(by Ed Moloney, Sunday Tribune)

There is a myth about North Down. Ask people what comes into their minds when you mention in it and its odds-on they'll say "the gold coast", that short stretch of opulence on the eastern outskirts of Hollywood famous for its huge houses, affluent lifestyles and panoramic views of Belfast lough. The Northern Ireland Office houses its people here - only the best for the Brits - and legend has it that the wide dual carriageway into Belfast was constructed to ensure the speedy and smooth transport of mandarins and MI5 into the nearby Stormont complex.

For sure some of the ritziest properties and wealthiest people in Northern Ireland live in North Down but there is another side to the constituency less visible from a speeding car. The seedy, run-down Protestant working class housing estates on the outskirts of Bangor, festooned with UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando murals or the town's High Street where every third or fourth shop has a To Let or Closing Down sign in the window offer a somewhat different perspective. There is little prosperity here, no sign of the Good Friday tiger that can be glimpsed in Belfast.

Its much the same in some of the pretty coastal villages like Millisle, a few miles east of Donaghdee with its spectacular views of the Copelands. In what passes for the centre of the village the only petrol station is closed down, so too is what looks like Millisle's largest shop and houses are boarded up. Its here that the great white hope of Trimble Unionism, Lady Sylvia Hermon is canvassing for votes in what is likely to be the most eye-catching contest of the election.

At stake is the scalp of Bob McCartney, the most stringent Unionist critic of the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process. Last week, in words that must have sounded honey-sweet to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, he assailed the deal as a "transitional" stage to Irish unity and but for the resistance of now departed colleagues would long ago have led a walk out from the Assembly of a sort that would have put Ian Paisley and his "rotating" DUP Executive confederates to shame.

The Provos will surely mourn his defeat but joy will be unconfined in Glengall Street if Bob falls and there will be enough to spare to take the bad look off losses elsewhere, as long that is, as there aren't more than one or two of them and they can be ascribed to non-agreement factors. Defeat for Bob, in this quintessential Unionist seat, will enable Trimble to say that the real pulse of his community beats for him.

Sylvia Hermon is trying hard not to exploit her marriage to the former RUC Chief Constable, Sir John. He has only canvassed once with her, at Bangor market but even so everyone seems to know about the connection. A former law lecturer at QUB, where she first met the current First Minister, she is appealing unashamedly to women Unionist voters to put one of their own sex in the House of Commons. Personable, wholesome and seemingly guileless she appears to be making a good impression on the doorsteps. Bob McCartney describes her as "pleasant, totally inexperienced and somewhat naive"; maybe but the consensus is that he has a real fight on his hands.

But what issues are exercising the people? "I don't hear anything about David Trimble's letter", Sylvia Hermon answers, "decommissioning is mentioned infrequently and top of the list is a wish for a change of MP". And then there is the local economic decline. "I ask people on the doorsteps what has the sitting MP done to improve things and the answer I get is not much."

There are probably more RUC families per square metre in North Down and policing reforms, she admits, crop up all the time on the doorsteps. The changes are hurting the RUC loyalists, especially the full-time reservists, those who are likely to be the first to get the chop when the changes begin.

The demoralisation of the RUC, rather than decommissioning, is figuring prominently in Bob McCartney's campaign. It has been responsible, he contends, for a worsening crime situation lcally. "Policing is totally inadequate, there's only one car between Holywood and Bangor", he complains. There have been paramilitary killings in Bangor and robberies, he says are now commonplace and people are blaming the Patten report.

He's also making an issue out of health cuts attributable to paramilitary shootings. Orthopedic surgery, hip replacements for the arthritic elderly - and there are quite a few of them in places like Bangor and Holywood - have been halted at the Ulster Hospital because surgeons are spending all their time repairing the results of UVF and UDA punishments, he claims. Bairbre de Brun has to shoulder her share of the blame, he says. Martin McGuinness meanwhile is blatantly favouring the maintained Catholic sector at the expense of the Protestant state sector, he continues, and local schools are beginning to show the wear and tear. The linkage to the agreement is there but it is more indirect.

Stirring festering Unionist resentment at Sinn Fein holding down the two top jobs in the Executive may work next Thursday but there are two realities facing the sitting MP which must give him pause for thought. One is the fact that he has never been able to enthuse the voters of North Down. His victory in a by-election in 1995 came with just over 10,000 votes in a 38 per cent turnout. In 1997 he got just under 13,000 votes and in the Assembly election the following year only 8,000. His precessor Jim Kilfedder regularly polled between 18,000 and 20,000.

The other is that Alliance has opted out of the contest and is urging their 7,000 or so supporters to lend their votes to Lady Sylvia. Even if only half of them do and past voting figures are repeated then Bob will be out of a job.

Ed Moloney's election forecast

Jun 3, 2001
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