The faded, jaded Ulster Unionists were the big winners of the night. After the assumptions that Mike Nesbitt had his eye wiped by cleverer Peter Robinson, and that there was nothing in their pact for him, the UU leader got to stand beside the winner who chased an old DUP fire-breather, while a second came up on the rails in the ‘frontier’ land of Fermanagh-South Tyrone.
If Nesbitt sounded a mite vindictive about predictions of his own removal if the results had turned out differently, who could blame him.
In the end, although nothing like as dramatic as the collapse of British pollster credibility, resignations and big UK names losing their seats, the election here had its own surprises.
Nice Danny Kinahan did the right thing on gay marriage and didn’t suffer, and if he got nose-holding Catholic tactical votes to get rid of Willie McCrea deserved the support. Nice Gavin Robinson, by contrast, only needed the winner’s turn on the podium to turn nasty.
An undercurrent of dirty tricks and black propaganda curdled the campaign just below the surface, where print and broadcast words cannot go, unspeakable, unsayable. And then lights, cameras, action: time to tuck the dirty stuff back into the darkest corners of social media, although that isn’t the tidiest manoeuvre.
Sinn Féin big names spoke gravely or cheerily to microphones and cameras at counts, went light on sending spinners and spokespeople round the studios – for which their activists and supporters care not a jot once the vote is in.
Mary-Lou McDonald did her measured, even-tempered best where necessary. Gerry Kelly was comparatively smooth after Nigel Dodds turned off the campaign smile, though Dodds as victor did remember to invoke the image of cross-community representation perfected while the party auditioned as London power-broker.
But the real sourness of the count came from the DUP. It must have been the spectacle of a UU revival, alongside the dream of Westminster significance going bust.
Tories governing under their own steam, without let or hindrance, is not a happy prospect for anyone except Tories, not even for the party’s own more moderate beings.
For the offshore British, though doomed in London newspapers to be dubbed ‘the Irish’ MPs who’d be courted by David Cameron or Ed Miliband – remember him? – the campaign had intoxicating moments.
Wishfulness inflated towards the end into absurdity: red lines, shopping-lists, a tunnel to Scotland, yet another commission on unionism, flags wall to wall and daily, the right to march enshrined in law. But in fairness how much more unreal British behaviour was, London media feeding off polls and re-affirming them. Whoosh goes all that head-scratching about weeks of cobbling together a workable government. Gone with the wind, and the pollsters ‘too close to call’.
What people say at 3am shouldn’t be held too much against them, but British reticence didn’t stand to all of the NI British at this count.
Robinson could have gone home happy when his namesake regained the seat he lost to Naomi Long, his loser’s speech then recalled instantly by many as gracious and generous, especially as compared to the triumphalist performance of ex-Mr Nice Guy.
But the civil manners of Danny Kinahan could not soften the night’s message. The DUP lost their oldest MP to the despised UUs. The cunning pact re-elected ex-UU leader Tom Elliott. Taking a seat off the Shinners is fine. But the DUP’s reason for being is to wipe out the UUs.
As Michelle Gildernew fell, Sinn Féin watched Gerry Carroll’s People before Profit rise in the West. A bruised Alasdair McDonnell is still there. So, for the duration, is Mike Nesbitt: quite a night.
