The other Westminster by election

Last week at this time I would have been 3 hours into my polling day, this week I'll most likely still be under the covers waiting for my alarm to go off. But it is polling day and this time it is in Mid Ulster the seat vacated by Martin McGuinness.

Unlike last week's 14 candidates there are just 4, which in itself is small for a Northern Irish seat.

It has long been suspected and known since December last year that Sinn Féin would be standing Francie Molloy. He has been one of the MLAs for the area since the first Assembly elections, and seeing as Sinn Féin don't take their Westminster seats if he is elected to succeed his party colleague it will not been seen in their eyes as double-jobbing.

The DUP, UUP and TUV have gathered together to agree one Unionist candidate and on Valentines Day the two big unionist parties said that they would be supporting Nigel Lutton a local victims campaigner and undertaker. But more intriguingly his father Eric was killed by the IRA back in 1979, the Upper Bann DUP MP David Simpson, for who Lutton once worked used Parliamentary privilege six years ago to name Molloy as a suspect in the killing.

The SDLP have also chosen their MLA for the area Patsy McGlone. Although he has only served in that role since the  second elections in 2003. During the election campaign in 2011 his car was attacked by a petrol bomb outside his house.

The Alliance Party have chosen former headmaster Eric Bullick as their candidate. But as in many such polarised seats the Alliance base from 2010 is not good, only taking 1% of the vote then. The following year their candidate was eliminated after the third round in the Assembly elections.

As I said far too many times during the yes campaign Mid Ulster was one of the only three Northern Ireland seats that had elected an MP with a majority rather than a plurality of the vote. So even the Unionist attempt to put all their vote in one basket is unlikely to garner much more than the the 32% that their three respective candidates took between them in 2010. So a third of the vote will be unlikely to take this seat off a republican or nationalist.

Arson not the answer even if words enflame

As I've said before on this blog I'm proud to be an Ulster man. I may also have mentioned that the family heritage comes from the North West of the Province and by that I mean Donegal, which of course is now in the republic.

So when last weekend DUP MLA for Mid Ulster Ian McCrea tweeted this last weekend:

I was actually rather divided. You see while the family historically is from Donegal, my father's line for at least four generations comes from the city on the Foyle, that give the County of Londonderry its name. Indeed the last Gaelic game I saw live was the Derry v Antrim game at Casement Park after doing some Yes! campaigning outside.

However, this being Northern Ireland you have to be careful of the words you use. In the early hours of Sunday morning the picture to the left shows the remains of the MLA's car after it was torched.

The MLA was disgusted, and quite rightly so, as there is a Oil Cylinder nearby and this inferno was not far from his front door. Yes his is right that arson is too much of a response, no matter how much his inappropriate Tweet enflamed, but of course it was his lack of respect that led to an increase in the heat over this issue. But if we are to start talking about a shared future, maybe Mr McCrea needs to visit the young Gaelic team on the Shankhill Road, which I blogged about the week before his comments.

Maybe if some of our DUP members were to attend a Gaelic game and see that the crowd mingle more like a Rugby crowd than the segregation of an Association Football match. If they see there is less crowd trouble here than at a Linfield v Glentoran game (two team with largely loyalist support). My challenge to Mr McCrea and his DUP colleagues is go to a GAA match with your SDLP and DUP opposite numbers and take them along to a Rugby game. Learn about the sports that many have seen dividing the community in unity, look around you and see people enjoying themselves. Wanting their team to win at the level that they are competing, that is a common trait in all sport for all sections of our community.

If you are elected to represent a constituency you need to represent all of the people, you don't need to support all the same teams but you have to respect those that do follow a team that makes up part of the community that elect you want to see that team win.

We shall find out in 17 July whether Donegal or Derry will be successful in the Ulster Championships.