NEWTON'S OPTIC:Polar opposition is the mother of great stasis, writes NEWTON EMERSON
NESTLED BENEATH the Mourne mountains and contempt, the constituency of Lower Down has emerged as a key marginal in Northern Ireland’s tightly fought Westminster race.
Lower Down was 50.1 per cent Protestant and 49.9 per cent Catholic at the last census, which is not quite the same thing as the last election. For many years, the Catholic population was thought to be outgrowing the Protestant population until research found that Catholic women just do more moaning during childbirth.
Normally a safe unionist seat, Lower Down has been held since 1957 by Lady Penelope Alabaster of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). But the contest was thrown wide open last month by her surprise defection to the Lady Penelope Unionist Party (LPUP), which she had founded only moments before.
The UUP is now running Mick Sidebit, formerly of the Ulster Traditional Voice (UTV), as its replacement candidate. He faces a strong challenge from the rest of the UUP, which is in an alliance (but not an Alliance) with the Conservative Party (Tory), appearing on the ballot as the Ulster Conservative and Unionist New Tories (Ucuntory).
Concerned this might let in a Fenian, the Developer’s Unionist Party (DUP) has proposed a Traditional Joint Election Candidate (Trajectory). The DUP has never made inroads in Lower Down due to a shortage of land giving access to back gardens. However, its vote did go up and down several times during work on the Mourne canal.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP have denounced all talk of a unionist pact as “sectarian”, “bigoted” and “no better than you’d expect from those dirty Protestants”. Both parties are now considering a nationalist pact, confident that Lower Down’s entire Catholic population will unite against the politics of religious head counts.
Under the terms of the so-called “Single Nationalist Tactical Electoral Response” (Snattery), the SDLP would withdraw to give Sinn Féin a free run. In return, Sinn Féin would stop calling the SDLP “Brit-loving stuck-up pansies”, until the polls close or the last Sinn Féin supporter has voted – whichever is the later.
So far, the SDLP seems unconvinced by Snattery, describing it as “a bit one-sided”. In reply, Sinn Féin is describing the SDLP as “Brit-loving stuck-up pansies”.
At this point in a profile, it is customary to add some local colour. Stretching from the grassy slopes of Slieve Donald to the sandy shores of the British-Irish Sea, across the flat vowels and rolling consonants of the mid-Strangford Ulster-Scots reservation, Lower Down includes the major towns of Downbridget and Newtownelizabeth, which are both pretty much as you might expect. GAA is both very popular and very unpopular. The principal industry is youth work, principally with youths who do not work.
Observers will be watching Lower Down closely to see if an electoral pact gives one side a brief illusion of victory before provoking the other side into a corresponding electoral pact, restoring the reality of permanent stalemate.
But while politicians focus on the constitutional question, real issues like schools and hospitals are what concern people on the doorstep.
“I’m concerned about schools and hospitals,” said one man on a doorstep. “Specifically, are there still more Protestant kids enrolling at the schools and are there still more Protestant babies being born at the hospitals?”