GA vote is down
altough so is AA's and the ulster unionists
Diane Dodds is the only vote up...
unoffically according to Radio Ulster

Why would murdering a man have lost them votes? Never has before.

Gerry Adams vote is at 69.6%, which is an increase on both 01 and 03!

Great display by Deborah Devenny in East Belfast

So much for the collapse of the Sinn Fein vote in Short Strand

Paddy who is it you owe the money too on the SF clean sweep? Or have I got that wrong?

Well done Deborah

The vote held up well

I can recall several posters on this site claiming that the Sinn Fein vote would collapse within the Short Strand

Wishful thinking.

No Mick, I remember offering very generous odds on Bradley to win Newry & Armagh to El Matador but I wasn't taken up on my offer. That said, I will hold my hands up and say that I got some of the big calls wrong and that the SDLP have performed much better than I predicted they would.

I never believed that the effect of McCartney murder cover up and the £26m bank robbery would affect the SF vote.

What it has affected is the unionists attitudes, and attitudes towards SF in the rest of the world.

Its disappointing that the murder and mayhem caused by Sinn Fein has not damaged them more electorally.

However on the flip side I am so impressed by Dianne Dodds showing that there are still unionists in west Belfast, not many but they are still there.

I think Nationalists will be horrified by the return of Willie McCrea.

Who could forget McCrea standing side by side with Billy Wright of the lvf

Do Unionists have no problems voting for someone who publicly supported a mass murderer

I hear its business as usual over in the Strand

70 Loyalist bands parading round the edge of the area all evening.

I have not heard you all condemn Gerry Kelly etc for his active partisipation in violent repubican activities.

I have not heard anyone questioning the past of the winning candidate,Peter Robinson

The Third force & Ulster Resistance

paramilitary berets at the Ulster hall in 1985 etc....

You must have missed Gerry Adams comments on the BBC election show that just ended then Donald.

Surprisingly good discussion, Adams came across well , Robinson was surprisingly gracious about Trimble.

Does being gracious mean that it never happened

He can probably afford to be gracious now that DT is history!

Irish nationalism has only itself to blame that now it has to deal with the likes of Robbo and Sammy Wilson rather than Trimble. The opportunity was there for the last 7/8 years to make the necessary compromises, but they always needed to push the Unionists that one step further-now we've got big Ian and the fundamentalists in the driving seat.

When you look at he size of the DUP vote-think what has changed since the GFA, when the majority of Unionists were prepared to give the Republicans the benefit of the doubt. The continuing existance of the IRA, its criminality, the Northern Bank Robbery and the McCartney murder has shown the Unionists they were wrong to trust those who weren't prepared to make the same compromises they did

Davros

Correct me if i'm wrong

But i think you predicted a Sinn Fein meltdown in East Belfast

But i think you predicted a Sinn Fein meltdown in East Belfast

Where did I predict that tra g ?

It was during a discussion over the death of Robert McCartney

I don't think I predicted that, especially once the threat was issued to the sisters about standing against SF - I might have said I hoped SF would be punished for their shenanigans - feel free to prove me wrong though tra g. It wouldn't be the first or last time I've been wrong.

Owl
Get it right
20 bands tonight( it's easy check the PC site. Don't whip up hysteria. Reps in the Strand and their counterparts on the Newtown, have very good means of communication around events such as tonight. All it takes is one verbal stone thrower like you, and so many people suffer.

last comment removed - ball not man please A.U.

Hands up!
Owl, another point. the loyalist bands were walking past Strand Walk. 2 ways. That is contensious and needs to be discussed and resolved. To say 50+ bands were walking round the Strand is a) wrong and b) inflammatory.

Was the parade past Short Strand last night illegal ??

As far as i remember reading,two illegal orange order parades have been permitted to pass the area in the last number of weeks.

Why all the new parades ??

A new agenda possibly!!

20 bands/50 bands

why the need to march at all

madness

why the need to march at all

It's what we do. Americans have their NRA and hundreds of nutty militias, we have band parades.
I stumbled in on one in Kilrea the night. Miserable cold wet evening and half a dozen bands - explains most of the flags that appeared although not the Offaly one. Not a bad parade, although the music wasn't upto "orange" standards - but they made up for it in enthusiasm. Plenty of Flags - a couple of which I didn't recognise, a couple of Banners. Solemn and at the same time good natured - no aggro to the shepherding coppers. Hope the rest of the marching season is like this.

It depends were you decide to march

Thats the problem

"Hope the rest of the marching season is like this."

The signs are not good,considering the illegal parades which have been allowed to proceed in East Belfast.

tip and stomp - why ? Dozens of yoofs and girls stomping, in paramilitary clobber, past this member of the unionist community didn't drive me into a frenzy. Commemorative banners to people of whose actions I strongly disapprove? I didn't feel the need to start lobbing insults, bricks or petrol bombs - even when they were walking past a protestant church. I enjoyed the spectacle.

If it was past your home 20 times a year you may not be so tolerant.

Sectarian tunes,drunks,paramilitary flags and emblems,intrusion and hatred

Hardly a recipe for a quiet life

There's an element of truth in what you say Stomp.
But I would suggest that if nationalists ignored the provocation for one marching season most/all the riff-raff that accompany the parades would disappear.

The problem is that the riff-raff tends be part of the parade.

Paramilitary bands displaying illegal flags and shouting abuse.

Those accompanying the parades is a different issue

Take your bands where they are appreciated.