The limitations of this exercise are in trying to guess those seats outside of Belfast. North Antrim for example with a mixture of urban and rural and significant pockets of both urban and rural poverty but also some prosperous areas would certainly not be a Conservative seat in Scotland but would almost certainly be a safe Tory seat if it was in East Anglia

I suppose what happens here depends very much on how many Unionists are prepared to vote for someone other than the DUP if they are unhappy with the deal with SF, and how many Nationalists decide that SF is now the party to represent them best

This seat typically provided huge majorities for the Ulster Unionist party, but this was largely due to the DUP’s decision not to stand. Fromn the 1990s things changed quite a bit.

Examining elections when all parties stood one finds that:

1996 forum

DUP 7,778 (19%)
SF 7,681 (19%);
SDLP 7,493 (19%)
UUP 6,938 (17%)
(Other Unionists combined - 7001 18%)

1997 Local Government

Sinn Féin 7,682 (22%)
UUP 6,707 (20%)
SDLP 4,807 (14%)
DUP 4,707 (14%)
Oth U 4611 (13%)

1998 Assembly

SF 8,775 (21.34%) 1 seat
DUP 8,764 (21.31%) 1 seat
SDLP 8,661 (21.06%) 1 seat
UUP 4,479 (10.89%) 1 seat
PUP 3,751 (9.12%) 1 seat
IndUUP 2,976 (7.24%) (1seat)
(Combined non-uup-or-dupU’s 8386 20.4%)

I was told that the DUP and UUP had an agreement that Cecil Walker would retire in 2001 and the DUP would then contest the seat as the sole unionist. Walker barely attended the HoC in his final term and was described by one newpaper of having an attendance rate comparable to Gerry Adams or Martin McGuiness. He decided to stand in 2001 and a four way fight was expected when the DUP nominated Nigel Dodds. Walker made many guffs in his campaign and had a famous interview where he couldn’t answer simple questions and was reported as saying a united Ireland 20 or 30 years after he was dead would be no bad thing. (He died in early 2007 incidentally).

In the event there was a large turnout but Nigel Dodds won easily with Walker coming distant fourth.

In 2005 turnout fell by round 10% and Dodds was relected, all the major parties had fewer votes than in 2001.

RE conservatism: All UUP MPs used to take the tory whip before sunningdale when they resigned it an broke all links following the AIA in 1985. They were therefore regarded as conservative MPs (one election in the ’40s or ’50s reports that no ‘others’ were elected, only Lab, Con and Lib) Although the NI conservative party did save their deposit here in 1992.

When incumbant MP Stratton Millis refused to resign the Tory whip in the ’70s he was regarded as a conservative MP until he defected to the alliance.

Certainly shows how much the seat has drifted away from overwhelming unionism.

Trying to find British equivalents for the NI constituents is fun.

One thing I’ve noticed on my visits there is that the upper three counties - Londonderry, Tyrone and Antrim have similarities to Scotland and the lower three counties - Fermanagh, Armagh and Down have a feel of SW England.

Not so sure about that Richard. Perhaps an east/west division would be more suited to your south england/scotland comparison. But then that would mean Antrim wouldn’t be considered scottish, when their accents spending patters suggest otherwise!

One of the more predictable seats at the next election: DUP, SF, SDLP, UUP in that order, the same as 2005, with SF picking up votes at the expense of the SDLP.

The boundary changes slightly benefit the UUP who may be able to add a few votes to their meagre total last time out, and also benefit the Alliance, who if they can find a decent candidate should be looking at getting close to the 5% they took here in 1997.

Persistent Green candidate Peter Emerson took 2% in 2007 and might stand for the Westminster seat as he did in 1997; if so, he would probably take some of those potential Alliance votes.