The SDLP successfully held onto their three Westminster seats, and passed the baton between Eddie McGrady and Margaret Ritchie without a fumble.
However, how healthy is their share of the vote across the 18 constituencies? They lost their deposits in two seats – North Down and Belfast East – and other than two of the seats they won, they only made gains in share in three others.
The graph below shows the percentage point difference in their share between May 2010 and the May 2005 Westminster elections, using the corrected figures for 2005 to take account of the boundary changes. The graph is sorted from largest actual vote at the top to lowest vote at the bottom.
Fermanagh & South Tyrone may be a special case, but what about all the other loses?
Update – Gerry asked about SF gains. I’ve uploaded a quick comparison graph. Click on it to see it full size.
Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media training/coaching; produces podcasts and radio programmes; is a FactCheckNI director; a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland; and a member of the Corrymeela Community.