Is Northern Ireland ready for another election?
I thought that perhaps we had seen the end all our elections in 2007. But that may not be. Rumour is rife (Doughty Street)of Gordon Brown’s plans to cut and run (and some warnings to the contrary) for an early test at the polls: not least to try to finish off David Cameron before he has a chance to marshal his policy commissions into a coherent offering to the UK public. But is the shortened time quickening plans on the Unionist side for rapid moves (not to mention Senator Harris’s recent intervention) towards to co-operation? Single candidates in South Belfast and Fermanagh South Tyrone, could yield a couple of profitable results!
Sammy It might be a 3 o clock lack of caffeine, but this has gone right over my head.
Basically, the Irish Times buy whatever ramping stories the SDLP decide to feed them before every election and run them uncritically. So Joe Boyle and Sharon Haughey were going to zip into the Assembly, Brid Rogers was going to clean Doherty’s clock in 2001, Marty Morgan was destined for a seat in Europe, etc. And they all turn out to be a load of shite. I don’t blame the SDLP for the ramping, that’s their job, but I do wonder that the Irish Times haven’t worked out that giving a quick phone call to your mates in the SDLP and repeating their line verbatim isn’t actually the smartest way to do things.
I have to admit that I’m not at all aware of what is or isn’t on the table! Hints to where more info is available gratefully received.
Just pop along over to http://www.boundarycommission.org.uk/ and your every wish will be fulfilled.
The commission produced initial recommendations in April 2004, revised recommendations in May 2006, and this the confirmation that those revised recommendations will proceed unchanged. So these proposals are not new to insiders and sundry hacks. Some of the changes are reasonably significant but this was an incredibly conservative review and nothing is particularly drastic.
Basically, in their 1990s review, the Commission decided to tackle the oversized Armagh/Down constituencies and undersized Belfast ones in quite a radical way; that happened to involved abolishing Eddie McGrady’s seat and creating a super-safe SDLP Newry and Mourne (ah, those were the days).
The SDLP went on an over-the-top MOPE frenzy about how it was all discrimination, back to 1968, just like Alabama, etc., then called in the American Embassy. You’d have thought that Eddie McGrady actually attended Westminster and the rest of the party actually cared about it.
Sure, it was an unfortunate decision from an SDLP point of view, but they went totally over the top. As they won, I’m sure they don’t care and probably wouldn’t in their position either.
In any case, the Commission backed down then, went for a cautious approach this time, and we still have the same problem, viz. undersized seats in Belfast and big ones in Armagh and Down. Which some Nationalist commenters have the cheek to claim is discrimination when it’s all Eddie McGrady’s bloody fault in the first place!!!
First Past The Post is a crap system and produces perverse outcomes like this all the time, but it can be made to function better or worse and this has made it function worse.
Dewi / Peter Brown,
Just to clarify I am not a solicitor so I do not know re inheretance tax etc. I am not in any way implying transfer is illegal just that you can end up getting taxed when you think you have avoided it and hence you need to talk to a solicitor.
I meant no harm and in no way was being critical, I was trying (and clearly failing to be helpful).
Sammy
I was at the local hearing for Newry and Armagh and Down South in the previous review and you are absolutely right. SDLP went way over the top, demanded and got two constituencies with reasonable SDLP majorities (pity about Newry and Armagh), rather than a single super safe seat with some chance in ‘Blackwater’, ie Armagh plus Dungannon.
I suspect that the two problems that arose last time scared the Commission this time. They were the SDLP whinge-fest in the South and the refusal of apparently sane people to recognise that Belfast has shrunk and cannot sustain four seats. (In the nineties it was entitled to three and a bit, now its only about two and a half.)
This means that as well as tiny seats in Belfast (on revision) and large rural seats we have unnecessary changes to the suburban seats as they lose population inwards and have to grab some outwards. Antrim East, Antrim South, Lagan Valley, Strangford are all messed about. Down North is only saved by there being nothing left after Donaghadee but sea.
“First Past The Post is a crap system ”
It is indeed!
For those without the figures, here are the electoral populations of the various constituencies (Dec 2005), from small to big:
Belfast West 59,018
East Antrim 59,474
Belfast South 59,961
North Down 60,108
Belfast East 60,129
West Tyrone 60,186
Strangford 60,349
South Antrim 60,950
Mid Ulster 63,015
East Londonderry 63,680
Lagan Valley 63,836
Foyle 64,277
Belfast North 64,605
Fermanagh and South Tyrone 67,411
South Down 68,415
North Antrim 72,555
Upper Bann 72,564
Newry and Armagh 72,876
In other words: if West Belfast has 6 MLAs, Newry and Armagh should have 7.4. Or the other way round, if Newry and Armagh have 6, West Belfast should have 4.9
http://www.forecastuk.org.uk/
Gordon got an appointment with the Queen Tuesday night according to the above…..
Is forecastuk not just a labour spin tool?? Think the figures are too risky for Brwon he needs a big personal victory and with all the polls going about it doesn’t seem he will get that. Tories and the Lib Dems don’t want one and the more the harp on at Brown to call one i think the more confident they are that one won’t be called
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7031749.stm
Hmmm – makes him look a bit foolish in my humble view. Good for Plaid though – chance to raise some dosh and select some candidates…..