This was Michael Howard's greatest sound-bite.
Alas, he didn't mean it. If the Conservative Party genuinely aspired to represent everybody, we would contest parliamentary seats in Northern Ireland. And if we had contested Ulster seats in 2005 and previous years, would there be as many as 9 DUP MP's? Or would the electoral arithemetic be rather different?
I don't blame Michael Howard in particular; this has been a long-running failure by all mainstream parties. As things stand at present, nobody in Northern Ireland will ever be represented by the party of government in Westminster. They cannot vote for or against Gordon Brown. There is no direct accountability. It dislocates Northern Ireland from the rest of us. It isn't democratic. As a by-product, it meant that the DUP had a parliamentary presence sufficient to swing last night's vote.
Noon update:
I stand corrected by "ACT" (see below), for which I am grateful. In 2005 we contested 3 seats out of 18. However I don't think this detracts from my main point in any way. Standing in only three seats is almost worse than standing in none at all. If three, why not all? (For the record, neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats contested any seats.)
As I say in the posts below, if the mainland parties had engaged with genuine commitment in Northern Ireland politics, that would have had an influence on the approach and track record of each of those parties in the province, as well as the tribal politics of Northern Ireland.
