While the DUP romped home in the Assembly elections - topping the polls with 30 percent of the total vote - just over half the electorate turned out to vote.

Apathy was particularly evident in unionist strongholds in the east of the province with only 45.9 per cent of the electorate turning out in North Down. And less than 50 per cent made it to the polling stations in the Strangford and East Antrim constituencies.

According to the Electoral Office,out of a total electorate of 1.210,009 only 673,117 bothered to vote - 55.63 per cent. Although this was still higher than the turnout for the Assembly election in Scotland and much higher than in Wales.

Martin McGuinness is set to become Deputy First Minster again with Sinn Fein winning 177,224 share of first preference - 26.9 per cent of votes cast but just 14.7 per cent of the total electorate.

In Scotland - where the Scottish Nationalists won an overall majority - the turnout was just 50 per cent. In Wales,where Labour fell just one seat short of a majority,only 42 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote.

Sunday Life 8,May,2011

Think a lot of people are fed up being used and conned by these people and made their feelings known by staying away from it all.

Robinson and the shinners have got a cosy wee number going now and they are not going to wreck the wee shop. Principles,(if they ever had any) are out the window. Its a gravy train for them and the Robinsons especially have made a fortune out of politics and the troubles here.

Aye, it's a cosy little set-up, up in the hill, How things have changed. I actually throught Elliott had grown a set, but he has back-tracked big time.

Leader’s honesty deserves praise

Published on Monday 16 May 2011 09:01

AS an ex-soldier (Royal Ulster Rifles, Royal Irish Rangers and R M Commando), I would like to congratulate Tom Elliott for having the honesty to treat Sinn Fein/IRA with the contempt that their 35 years of indiscriminate slaughter has earned them.
I was also a full-time Belfast fireman on Bloody Friday and at the height of the IRA campaign of slaughter of the innocents.

I hope that Tom has the courage to withstand the abuse from all quarters.
As a working-class Protestant, I have never voted for the fur-coated Ulster Unionist Party, or the glove puppets of the DUP.
The Ulster Unionist Party was nowhere to be found during the late sixties and early seventies, when working-class Ulster Protestants were crying out for a leadership similar to that given by Edward Carson in 1912.

As for the flag-waving, red-bereted DUP, they were only ever interested in fighting to the last drop of someone else’s working-class blood.
What we are now witnessing in Northern Ireland is the beginning of Sinn Fein’s dream, a united Ireland achieved by the ballot box in one hand, and the armalite in the other.
Occasionally the balaclava has slipped, and it has been made perfectly clear that the IRA has no intention of ever going away.

The bad news for Sinn Fein/IRA is that the Protestant, loyalist working-class have no intention of going away, either.
They may be able to fool the DUP most of the time, the Ulster Unionists part of the time and the Alliance all of the time, but they will eventually come to realise that working-class loyalists are the rocks on which their united Ireland pipe dreams will perish.

Charlie Freel
Dundonald

Elliott served for benefit of all

Published on Monday 16 May 2011 09:02

I WOULD not have used the word scum but then I am not Tom Elliott. I don’t live on the Fermanagh border. I have never attended numerous funerals or called at homes to sympathise with widows. What do you say to children who have just had their daddy, grandfather, brother, aunt or uncle murdered by Sinn Fein/IRA?
The only reason why all these people were murdered is because they were unionists - no other reason.

Protestant farmers, school teachers, business people were all targets for the IRA and, if you were a unionist and serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Ulster Defence Regiment or Police Reserve, you were twice as likely to be a target for Sinn Fein/IRA.
Tom Elliott served in the Ulster Defence Regiment (as I did). When Tom Elliott put on his uniform, he went out to protect his friends, neighbours and community, no matter what their religion, class or creed.
It is a bit rich for other political parties to get themselves into such a state because Tom Elliott used the word scum.

Years ago people put on their red berets and headed for the Ulster Hall or maybe they would wave their firearms certificates in the air.
I hope the Ulster Unionist Party will try to understand what life is like for a unionist living on the border.

Pauline Armitage
Portstewart

The out-cry from some Unionists, leaves me appalled. On Saturday last week a Protestant man was nearly beat to death, beat so badly his face has had to be reconstructed. This happened in the Heights estate in Coleraine, yet not one mention in the media. The double standards in this Country is appalling.

As a people we get no help from our politicans but I would add that the people should be on their back and not give them an easy ride. Trouble is those who could harass them are in good jobs themselves cross-community and social work etc so they too won't rock the boat. The working class loyalists have virtually no one to speak for them and their areas. On the other hand the shinners and sdlp do seem to deliver for their people. As I mentioned Mountpottinger police station had only just closed and they were in right away demanding that social houses should be built on that site. I passed that way a while ago and the bulldozers had flattened it and were just levelling it off. Be interesting to see if the shinners demands are met.

Wednesday May,11,2011

It would be more circumspect if,instead of displaying his snotty anti-Ulster prejudices,justice ministerial insertion David Ford thought a little more about why Tom Elliott 'hit out'.

One of the hecklers just happened to be Sinn Fein councillor Sean Lynch one time fellow terrorist of the nortorious Seamus McIlwaine who had killed many of Tom's neighbours in Fermanagh and south Tyrone.

Perhaps Tom reacts like many of us when even today,13 years after the Belfast agreement,Irish republicans choose to elect that 56 year-old terrorist ex-convict. 'Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose'.

The Johnston and Abercrombie families and dozens of others still mourn - but then some of Tom's mindless critics may well applaud if Osama bin Laden was still in a position to mock the twin-tower victims.

Lord Maginnes of Drumglass.

Copied that post from another forum. I seen it myself, so it's up. Madness.

This is being also being helped along by those who promoted paddy's day and the rest. They bear a heavy responsible for the road we are on.

I tried that link but the article is not there. Maybe its been 'pulled'

The people that done this are traitors, but I have to admit. I wasn't even that shocked when I heard about this, was just angry and disgusted. Like lost sheep.

A Lost Tribe

Protestant working class areas have suffered disproportionately both during and after the troubles and their communities often lack the capability and capacity to get the political change and investment that is needed to help them. Republican areas have stronger support mechanisms, Sinn Fein is well organised at grass roots level and between it and the Catholic church, powerful and effective community support is provided.

Loyalist communities tend to be less cohesive and so therefore find it more difficult to get support, they often feel that they are not well represented by elected politicians. The result is a strong build up of resentment and anger and a deep sense of alienation from the entire political process. Loyalists are frustrated and feel disenfranchised.

The defeat of Dawn Purvis in East Belfast in the election will exacerbate this, because she was the one politician in the assembly who fully understood and spoke up for this misunderstood and poorly treated community.

We must hope that going forward the various unionist parties will work much much harder to understand and represent loyalist working class communities, many of which are deprived, neglected and sorely in need of strong leadership and representation. They constitute a lost tribe that we have a collective responsibility to support.

n Nick Garbutt is managing director of Asitis Consulting