The North is as good as solved – but unfortunately it’s going nowhere

TWO minutes after the BBC’s exit poll was announced last Thursday night, Iain Dale, the Conservative commentator, blogged: “Don’t panic chaps and chapesses.

My view is that by 4am this poll will have been shown to be wrong. It seems too incredible that the Lib Dems are only predicted to get 59 seats. I’ll run naked down Whitehall if that turns out to be true.” In fact, of course, the exit poll was almost spot on. Liberal Democrats who speculated their man might even end up in 10 Downing Street now look far more foolish than Iain Dale.

Still, I’m glad I made no such promises in my column last week. In fact, my call of the 18 seats in the North was not too far off the mark. True, I didn’t see the Alliance Party dramatically snatching First Minister Peter Robinson’s East Belfast stronghold: he was in bigger trouble than anyone, except perhaps he himself, understood. Whether the feisty Naomi Long can hold the seat against a less tarnished DUP candidate should there be another British election soon is an open question, however.