The Results Thread

[Kevinstat]

Holy g sh**t.
last Unionist seat, Lagan Valley is in.
Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP, 54.7%. Up 41.3 points
Basil McCrea, UUP, 21.5%. Down 35.0 points

Keep in mind that Donaldson was the outgoing MP and had stood for the UUP in the last election.  I read on Nicholas Whyte's site that he had to take with him 40% of his 2001 vote (plus the votes of his 2001 DUP opponent) to win.  His victory was not a surprise to pundits at all.

[Kevinstat]

Foyle: safe SDLP hold
Newry & Armagh: current SDLP; SDLP/SF tossup
...

Sinn Fein: 4 + 1 tossup
SDLP: 3 + 1 tossup

Newry and Armagh is not regarded by those "in the know" whose forcasts I have seen as a tossup.  The SDLP only won one Assembly seat out of three in the late summer or fall of '03 and the outgoing SDLP MP was not standing for reelection.  93.6% of those submitting predictions for Nicholas Whyte's Northern Ireland 2005 Westminster Election predictions contest (including me) expected Sinn Fein to take the seat.  Foyle was not considered to be a safe SDLP seat but provisional results have the SDLP candidate (and leader, actually) up by 5/6,000 votes, so it can now be considered fairly safe for the SDLP.

Kevin

[Kevinstat]

Lewis,

I had heard about provisional results from the Irish political weblog Slugger O'Toole ( http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/05/provisional_der.php ).  There had been accounts of the SDLP winning that seat on that site before the thread I referenced began.  It seems like it was the norm for people to know something about the results before they are officially announced.  Probably people who observe the count are allowed (or at least not effectively prohibited) from telling the press (directly or through others) what they have seen.  So by provisional results, the person making that post probably meant results that were not official, but which reflected the entire count rather than just a portion of it, like the previous reports of partial unofficial results from that constituency.