There can hardly be a more telling reflection on a political leadership than for a leader to lose the whole of his party, as UKUP's Bob McCartney did last month. However, farsighted Belfast journalists had seen the weaknesses in the brilliant Unionist barrister's political armour long ago. In a poll for Fortnight magazine 16 years ago, those covering the Stormont Assembly set up by Jim Prior in 1982 were asked for their views on the best and worst performers in that short-lived and unrepresentative mini-parliament (it was boycotted by the SDLP and Sinn Fein).
Ian Paisley won the vote for its best politician. The man who topped the poll as its worst politician - to many people's surprise - was Robert McCartney QC: an indication that intellectual brilliance and verbal wizardry don't necessarily make for good political leaders. As one of the judging panel said: "He is evidence of the fact that Moses can't hand down the tablets of stone these days, he just drops them on his feet." Plus ca change . . .