The BBC is speculating that Dessie Ward, a Banbridge councillor from an SDLP background family, is on the verge of taking a seat in Upper Bann, not from the SDLP’s Dolores Kelly, but from one of the Unionists. An amazing steal, if he pulls it off!
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Suilven
There’s a feeling that Hussey will transfer comparatively big to Deeny.
surely Gardiner’s surplus will elect Savage?
great 2012 target, along with FST, South Down, and Foyle
yeah, unionist hold!
good target seat for 2012 – need better balancing
STV’s a great system
dear God, I keep finding my posts not getting through, then two the same go through at once
wassup?
MCT it should go 3 3 in time. In fact I thought it would go this time on raw demographics but the numbers are slowing adding for Savage to get in last even if not over quota. It was, as i said a the beginning a catch me if you can situation for Ward, al he can do is sit and wait.
If the UUP make it, thsi will be teh first unionist seat under potential threat where they actually did their trasnfers within unionism to decent effect.
If it stays 4 – 2 next time I’d fear for the SDLP seat against SF, Ward seems a fairly shrewd wee operator so far.
Yokel
Knowing the SDLP, they’ll probably run three candidates in Upper Bann next time! They’ve thrown away nationalist seats in South Antrim and West Tyrone and let the empty stethoscope back in in West Tyrone.
Deeny holds and takes both a seat and a ministry off the SDLP – THAT is what should be on the SDLP’s election literature next time!! Brilliant display of turning a seat with four nationalist quotas into a seat with three nationalist representatives! Moronic! They owe a proper apology to the nationalist community in West Tyrone and further afield.
They’ve gifted a sixth minitry to unionism by poor vote management, poor strategy, overweening ego and alienating republicans. Pathetic. Attwood needs sidelining, urgently, as does whoever reinstated McMenamin – there’s a reason people get deselected!
Stalingrad? Little friggin’ Big Horn.
MCT, the SDLP should hold on in Sth Ant unless I’m missing something, they’ll need to get lucky in WT alright though.
They have no room to manouvere in WT. Hussey will trasnfer heavily to DUP, and it only needs 100 to Deeny (assuming no trasnfers to SDLP and there ill always be a few) putting all three ahead of Deehan with 4 in the race for 3 seats, all thats left is elimination of the last place candidate, likely to be Deehan.
South Antrim, have they allocated Ford’s surplus?
I’ve just looked, Lucas has a hard job to overhaul Burns, not impossible though unless Kinahan shows a poor transfer rate or indeed shows a few to Burns.
After 11th count – Moutray elected with 1400 surplus.
Savage needs 140 to overtake Ward.
Looks like Ward is about 600 short.
Definite target for SF next time.
if memory serves me right, didn’t the Shinners appoint your man from the Garvaghy Road to work along with O’Dowd in Upper Bann and to take charge and re-organise that whole area a couple of years ago. Seems they were thinking well ahead. SDLP can kiss goodbye to this seat in the future.
Could be a tricky one for nationalists to take a 3rd seat in U Bann. You have to figure Calvert’s 1000+ votes would have gone to the DUP normally, and as DUP build their base in U Bann, that should help in the future.
Mind you, McCrum was a particularly weak candidate. No profile in the area at all – the DUP didnt even come around the doors in Portadown. Strikes me that they took things a bit for granted, and have got the result they deserved.
Is this the only constituency with a DUP MP where the UUP matched the DUP in MLA seats?
Savage elected, although it was a good performance by SF. Headlines in the local press next week – “DUP transfers save UUP blushes!”
We’re getting a whisper that it’s moving away from Ward…
And Burns could be in in South Antrim…
And empty vessels MCT… keep knocking the ball around…
RTE have called it -2 UUP 2 DUP
And by almost 1300 votes over Ward
Looks like almost 100% transferred from DUP to savage. Not even close in the end.
In the greater scheme of things does not matter too much to Sinn Fein but would have been a great psychological win.
Still delighted with the overall result which was as good as expected.
Roll on 26 county elections.
Burns looks 90% to hang on South Antrim, Lucas needs almost perfect unionist transfers to come his way to overhaul it. In fact he needs pretty much all of Burnsides surplus to go all the way down to him.
Very unlikely.
Poor UUP turnout had probably ended up killing them off.
Yokel,
Nothing to turn out to! Sir Reg just doesn’t cut it. They seemed like no-hopers to me. I put my 1,2,3 into the DUP this time even though Gardiner is a decent spud. I just don’t rate Savage (to be frank, he looks and acts like a big farmer without any wit or finesse) and I have no idea who Hatch is.
Two Nations,
Wasn’t Hatch the goalie on escape to victory?
Two Nations “I just don’t rate Savage (to be frank, he looks and acts like a big farmer without any wit or finesse”
Given that George Savage is a big beef and diary farmer from Donacloney outside Lurgan, its hardly surprising that he looks and acts like one.
Two Nations. Dont know Savage and dont care to but your post makes you come across like some type of urban snob.
Savage is a good lad. He’ a farmer alright and is more intelligent than you give him credit for TN. He’d do you a good turn regardless of your creed.
Disappointed that there werent 3 nationalists after getting my hopes up but glad that there wasnt another DUP man. Predictions for 2012 – Dolores Kelly in the toaster
Agree with Joe Unionist. McCrum was a dreadful candidate. Surely they must have someone else. A decent candidate would make them hard to stop for three another time.
George Savage is my neighbour. He is a pleasant man, who tries his best. It’s just that politicallyspeaking – he has the insight of a gnat. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to George, and will of course congratulate him. But being able to distinguish between the front and rear end of a cow does not necessarily make for a political collosus.Except in the UUP where he shows potential leadership qualities.
As for “Junior” – mmm, how much thought did the DUP put into that one. A Charisma by-pass folks.
Finally, I was intrigued by the performance of “the new face of Unionism” Portadown based Arnold Hatch. LOL – his election literature was pure quality – apparently he can “articulate” on behalf of the working class. Brilliant stuff.
I look forward to MLA’s Gardiner and Savage having a mud fight to determine which of them is top UUP dog here in Upper Bann. It’s the way forward folkd, two falls or a submission to decide the winner??