The only lesson to be drawn from last week's by-election in West Tyrone is that Sinn Féin and the DUP are as strong as ever.
Even with a 13 per cent drop in turnout - from 68 to 55 - the two big parties still managed 70 per cent of the vote between them. So, if there's an election any time soon - and the next scheduled one, for the eleven super councils, is due in June 2019 - it seems likely that both will continue to grow.
Sinn Fein's Orfhlaith Begley dropped 5,741 votes, yet the SDLP's Daniel McCrossan only added 619 to his tally. He will be disappointed. The SDLP needed to send a message to the other 17 constituencies that electoral revival is a reality; yet there is no evidence of it from this result. McCrossan is one of the party's most competent performers, but if he can't attract a significant swing then the conclusion must be that there isn't going to be a significant swing anywhere.
The party must have hoped that Sinn Féin's shift on abortion would send pro-life votes their way; but again, there's not much evidence of that. It's possible that pro-life voters are not sure what the SDLP's official policy on the issue will be in a few weeks. Here's an extract from a letter in yesterday's Irish News: ''The final straw for many was surely the statement by Colum Eastwood that there was to be a separate debate on the abortion issue. Why is there a need to have such discussion? Why would those, many who would claim to be Christian need a closed door discussion on whether the unborn child should live or die? With the state of the political parties at present many people are left without a vote. Is it any wonder many stay at home.'' Ironically, it may be the SDLP which will take a bigger electoral hit on its abortion policy than Sinn Féin.
The DUP's Thomas Buchanan dropped 3,328 votes, but the UUP's Chris Smyth added just 656 votes. Again, the UUP will be disappointed. Like the SDLP they want to send the message that the UUP is 'on the way back,' but the evidence of a potential comeback is negligible. Meanwhile Alliance, who added just 130 votes to their previous tally, tried to pretend that their performance should be considered as something akin to a Lazarus resurrection. It wasn't.
A by-election is meant to throw up some sort of surprise - even if there's no real likelihood of the incumbent party losing the seat. In most cases it holds the seat, albeit with a massively reduced majority; and it's that reduction which 'sends a message' to the leadership and forces a rethink of policy and presentation. That didn't happen. Sinn Féin will be very happy with this result. They don't need to rethink their position on anything. And the same goes for the DUP. Yes, they'll be disappointed, but that disappointment is offset by the fact that Sinn Féin actually dropped more votes than they did.
The SDLP/UUP/Alliance would have liked hard evidence that there's a public appetite to punish the DUP/SF - but, as I say, the evidence isn't there. After 15 months of an ongoing impasse and increasing levels of toxicity between SF and the DUP, the three so-called middle-ground parties couldn't muster 30 per cent of the vote between them. They failed to inspire those people they keep talking about, those ones who, apparently, "just want to see normal politics here and a government making vital decisions," to actually go to the polls. Not a single blow was landed on Arlene Foster or Michelle O'Neill. And not a scrap, not a single scrap of evidence to suggest the big two have anything to fear from the electoral minnows.
The result does send a message to the NIO, though. The DUP and Sinn Féin won't be shifting or making any new effort to accommodate each other any time soon. Their bases remain solid: and those bases don't want any concessions to the other side. So it's very unlikely that another round of talks would make a damn bit of difference (even if the smaller parties were allowed around the table); and equally unlikely that the assembly and executive will be rebooted this year.
All of which suggests that Secretary of State Karen Bradley should finally - and even she must have run out of excuses - slash MLA salaries and expenses. More than that, she must take the reins of power herself and start making the decisions that the ministers and MLAs are not making. She doesn't need a 'shadow' assembly and 'pretend' committees to help her, either. In the absence of a devolved government it's her job to do it for them.
Get on with it, Mrs Bradley: you're just a whisker away from being as much of an embarrassment as our local politicians.
