Electoral reform was today shaping up as the key issue in determining what sort of government would emerge if the May 6 UK general election results in a hung parliament.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced today that he will seek parliamentary approval for a referendum to ditch the first-past-the-post voting system for Westminster elections.

FORMER Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble’s poor negotiating skills and fear of showing emotion caused his downfall.

THE onward march of Sinn Féin has slowed to a stroll. That is a clear conclusion which can be drawn from the results of the Westminster elections held in Northern Ireland this day last week.

Sinn Féin has selected a former police officer to stand in the next Westminster elections, it emerged tonight.

SINN FÉIN gave no tangible indication at the party’s Árd Fheis that it is ready to end republican links with criminality and paramiltarism, Government sources said yesterday.

IN RECENT weeks rumour had it that in West Belfast you could buy a £20 Northern Bank note for £1.

FORTY years ago, a minor incident occurred in West Belfast. Compared to everything that happened since, it was a nothing, a midge-bite of a thing.

The British government is to scrap the practice of making voters in Northern Ireland register every year for elections.

Northern Ireland is moving towards a two-party system with the Ulster Unionists and SDLP increasingly marginalised, a Stormont Assembly member has claimed.

NATIONALISM in the North has always had a habit of renewing itself.

Northern Ireland’s nationalist SDLP could fragment if it merges with another political party in the Irish Republic, it was warned today.

The first result from the North’s Westminster elections has seen the UUP’s Reverend Martyn Smyth return to the parliament.