Cónal Thomas

He's also in decent contention here with over 2,000 votes

just behind Gerard Hutt.

So if you put together both of their votes, I'm not suggesting that either of their vote cohorts would 100% transfer to each other if either wasn't there.

But if that was the case, they would be at the top of the poll, or that kind of conglomerate candidate.

If that is an anti-establishment, right-wing view in this constituency, there actually is a room for it if one candidate can coalesce all that support.

Yes, 100%.

And anyone who denies that is in denial.

Delusional, or delulu, as the young people would say these days.

And Mary Lou MacDonald has been out twice today talking to the media, Conal, and she's saying that her leadership is not in question.

Kind of, you know, finger-waving here at the media, saying, you're asking about my leadership, but in fact...

My leadership, that matter was settled, I think she said something to that effect, at the Ordeche three weeks ago, which was held in Belfast, the Sinn Féin Ordeche.

Exactly.

There were questions arising then too.

And if you think about it in very, I suppose, blunt or frank terms, Mary Lou Macdonald, if you look at it this way, has effectively lost three and now four elections for the party.

This is a by-election.

They're not good for governments.

They should be good for opposition parties and particularly the main opposition party, who is rivaling the figures of the government coalition parties.

So where was that performance?

Now, many people will say that Sinn Féin has moved away from maybe their left, you know,

base cohort and their values and they're moving more towards maybe socially conservative views which could be seen as maybe sort of a lurch to the right in some areas like immigration and areas like that and that's not