I'm on a mission to save the Stoops from political oblivion and there's less than a decade to achieve my goal.
Current SDLP leader Big Al McDonnell is still the key Stoop best placed to lead this revival.
He must remodel the SDLP as an Irish version of the National Front with patriotic pride instead of racism as its core values.
A good start would to dump all the socialist crap, and get a good dose of staunch Right-wing Catholic values.
The Stoops need to become what is sadly lacking in nationalist politics – an overtly Catholic party for a devout and decent Catholic people.
In spite of all the excellent media huffing and puffing at the recent SDLP conference, when the delegates woke up to the cold reality of life in their constituencies, they must have wondered – how the blazes are we going to stage a revival?
The Shinners' investment in bright, young academics who have not had their hands dirtied in the 'RA has laid the foundation for a new generation of post McGuinness, middle class republicans.
Sinn Féin marched into the Stormont Executive by poaching traditional middle class Catholic Stoop voters.
The McGuinness/Adams fan club in Sinn Féin has converted the party from being the pathetic apologist for IRA atrocities into a new millennium, all-island version of the once highly respected Irish Independence Party fronted by former British soldier and Protestant, John Turnly.
The IRA and INLA hunger strikes also spelt the death knell for Turnly's IIP, as well as the suspicious murder of Turnly himself near Larne in 1980.
The bitter medicine the Stoops must swallow is that even though they boost they have the needs of the Catholic working man at heart, they have completely lost the nationalist working class to the Shinners.
To practically survive, the Stoops must persuade the tens of thousands of middle class Catholics who voted for Sinn Féin to end the IRA's terror campaign, to come back to the SDLP.
It's not a question of urging so-called apathetic Garden Centre Catholics to return to the ballot box. The Stoops must convince middle class Shinners to jump ship.
The Stoops must rebrand themselves as a hardline, Right-wing patriotic nationalist movement.
At one time, I firmly believed the SDLP needed to merge with one of the Southern parties to combat Sinn Féin's all-island identity.
But Sinn Féin is really two movements under the one banner. Northern Sinn Féin run by Marty McGuinness is a party of government, sharing power with Robbo's DUP. It will implement hard-hitting cuts.
Southern Sinn Féin, run by party president Adams under the guise of a Louth TD has modelled itself as the main opposition to the Blueshirt/Labour coalition's biting cuts in the Republic.
The Stoops have missed the boat on merging with the Fine Gael Blueshirts, becoming a Northern wing of Fianna Fáil, or even a socialist sister of Irish Labour.
The SDLP must blatter the nationalist bodhran and make Right-wing Irish patriotism a vote-winning commodity.
Dump the silly childish squiggle of a party logo, and adopt the badge of a green fist clutching an Irish flag. Its campaign slogan must become – Proud to be a Patriot!
If the Stoops can push the agenda of New Patriotism with the electoral banner of Putting Nationalism First, it could steal the republican mantel away from the Shinners who are still having to face embarrassing questions about IRA butchering.
If Sinn Féin maintains its grip on the Catholic middle class, and develops a new generation of youth voter, the Stoops will join the Irish Nationalist Party – the very movement it deposed – in the dustbin of republican history by 2022.
