The Greens facing the last but one hurdle, the face to face meeting with the taoiseach… thence to Wednesday and the midweek national convention…
Update: Adjourned for the night. Betfair prices have been spinning between FF/PDs and FF/PD/Greens all day. Now shifting back towards the latter 4/6, with almost another £2,000 added to the market today. You can find the briefest of contributions from yours truly (and paid) 52.55mins on Drivetime.
Which reminds me…. Platform for Change’s driving force Robin Wilson has produced a corrective to the notion that the lessons of the NI conflict are easily exportable. Like myself, Robin is associated with the Constitution Unit. He introduced his new book in a CU blog which I here reproduce. The water crisis in Northern Ireland [...] read our review »
John Laird (Lord Laird of Artigarvan) is unionism’s jester. His memoir A Struggle To Be Heard ” by a True Ulster Liberal” (from Slugger’s shop on Amazon here) might serve more as a heavy stocking filler than anybody’s idea of a main present. In it he wears the masks of comedy and tragedy to turn the [...] read our review »
Are we still going on about the southern election? Surely this is meant to be a website devoted to the politics and culture of Northern Ireland?? Today we had the first Q and A at stormont, shopkeepers almost torched and tourists highjacked, yet all we get is stuff about the greens???
Perhaps slugger either needs to change it’s remit or have a slugger.ie and a slugger.uk?
rant over lol
Do u not think the makeup of the Irish government doesn’t have any baring on Northern Ireland. Sunningdale, AIA, GFA….
Well ath, it does concern NI affairs as the next meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council can’t be held until the Republic has a government – as he seemed to indicate today.
If the inhabitants of Ireland had kept a closer eye on developments elsewhere, Ireland might have had a very different history.
NI is very much affected by what happens in the South and GB. Remember those two chaps Blair and Ahern?
And there’s been reams of stuff on Slugger about the Scottish elections, and rightly so – I noticed few enough protests.
It’ll be interesting to have as Tainaiste a high-profile Protestant who leads an all-Ireland party which has parliamentarians in Dail Eireann AND the NI Assembly.
Perhaps Clever Trevor should insist on speaking rights for Brian Wilson….
Brian’s not having them Billy. If there is a convention tomorrow he will attend, but has said that he will abstain, since it concerns matters outside Northern Ireland.
“It’ll be interesting to have as Tainaiste a high-profile Protestant”
A PROTESTANT IN GOVERNMENT!!! surely there must be uproar from the catholic majority in that sectarian state down south.
Even with the GP in govt (which is still overpriced on the markets) I doubt if Sargent will be Tanaiste, he’ll go for a ministry instead (Sargent, Ryan ministers – possibly Gormley new party leader at some stage (TS has to resign – remember?).
The dynamic is changing, more people will vote yes tomorrow than on Sunday but it’s still odds against at this stage.
TS,
i’d agree. its the same issue for the lib dems here is Scotland. Minority partners in government tend not to do very well. I guess Sargent et al., would like to get some policies implemented so that can highlight these next election, but not become too identified with FF.
Mick
“Brian’s not having them Billy. If there is a convention tomorrow he will attend, but has said that he will abstain, since it concerns matters outside Northern Ireland.”
I can think of any number of issues debated by Dail Eireann that would have huge significance for NI, particularly the kind of green issues in which Brian is interested – after all, environmental and conservation issues respect no borders.
Though in strictly party political terms, he’d probably be wise to adopt this strategy.
I just thought it was quite amusing that we might be about to see an all-Ireland party going into government in Dublin, but not the one everyone was talking about up until a couple of weeks ago…
Iain
“A PROTESTANT IN GOVERNMENT!!! surely there must be uproar from the catholic majority in that sectarian state down south.”
Er, no.
Trevor Sargent’s religion would only be of significance to a northerner looking in. There ARE some people who would be interested to see a Protestant as Deputy PM of the Republic, though I’d say very few south of the border would consider it remotely relevant.
See, the state to our south isn’t a remotely sectarian, no matter how much some people in the north wish it was. (As though that would give an alibi to the sectarianism which is the lifeblood of the northern state.)