…and nationalists bought into the lie more than unionists did.
Of course, there can be no denying that it brought Peace.
But the Big Lie is the elephant in the room.
Did the End (Peace) justify the Means (a Big Lie)?
Viewed in 1998, the answer is YES. Viewing in 2016,I am not so sure.
Conflicts DO get resolved.
The Battle of Berlin ended World War Two in Europe. The Fall of Saigon ended the war in Vietnam.
The price of defeat was the process of de-Nazification of Germany. And the re-education of vietnamese in jungle camps.
Conflict Resolution.
The problem is that our Conflict never really ended. We accepted that we just stop fighting and on balance thats a good thing.
Enter the Conflict Resolutionists. They sought to analyse what we preferred not to know…salient facts like the status of Norn Iron as part of the United Kingdom. The LetsGetAlongerist approach to accept the status quo is not a neutral stance. By definition, the status quo is unionist.
Conflicts are resolved…Victory and Defeat.
The role of the Conflict Resolutionist in Norn Iron has been to attribute victory and defeat.
It exceeds their academic brief to socially engineer a LetsGetAlongerist Society….with (altogether now)….Integrated Education. A LetsGetAlongerist Society is an (albeit liberal) unionist society.
Strangely when I first became involved with Slugger O’Toole in late 2009, Conflict Resolution was the “hot topic”. Eames-Bradley, doing something …anything …for the victims. That was how Conflict Resolutionists saw it. It seems that the Conflict Resolutionist way in 2016 is to “just get over it” and the moment for Truth Commissions etc has passed. Isnt it odd that nobody talks about it any more?
It is not the full picture to say that the Good Friday Agreement was undermined by British and Irish governments appeasing DUP and Sinn Féin. Or St Andrews. Or Hillsborough.
There is a long history of “confidence building measures for unionists”. It is almost a cliché.
There are two stories to this election. The constitutionally neutral People Before Profit took two seats from nationalist parties…one SDLP and one Sinn Féin. And the constitutionally neutral Green Party took one seat from SDLP.
Or to put in another way, the number of nationalists seats in 2011 was forty forty three and now it is forty.
More starkly, the nationalist share of the vote has fallen by 5%….SDLP losing 2.2% and SF losing 2.9%.
Nationalists are not voting. Apathy? NO….that does not really explain it. Apathy means not caring and I suspect DISGUST. The nationalist population bought into the Good Friday Agreement more enthusiastically than the unionist population.
Consequently, the nationalists are more disappointed.
For nationalists, the outworking has not been as good as was expected.
For unionists, the outworking is not as bad as they expected.
And the commentators repeat the message. “THE UNION IS SAFE” and with a falling nationalist vote and representaion in the Assembly then surely they are right.
But I dont think that a lot of nationalists went into the polling stations in 1998 to “make the union safe”.
The best Sinn Féin can come up with is to be the junior partner in coalition with DUP. As newly elected Christopher Stalford put it…”happy to be the junior partner in a centre-right coalition”.
Hard to disagree.
The best slogan the SDLP can come up with is “making Norn Iron work”. EH???
Thats not what I voted for. I had hoped that the Good Friday Agreement was so riddled with contradiction, it would collapse.
Indeed when David Trimble signed up to Parity of Esteem, it was the great “GOTCHA!!!!” moment in Irish History. Unionism does not do Parity.
So what did happen to the Irish Language Act? It should have been a red line…and it wasnt. Likewise Flags and Emblems.
Now LetsGetAlongerists might say “it doesnt matter”. But tell that to the nationalists who stayed home on Thursday.
No point in looking to the Dublin Government for inspiration. katherine Zappone!!!!…
But it seems to me the entire process is in danger.
If half the electorate dont give a tinkers curse about PEACE, then they are equally unbothered by Conflict and it looks like we are heading that way.
Early tallies are often unreliable. But sometimes patterns emerge. I am not at any count. I was out and about all day yesterday….West Belfast in the morning, South Belfast in afternoon and North Belfast in the evening.
Any agency trying to trace my movements by the trail left by my Translink pass will wonder what I was doing. Most of the damage is to my knees and feet…cos most of it was actually actually walking.
The one big regret that I have from recent years is…arthritis. And I deal with it by completely ignoring it. It should not be happening to me. I could walk all day and all night…I ran “cross country races” (never very well but I paid absolutely no physical price). I even ran marathons and half marathons. And I have walked over battlefields. I do not know whether these pains are “in spite of” all this previous activity or whether it is “because” of it. The last time I talked to a doctor about it, he said it was “wear and tear”.
So I guess I am “worn and torn”.
It seems unfair. Less than four years ago, it seemed normal to get a train to Dublin….walk to Ballsbridge, Croke Park or the Military Museum. Now when I go to Dublin, I am restricted to Easons, ILAC centre and McDonalds in O’Connell Street. No point in thinking about Grafton Street.
Actually travelling by bus or train is no picnic. Sometimes my knees lock up. See a doctor? The earliest appointment I can get is mid-June. Medication….I probably wouldnt take. And really its all just that old phrase “wear and tear”. People say things…”it might actually be your hips…you might need a replacement”. Aside from the fact that they have no medical expertise, they are just plain wrong.
I used to think Age was a very transitional thing. But there is no transition from “getting old” to “being old”.
So it seems a bad day politically. For SDLP. For me. It aint over yet of course. But if your analysis was better than mine….Congratulations. But I thank you in advance for not saying I told you so.
Turn-out down. Turn out worse in nationalist areas.
What does it say about the heady days after the Good Friday Agreement? Some said it erected the barriers to a United Ireland and some said it created a bridge to a United Ireland. How does it look today? I was born into the “no mans land” of Norn Iron and there have and will be twists and turns for two more decades but the likelihood is that I will die in “no mans land”. Things have always ebbed and flowed in the national history….Flight of Earls, Drogheda, Williamite Wars, Jacobitism, United Irishmen, Catholic Emancipation, Famine, Parnell, the revival circa 1900, 1916-1922, Partition, Civil Rights, the Troubles, European Union,the Good Friday Agreement….and wherever we are now.
For nationalists, these are bleak days.
The unionists won…the fifth column of LetsGetAlongerists was significant in their victory. Sinn Féin prefer being in office to being in power….and they are a pretty awful bunch of spoofers…watching them in West Belfast yesterday was a reminder of just how awful. It is only at election time that you see Sinn Féin as they really are…..ruthless and efficient. And SDLP are a mirror image…not ruthless enough, no boots on the ground and not very efficient….certainly not at motivating a nationalist electorate which is apathetic and/or defeated.
For those sitting around waiting for the “Demographic Timebomb”….there isnt one. The package has been examined and declared to be a hoax.
Or maybe its a different kinda Demographic Timebomb. It is not about unionists and nationalists and the right and wrong side of History.
It is actually about Old and Young.
Two weeks ago, I was at a Hustings event in South Belfast. I really liked most of the panelists….Claire Hanna, Christopher Stalford, Duncan Morrow, Bob Stoker, Ruth Patterson. Different backgrounds, different politics but at least they seemed to have the interests of all people at heart.
I did not like the audience. Mostly young. Mostly smug. And mostly bad mannered. There was a bad time when questions used to begin “I am a Catholic…” or “I am a Protestant…”. I thought we were now past that stage.
Is it really a sign of progress when questions begin “I am a young woman….” Or “I am a gay man…..”.
Like the vast majority of ageing Catholics, I have no issue with Same Sex Marriage. Like many, I wish I was not conflicted over Abortion. In fact I am NOT conflicted at all. I am a man and it shouldnt affect me. The only thing is that like many men …and women ….who became involved in Politics in the 1970s, we never saw Same Sex Marriage, Gay Blood Bans, Gay Birthday Cakes and Abortion as “political issues”.
This is the new sectarianism. The new divide. And phoney politicians like the Green Party pander to the new sectarianism. It is as manipulative as playing the Orange and Green cards.
So….it looks like a bad day for SDLP. Thats a pity….the campaign deserved better. I suppose it shows that voters are either happy with what we have or apathetic about what we have. At best it is hard to make progress when only fifty per cent of the electorate vote. And doubly difficult for SDLP if the nationalist turn out is lower than unionist total.
The unholy Alliance of DUP-Sinn Féin, supported by the fifth columnists in the Alliance Party will govern for five more years. We get another chance in 2021 but we wont take it. Likewise the Tories are governing Greater England until 2020.
A good result today might have put some spirit back in me. But the next five years look like a very bad time to be old. Windows of Opportunity are slamming shut. I have glimpsed what Norn Iron will look like in 2021. I dont like it. And worse …thanks to that young South Belfast audience, I have seen what Norn Iron will look like in the years beyond 2021. I like it even less.
SDLP will talk about re-grouping. The campaign was great, the results are poor. Time is on their side….maybe. For Politics is always about Optimism. Trying to bring a better world…as you see it.
Nationalism…the cause of Ireland ebbs and flows…..the tide is out and inevitably there will be some kinda nationalist revival….but not in my lifetime. Maybe not in yours. If you were born into “No Mans Land” with the Northern nationalist/Catholic mindset of being stateless…then you might well find your state is in the LetsGetAlongerist model. I wont. I reject it as utterly as I rejected unionism.
Over recent months, it has been my intention to wind up this Blog in August…the fifth anniversary. Thats appropriate as I started it in the aftermath of the 2011 Assembly Election.
When I wrote the first post on “Keeping An Eye on the Czar of Russia” in August 2011, I had no idea that in May 2016, I would be writing post #1,472 and reached hundreds of thousands of views. On the upside, I am happy that the Blog has been pro-SDLP but (mostly) independent enough to be credible. I always sought to see things in historic contexts rather than narrow political contexts. On the downside…and perhaps its a contradiction…I regret that SDLP establishment has not been more supportive beyond (mostly) been patronising about it.
I wonder if my last Will and Testament should include a link to “Keeping An Eye on the Czar of Russia”. As a race we are undocumented …as a family we are undocumented. I suppose my idle ramblings are a legacy of sorts.
This is not the end of this Blog…yet. Probably some loose ends to be tied up between now and August but there has to be an end. Like I say Politics…and my Politics has always been rooted in some kinda belief that the World CAN be a better place. But I cant really do that without some belief that it will be better in my lifetime.
Candidates:
SDLP: Fearghal McKinney. Claire Hanna.
Sinn Féin: Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.
UUP: Rodney McCune.
Alliance: Duncan Morrow. Paula Bradshaw.
DUP: Emma Pengelly. Christopher Stalford.
UKIP: Bob Stoker.
Green: Claire Bailey.
PUP: Ian Shanks
TUV: John Hiddleston.
Conservative: Ben Manton.
Workers Party: Lily Kerr.
Labour Rep: Brigitte Anton.
Labour ((kinda) : Sean Burns.
Ind Unionist: Billy Dickson.
Ind Unionist: Ruth Patterson.
South Belfast …currently six MLAs from the five main parties. SDLP currently has the sixth seat. It still looks like all six parties have one quota each. The sixth seat will be decided by transfers from minor parties and running mates.
UUP (represented by Rodney McCune as Michael McGimpsey is retiring) and Sinn Féin with outgoing MLA Máirtín ÓMuilleoir) are only fielding one candidate.
SDLP are represented by outgoing MLAs Claire Hanna and Fearghal McKinney. The general feeling is that Fearghal is the more vulnerable.
Recent co-option Emma Pengelly and Cllr Christopher Stalford represent DUP. Ms Pengelly is a former Special Advisor and I have a feeling that DUP voters might prefer Stalford who has a solid record of representing them on Belfast City Council for thirteen years.
Alliance also have two candidates, Paula Bradshaw (a defection from UUP in late 2011) and Duncan Morrow who is from a well-known Alliance family. Ms Bradshaw ran well in Westminster last year…but I suspect most Alliance rank and file would prefer Duncan.
Of the other candidates, Claire Bailey, Deputy Leader of the Green Party has the best chance.
Prediction….SDLP 2, Sinn Féin 1, DUP 1, UUP 1, Alliance 1.
Candidates:
SDLP: Colum Eastwood. Mark H Durkan. Gerard Diver.
Sinn Féin: Martin McGuinness. Raymond McCartney. Maeve McLaughlin.
People Before Profit: Eamonn McCann.
DUP: Gary Middleton.
Conservative: Alan Dunlop.
UUP: Julia Kee.
Green: Mary Hassan.
CISTA: John Lindsay.
Alliance: Chris McCaw.
Independent: Maurice Devenney.
Independent: Dr Ann McCloskey.
Independent: Kathleen Bradley.
The Spiritual Home of SDLP…John Hume, Mark Durkan and now Colum Eastwood all being Derry people. SDLP lead the Sinn Féin by three seats to two and all five outgoing MLAs are standing gain. Joining the Sinn Féin slate is Martin McGuinness, a Derry man of course, who is de-camped from Mid Ulster.
It will maybe make the first preferences more even. Ultimately SDLP are more transfer-friendly.
DUP hold a seat but there is friction between Gary Middleton (who was co-opted to replace Maurice Devenney so that battle will be interesting.
The fly in the Foyle ointment is Eamonn McCann. He could affect the result. And there is speculation that Pro-Lifer Dr Ann McCloskey could run well.
Prediction….SDLP 3, Sinn Féin 2, DUP 1.
Candidates:
DUP: Paul Frew. Philip Logan. David McIlveen. Mervyn Storey.
UUP: Robin Swann. Andrew Wright.
TUV: Jim Allister. Timothy Gaston.
Alliance: Stephen McFarland.
Sinn Féin: Daithi McKay.
SDLP: Connor Duncan.
Green: Jennifer Breslin.
UKIP: Donna Anderson.
Labour Representation: Kathryn Johnston.
Conservative: James Simpson.
Rev Ian Paisley is dead. His son Ian Paisley Junior is semi-detached at Westminster. But this is still Paisley country but whether the Paisley legacy is the DUP which dumped him or Jim Allister and TUVs 1970/80s version of Paisleyism is in doubt.
In real terms it is the 1960s. The monolith of DUP have replaced the monolith Unionist Party and Jim Allister is effectively 1960s Ian Paisley cat-calling “sell out” on the sidelines.
DUP are defending three seats (Frew, Storey and McIlveen) with four candidates. They should get three elected again.
Jim Allister defends the single TUV seat but has a running mate in Timothy Gaston who was the Westminster candidate in 2015 and pushed the TUV vote up by a few percentage points to 16% . Although Allister seems less of a force than he was (say) three years ago, the TUV vote is likely to be around 20%, a little short of two quotas but it will nibble at DUP and UUP.
UUP (Robin Swann) defends his seat and although he. Is close to or on a quota, UUP might get squeezed in the DUP-TUV fight.
Apathy is the problem for nationalists and their vote share is between 20% and 24% but would need to go up a few points if SDLP is to take a seat here. The candidate, Connor Duncan is Chair of SDLP LGBT Group and whether this will adversely affect his chances in a constituency, the very buckle of the Bible Belt is problematic. Conversely whether he is supported by voters, outraged at the homophobic abuse he received from Catholic Mass-goers on Sunday is problematic.
Daithi McKay is defending the Sinn Féin seat. Before Christmas, SF had announced two candidates but this decision was reversed.
There just does not seem to be two nationalist quotas.
Of the smaller parties only the Alliance Party will have enough transfers to help a big Party….most likely UUP.
Prediction….well after all that de-construction, I think that “same again” is the most likely outcome. DUP 3, TUV 1, UUP 1 and Sinn Féin 1.
John
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