Why have just one Portillo moment when you can have a half-dozen? This was the general election that brought an embarrassment of riches.
Locally, it had to be the defenestration of Ian Óg in North Antrim. The fall of the House of Paisley, who’d have thought it?
Jim Allister did, but us journos have become cynical about politicians telling you they’re definitely going to win based on the response from the doorsteps.
It seemed unthinkable for Paisley to lose North Antrim, especially given that his previous bad behaviour over expense-paid trips which led to his parliamentary suspension didn’t seem to matter to his constituents. But then it was also unthinkable that the Free Presbyterian Church would dump its founder, the Rev Ian, but it did.
Unionist voters in Ballymena and beyond had got a bit tired of Junior’s arrogance, seen most recently in his sneering over getting the backing of Reform leader, Nigel Farage, despite the memorandum of understanding the party had with the TUV.
Jimbo certainly enjoyed his moment, crowing at the media for how wrong they’d got it. It’s a fair cop.
But there is a delicious irony in the fact that the threat to Paisley came from the right-wing of unionism, from someone who has made a feature of out-Paisleying both father and son since he quit the DUP in 2007.
Will Jimbo kiss and make up with Farage and join his bunch at Westminster? Or will he have more fun sitting beside the reduced ranks of the DUP, his sneer freshly ironed into a curl?
And where does Ian Paisley go now? He’s not popular enough within the DUP to be gifted a job and nobody is going to step aside for him to be co-opted into an assembly seat.
Could he join the crowded ranks of political pundits? Or were broadcasters too embarrassed over Emma Little-Pengelly’s short commentating career to make that likely? Maybe there’s a vacancy in GB News? At least he’ll have plenty of time to plan his next foreign holiday.
Across the water, some of the worst Tories were felled, one by one, like skittles. Sword-bearer extraordinaire and one-time Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt, Grant Schapps, Jacob Rees-Mogg – catapulted back into the 19th century where he belongs – and best of all, Liz Truss, still wearing the smile of bafflement that nobody else recognises her genius. What a night!
Why have just one Portillo moment when you can have a half-dozen? This was the general election that brought an embarrassment of riches
After all that drama, the excitement was dialled back with steady Starmer and his first prime ministerial speech, appealing for a movement of national unity, talking up the “four nations” of the UK.
Thoughts of such unity might look good when you look at the dispirited ranks of the SNP, reduced from 48 to 9 MPs at Westminster, with dreams of independence looking further lost in the Scots mists.
But Starmer needs to tread more carefully when he looks across the Irish Sea, because unionism is in decline here, and while the overall percentages might not have moved significantly, Sinn Féin now has more seats at Westminster than the DUP and is now the leading party at assembly and local government levels too.
He didn’t see a border poll “even on the horizon” when he was asked about it a few months ago, but it hasn’t gone away, you know.
His in-tray is massive: fixing the health service, dealing with the seemingly intractable problem of immigration, industrial disputes and a fractured economy, so Northern Ireland won’t be top of his list of priorities immediately.
But all British PMs find that the dreary steeples have a habit of rising once more. The promise to repeal the Legacy Act, commitment to funding Casement Park and increased finance for public services are on the wish list. But it won’t be all one-way traffic.
Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, knows the lay of the land here well, and she’ll be asking where the assembly’s revenue-raising ideas are. Good question.