Is Robin Chichester-Clark a former MP for this area the same person who was Northern Ireland PM before Brian Faulkner?

Nope, the NI PM was James Chichester-Clark, Robin’s brother.

He was a minister in Heath’s government at the time of the Sunningdale agreement. This ultimately didn’t go down too well with the local party and he either stood down or was deselected (I’m not sure which), and was replaced as MP for Londonderry by hardline Ulster Unionit Willie Ross. Ross then fought the sucessor unionist East Londonderry from 1983 until he lost in 2001. A critic of David Trimble and the Good Friday agreement he’s now a member of Jim Alister’s TUV.

With the seat assured for the DUP, the only real question is which party will take second.

Boundary changes are unfavourable to the unionist parties, and even on the old boundaries, SF overtook both the UUP and SDLP in 2007. If Alliance don’t stand, that should benefit both these groups, but the Alliance vote is small, so SF look favourites for second - particularly if they stand Brolly, rather than 2005 candidate Leonard who has never proven as popular.

Hi - thanks for the welcome; it’s good to see some familiar names here.

When you say “given the nature and history of this seat”, I can think of a few things which you may be considering. Some which spring to mind are the history of support for the nationalism of the SDLP above the republicanism of SF, the unionist majority in this seat, and the possibility of tactical voting.

The SDLP are no longer ahead in the polls here - and SF are catching up in Foyle, too. SF had reasonable votes here (although always a little behind the SDLP) until the boundaries were redrawn in 1997, removing much of their support. They have rebuilt support, and the latest boundary changes are favourable to them. With the general trend of nationalist voters moving from the SDLP to SF, it’s not a surprise that they are pulling ahead.

There is a definite tendency for SF to do worse than the SDLP in seats with a very small nationalist population - and in some areas, it would be difficult for people to openly support SF. But here, nationalists are 35-40% of the electorate. This is similar to Upper Bann and North Belfast, where SF were second in 2005, North Antrim where they were third but ahead of the SDLP and South Antrim where they were fourth, only just behind the SDLP. The only exception to this pattern was South Belfast, where tactical voting must have played a major part in the SDLP victory.

Finally, tactical voting has never been as apparent here as in some other seats, and with the DUP essentially assured of victory, nationalists won’t vote UUP to keep the DUP out.

“Finally, tactical voting has never been as apparent here as in some other seats, and with the DUP essentially assured of victory, nationalists won’t vote UUP to keep the DUP out.”

Well in 2001 the UUP candidate was (arguably) more than the DUP’s Gergory Campbell, so there would have been little incentive to vote tactically for either.

The nationalist vote is a bit funny: the SDLP did phenominally well to get both nationalist seats here in 1998, remained ahead in 2001, but fell behind SF in 2003, losing an Assembley seat to them. They overtook SF by a whisker, only to finish a fair bit behind in 2007. Although fair’s to say each nationalist has a safe seat here. The addition of Claudy and Banagher will make the seat more nationalist, but not significantly so, although I think a nationalist will be runner up in the next Assembley election.

SF were notionally poor in ‘97 because of the departure of Republican areas around Maghera (and the now famous Upperlands) for Mid Ulster. Although methinks the notional figures weren’t accurate because the actual result shows a 5.6% increase which comes from nowhere.

The UUP have a fairly solid base in Coleraine, one of their better areas. The regularly canvass it (despite it not being election time) although how useful that is , I don’t know. I calculated they may have saved their 2nd seat here had they balanced impecably, although they rand 3 candidates and snatched assured defeat from the jaws of potential victory. At a 6000/4000/2000 split the DUP didn’t manage their vote particularly well, but the UUP fiasco ensured that was irrelevant.

Limavady holds the record for the most arson in the UK in 2008.