What's the point in an election?

By Jim Fitzpatrick
Politics Show

Ken Livingstone's pamphlet questioned the importance of elections

I found myself thinking of a pamphlet produced by Ken Livingstone in 1987 this week.

Before I go any further, I should say that I was not an avid reader of Ken Livingstone's - or any other politician's - pamphlets back in 1987.

I may have been swotty enough back then to take politics A-level at night class, but my interest didn't extend to spending time curled up with a good manifesto.

Truth be told, I've never read this particular pamphlet.

The title, though, is so well-worn it has become a bit of a cliche: "If voting changed anything they'd abolish it.

And like all good cliches - there's a ring of truth about it.

The reason this phrase came into my head was the prediction of one party worker at Stormont when asked about the potential election result: "No change".

He meant that there would be no change in the MPs returned to Westminster from Northern Ireland - a reasonable assumption in current circumstances.

In the era of devolution in Northern Ireland what can a Westminster election change?

But his pronouncement has possible wider, unintended, meaning.

For in the era of devolution in Northern Ireland what can a Westminster election change?

It hard to see any substantial impact at Stormont as the business of devolution will carry on regardless.

If there was a major upset for either of the top two parties it might cause some instability, but nobody is suggesting that this is likely or that even in those circumstances the Stormont government could fall.

So, if a Westminster election can have no effect on devolution could it have any effect on national matters or those issues still held by the secretary of state as reserved powers?

On the former, a strong DUP presence may hold some sway in a hung parliament scenario.

On the latter, changes to reserved powers will, almost paradoxically, be dealt with in the assembly because it is to that institution that they will pass in due course.

The Executive Review Committee was meeting just this week at Stormont to hear evidence in relation to devolving policing and justice.

So, none of this is to say that the Westminster election isn't important.

It is simply to say that it won't change anything in Northern Ireland, now.

Which, according to Ken's logic, is just as well - it means Gordon Brown doesn't have to consider abolishing it.

Postponing it? Well, that's a different matter.

Political poetry

Thanks to all of you who entered our political poetry competition this week by trying to match the politicians to their favourite poem.

I say "all of you", but in this new era of honesty and transparency I should really say "Susie in Carryduff".

Thank you Susie, but unfortunately despite being the only entrant you do not win because you were completely wrong.

Susie wrote that the answer "will be very interesting given that at least two of the named politicians are illiterate, another two suffer from metrophobia and one has only ever read Farmer's Weekly".

I couldn't possibly comment on that Susie, but the interesting answer to who picked what is below.

• Kieran Deeney, Daffodils - William Wordsworth

• Martin McGuinness, Clearances - Seamus Heaney

• Edwin Poots, Mending Wall - Robert Frost

• Dawn Purvis, If... - Rudyard Kipling

• Gerry Kelly, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood - William Wordsworth

• Margaret Ritchie, Doubletake - Seamus Heaney

• Michael McGimpsey, Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On Sunday, Rosy examines developments in the abortion issue in Northern Ireland.

Despite political opposition, there are concerns in some quarters, hopes in others, that abortion could become more available in Northern Ireland.

As Margaret Ritchie's decommissioning deadline looms for loyalists, I'll be talking to UPRG spokesman Frankie Gallagher.

See you Sunday at midday.

PS: Many have commented on the strident tone Margaret Ritchie tends to adopt. There's a touch of the headmistress in her delivery.

Even the UDA seem unnerved.

One "senior UDA source" was quoted recently in the Newsletter.

"She needs to stop being so forceful and confrontational," he whimpered anonymously.

The paper didn't say if he was wearing military fatigues and balaclava at the time.