At home and elsewhere we have become accustomed to negative political campaigning, to parties and candidates going on the attack against their opponents. They trash each other’s personalities and histories whilst diverting debate away from policies or their own track records.

Most will remember last year’s US presidential election debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton more for Mr Trump’s threat to send Mrs Clinton to jail than any socio-economic vision put forward by either candidate.

In Northern Ireland especially, parties rely too much on history – specifically on incidents of past conflict – in their attempts at outmanoeuvring opponents or “getting out the vote.”

Do negative campaigns work? Negative adverts certainly tend to be more memorable than positive ones. Still, research tells us that the overall number of negative political messages does not seem to have increased over time; media coverage of them has simply increased. 

It is a fact that people prefer positive people to negative ones; we naturally respond better to those who are kind than to those who are not.

Following this logic, surely voters would be more likely to vote for leaders who make them feel positive emotions than for those who either fail to do so or make them feel negative emotions?

Campaigns are designed to engage the emotional system of voter’s brains to achieve their preferable political outcome.

Last year’s Brexit referendum did this perfectly, playing to a variety of voter’s emotions: on fears that British identity and parliamentary sovereignty were threatened by a European Union ‘super-state’, and on pride in UK institutions which could be better funded outside of the EU, like the National Health Service.

In last week’s general election, a lack of emotion and narrative – instead a request to strengthen Theresa May’s hand ahead of Brexit negotiations and to put trust in “strong and stable leadership” – has been attributed to the Conservative Party’s failure to win an overall majority of seats.

In Northern Ireland politics, where is the grand vision? There appears to be no inspiration for ALL of the people working together toward a common good. Instead, there can be only a strong voice for unionist people working for a better Northern Ireland, or only for republican people seeking Irish unity.

After last week’s vote, those in the middle seem to have lost their voice. Voters are encouraged to back the party they believe stands the best chance to keeping their opponents out, rather than voting for the party they agree with the most.

I don’t think this way of voting works too well for the wellbeing of all of the people of Northern Ireland, do you?