Everything Ulster - Election 2005

Finally, all the results from Northern Ireland's council elections are in. I have to admit that despite the DUP's successes on Friday, I wasn't expecting them to do quite so well as they did in the local government election! But fair play to them, congratulations. Now lets take a look at what it really means...

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The final seat totals are:
DUP 182
SF 126
UUP 115
SDLP 101
Alliance 30
Green Party 3
PUP 2
UUC 2
NRA 1

The BBC have more detailed results although they calculate the difference from 2001 by subtracting the 2001 vote share from the 2005 vote share.

This shows what change has been made to the parties' shares respective to other parties. With the rise of the parties at the extremes of Northern Ireland's political spectrum however, I'm more interested in how the various parties have won/lost out based on their own share (by which I mean their own 2001 share).

Let's see what difference it makes when the increase/decrease in share is calculated as a percentage of each party's own 2001 vote. Perhaps an expert will tell me these calculations are useless, but we'll see...

eg DUP up from 21.4% to 29.6% (8.2% difference) as a percent of 21.4 that's a (8.2/21.4) 38% increase! ie 29.6 ≈ 21.4 x 139%

By my reckoning (and these figures could be wrong), the big 5 line up as follows:
DUP +39%
SF +13%
UUP -22%
SDLP -10%
Alliance -4%

This shows more accurately just how serious the situation is for the Ulster Unionists (and/or how well the DUP campaign has worked). The Unionists, by dropping from 23.2% to 18% haven't just lost 5.2% of the share, they've lost 22% of their share!

Are we getting this? More than one in five people who voted UUP in 2001 chose not to this time! I realise I'm not allowing for turnout but still! This should send a stark wakeup call to Cunningham House - something needs to be done if the party are to have any chance of rectifying this situation next time around.