ANALYSIS:After a cathartic leadership contest, the North's slumbering nationalist giant recovered its core component of vigour, writes GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
IN HIS first conference speech yesterday as leader of the SDLP, Dr Alasdair McDonnell acknowledged how he has been perceived as a bull in a China shop. “Well,” he added, “we are going to have a smashing time over the next few years.”
And so they will, no doubt about that.
Diplomacy is overrated, Dr McDonnell observed. “I have told it to you straight,” he said over the weekend. “The SDLP can survive or die.” This leadership contest has been beneficial for the SDLP. At the conference there was a real sense of what has been missing from the party over recent years: vigour and energy.
At the final hustings on Friday night, he delivered a cracking speech which could have been the clincher in ensuring he emerged victorious over his three opponents: Conall McDevitt, Patsy McGlone and Alex Attwood.
He told the party brutal and simple home truths about the one and only way to become politically relevant again: win more votes. And that required energy, organisation and commitment. Basic politics. But for years that is what the SDLP lacked, a machine that was even halfway capable of competing with Sinn Féin.
And on Saturday evening, with his wife Olivia beside him, he spoke emotionally and well about how landing the top party post was “the proudest moment of my political life” but that the “hard work” would start after the partying that night.
And then yesterday with his first big television moment as leader he went and fluffed his keynote conference speech, as it went out live on BBC Northern Ireland. The camera lights bounced off the autocue, creating a dazzling mirror effect which prompted him to demand that the lights be turned off because he was being blinded.
There was plenty of substance in the speech but the mishap over the lights and autocue resulted in a poor delivery.
For many that became the main element of the story.
That’s the way it is going to be with the South Belfast MP and Assembly member – good days and bad, but at least his unpredictability will keep the SDLP in the news, where it needs to be. And remember what Brendan Behan said about bad publicity.
Dr McDonnell was a little crestfallen about the misfortune over his speech but, regardless, the SDLP enjoyed a good weekend; a reawakening of sorts. If the Glens of Antrim native can deliver on his pledges then he might preside over a restoration of some of the party’s lost fortunes.
Political hunger is a great sauce and it was obvious over the past eight weeks of campaigning that Dr McDonnell was desperately anxious to follow in the footsteps of SDLP heavyweights such as John Hume and Séamus Mallon.
Moreover, what is forgotten or not even realised is that he has been around for as long as the SDLP big hitters. He is now 62, but back in 1970 when just 20 he stood for the National Democrats against the eventual winner Ian Paisley in North Antrim, taking more than 7 per cent of the vote.
Heavily involved in the party from the 1970s, he can be divisive. One of the main reasons he lost in the leadership contest to South Down MP Margaret Ritchie in early 2010 was the ABA factor, Anybody but Alasdair.
But he has his chance now. The next Assembly elections aren’t due until 2016 and Dr McDonnell, promising leadership and a plan, appears determined and capable of building what he called a “fully battle-ready electoral machine” to address the rudiments of politics: winning votes.