Friday, May 06, 2005

Meaningless Swing and a rare change

Meaningless Swing and a rare change

It's extremely unusual for a Northern Ireland seat to switch from Unionist to Republican, but SDLP just picked up South Belfast. DUP left UUP alone in 2001 here, but this time the Protestant vote split almost evenly. SDLP wins with 32%; add SF's 9 and it's still only 41% Republican vs. 51% Unionist.

The BBC has the swing as "13.4% from SDLP to DUP" which makes no sense at all; it's hard to imagine individual voters switching from Republican to Unionist, and how do you swing FROM the winner TO a party that didn't contest the seat last time?


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