Same as it ever was

I don't believe in reincarnation or the odd idea that negative things which happen to you represent punishment for your sins in a past life, however if I did I would probably say that having Newry and Armagh as my constituency for Westminster and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland would be the supreme being's method of penalising me for whatever evil I got up to in my previous living form.

In what was already a fairly dull Assembly election to begin with, Newry and Armagh seemed as if it were the constituency at the very cutting edge of this latest electoral yawnfest. The six men elected in 2007 to misrepresent good folk from Loughgall to Crossmaglen were all reelected in 2011, all six of whom can now safely drop the pretence that they have any deep ideological differences and sit comfortably in the same coalition administration in Belfast. The campaign in the area didn't capture the imagination much either, possibly because there wasn't one specifically unique 'Newry and Armagh issue' for people to get stuck into (at times I found myself almost resenting Mid-Ulster for having a hospital which appears to have been under threat of closure since the dawn of time).

The candidates were all remarkably dull as well. No Willie Frazer for entertainment. No Paul Berry sex scandals to give us a chuckle. No Sharon Haughey posters for me steal. In fact, no women at all. And no left-wing candidates either. The most exciting development of the whole campaign for me was finding out that my constituency had its own hashtag on Twitter (#nar11 if you must know).

In the end I gave an extremely unenthusiastic first preference vote to David Murphy of the Alliance Party. I don't know David Murphy. I didn't see any of his posters in the area, nor was I visited by any canvassers for the Alliance Party. I didn't get a leaflet from him in the post. I can't even tell you what the man looks like. In fact, at one point I had a slight doubt in my mind as to whether or not David Murphy even existed but, in a landscape bereft of socialists and females, an Alliance candidate seemed almost revolutionary.

To be fair to my own constituency the news wasn't much brighter in the other seventeen areas. The election of Steve Agnew in North Down does give progressive-minded people a slight glimmer of hope. The growth in support for the Alliance Party is also a welcome development. The People Before Profit Alliance also put in a couple of good displays in Foyle and Belfast West. Overall the vote for non-sectarian candidates came in at around 10%. One in ten choosing to venture outside the sectarian bloc sounds encouraging until you take into account that the combined vote for Alliance and The Workers Party at the 1982 Assembly election was 12%. The idea that we may actually have travelled backwards since the era of hunger strikes and daily terrorist attacks should give us cause for concern.

While the state of Northern Ireland's non-sectarian bloc is a little disheartening, the state of the left is simply dismal. Any hope of a peacetime SDLP developing into something even vaguely social democratic seems to have all but evaporated. In my own neck of the woods they were circulating a leaflet providing the numbers of nationalists (for that read 'Catholics') that didn't turn out to vote in Newry and Armagh last time around. Even if one were to ignore such stupid tugging at the green heartstrings, there wasn't much in their wider campaign to indicate a leftward shift. Like almost every other party in the north the SDLP has thrown their weight behind the calls to reduce corporation tax, a policy that the political mainstream seems to consider the solution to all our ills (John Lowry's description of it as a step on the path to a "Liechtenstein on the Lagan" would be closer to my own way of thinking).

Results on the far left were mixed. Not even the most dedicated supporters of The Workers Party or the Socialist Party could find anything to smile about in the results for their candidates. The People Before Profit Alliance did slightly better. Eamonn McCann took over three thousand first preferences in Derry while Gerry Carroll polled surprisingly well in Belfast West with 1,661 votes. It speaks volumes for the far left that even in such difficult economic times for workers in this part of the world cooperation between parties is nonexistent. Well, in NI at least. Perhaps I'm missing something that is glaringly obvious but does it not seem strange, given the SWP and the Socialist Party are all-Ireland entities which joined forces to create a united left front in the 26 counties in February, that the same two organisations run against each other in the 6 counties just a few weeks later? Of course, in the end it wouldn't have mattered a jot - the far left would have remained seatless - but it would have at least sent out a positive message that the days of pointless bickering were in the past.

The future for the left in Northern Ireland appears no better now than it appeared ten, twenty or even thirty years ago. That is something I take no pleasure in saying but it is, I believe, the truth. At the next Stormont election will we see the same old faces from the far left fighting a losing struggle in the same old constituencies that they've been unsuccessfully contesting for years? Almost certainly. Will the centre-left once again fail to even show up? Probably, though I live in hope of being pleasantly surprised.

In summary then a good election for the Democratic Unionists, Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party. The decline in fortunes for the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP continues. The Greens are in the same position as they were following the last Assembly election, though this time they have more young and media-friendly representative flying the flag for them at Stormont. This election also finally confirmed what we always suspected about the Traditional Unionist Voice, namely that they are a one man band. Apart from Jim Allister narrowly winning the last seat in North Antrim that party appears to have little or no future. The Protestant people of Ulster have now sent out a message in the European, Westminster, local council and Assembly elections that they have no desire to return to the pantomime politics of the pre-Saint Andrew's Agreement DUP.

Even more of a one man show than the TUV appears to be the Northern Irish wing of UKIP. Their first adventure in NI politics ended with Newry and Mourne councillor Henry Reilly polling well but all of their other candidates performing dismally. On the left, as I have already commented, things remain in the same pathetic hopeless state that they always have been in. One piece of good news at least was poor showing from the British National Party. The far right group stood candidates in three constituencies (including the hideous Ann Cooper in Belfast East) and lost their deposits in all three.

Finally, a word of congratulations to Procapitalism who it would appear have replaced the now defunct Natural Law Party as possibly the most bizarre party in the province. Charles Smyth, their sole candidate (and perhaps member) in Northern Ireland, got 29 first preference votes in Belfast South, an increase of seven from the 2007 contest. Mr Smyth can now take some time off to celebrate at home with a glass of wine and a couple of Ayn Rand novels. Well done, Charles.

And that, as they say, is that. See you again in four years time for more... of the same.