Sunday Business Post
27 March 2005
By Paul T Colgan

( first bit )

Nicholas Whyte, the Alliance party's former director of elections and one of the North's more respected number crunchers, believes Foyle is up for grabs and that the prospect of Durkan losing the seat is a distinct possibility.

"The chances of Sinn Féin picking up in Newry and Armagh are very strong," he said.

"They are only 1,500 votes behind in Foyle going on the last Assembly election results. If they do pick up two seats then the second seat will be there."

In 2003, Durkan watched his party's share of the Foyle vote slump by almost 12 per cent, bringing Sinn Féin's combined support to within 1,500 votes of the SDLP. Hume had benefited from a huge personal vote in 2001 and topped the poll with almost 12,000 more votes than Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin.

The thought that Durkan might lose out to McLaughlin in May is not one the SDLP party leader dares to contemplate. Were he to lose, serious questions would hang over his leadership and the very future of the party.

Whyte said, however, that as May's election will be first past-the-post - unlike the Assembly poll, which was by proportional representation - Sinn Féin will have to work hard to bridge the healthy margin bequeathed to Durkan by Hume.

( last bit )

Good and relaxed.

Went to Mini Europe with F and his aunt and uncle for most of the day. They've still got embarrassing gaps for eight of the ten new member states. For Poland they had the Gdansk town hall and monument to the shipyard workers, with little models holding Solidarność banners. For Cyprus they had the arena from Limassol. (The Cypriot and Greek national anthems sounded suspiciously similar.)

Then home, for a large Easter dinner (not awfully traditional - roast beef, potatoes, endives, red cabbage, broccoli), and then re-watching of Once More, With Feeling. Cor, what are Willow and Tara up to at the end of "Under Your Spell"?