With just five weeks to go until the election, we're starting to roll out our Red Line's constituency profiles.

Between now and Election Day, we'll cover all Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies focusing on the parties, the personalities, the key points at issue and where appropriate the Pacts.

We're starting our coverage today with what's shaping up to be one of the big showdowns of this campaign, North Down.

And we'd also look at Strangford and South Down.

And with me to crunch the numbers every week is someone who won't shy away from calling it as he sees it.

Slugger O'Too's Deputy Editor, Dr David McCann.

And alongside David today, we have our political correspondent, Jane McCormack,

and our former colleague Stephen Walker,

one-time political correspondent turned bestselling biographer of the late John Hume.

We need to get this line in early from blue lights, Stephen, to red lines.

Very good, Mark.

Very impressive.

That's good.

Thank you for feeding me that line. Welcome to the first of our constituency profiles, everyone. David, let's dive in with North Down. It's number one of 18. What do we need to know? Give us your North Down at Atlance.

Well, obviously, this is the only seat of lance for defending going into this election. It had a massive 36-point swing to the Alliance Party, the biggest swing for the Alliance Party in 2019.

They're defending a majority of just over 3,000 votes.

But there is something important to note.

The Greens did not run last time.

The SDLP didn't run and Sinn Féin didn't run.

My understanding is that the Greens will be running in North Down. This is one of their strongest constituencies. It is likely also the SDLP and Sinn Féin didn't run. My understanding is that thearrie Easton rematch, one of the few constituencies where there is a rematch between the top two candidates. Alex Easton, of course, is now an independent candidate, backed

by the TV. He scored just under 38% last time. That was a shock. Most of us thought that he

would have been odds on to win that election because Sylvia Herman made a shock announcement

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