Here’s a thing… If you’ve heard of Obama CTO; here’s the people’s opportunity to tell the Northern Ireland Assembly what you want them to tackle first…. As we ‘speak’, “Get back to work” is the top instruction (6 votes); then “improving public transport” (4 votes); build the Maze stadium (2 votes); and Slim down government departments. You’ve got 10 votes when you start and you can add your own requests… Go to it!! Thanks Darryl!!
If you want to get a flavour of the proceedings at the Political Studies Association conference on its opening day, then the Storify collation below will bring you some of the images, tweets and sounds of the day. Particular highlights included: the Opening Plenary with David Blunkett, Peter Riddell and Matthew Flinders; and the late [...] read our review »
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, they say. When I last saw Eamonn Namcarrow, back in the mid 1980s he was a congenial, good-natured and highly sociable young lad. The next time was 26 years later, in Lavery’s Gin Palace in Bradbury Place. He’d just brought out his first book, Holywood Star about [...] read our review »
Thanks Mick!
Get back to work is now 20. Should add, you can add your own requests, and comment on others. Nice comment about not being able to buy a return on the Derry line, if you’re not coming back the same day.
I think the media and others are getting carried away with the ‘back to work’ line. The Assembly is meeting, the Committees are doing their job and the MLAs are still working in their constituencies.
The Executive may not be meeting but legislation is still being dealt with and implemented through OFMDFM. The work IS ongoing!!!
RC,
Point taken. But you should make that point on the site too… Questions can be wrapped up periodically, and new ones begun…
Nice site. There wasn’t anything I’d have voted for (much like Stormont), there is now.
Thought that must have been you. You know you can use up to three votes for one proposition. Which must be why the vote totals keep changing.
Perhaps the future will facilitate more direct democracy and we will have no-one to blame but oorsells.
‘The Executive may not be meeting but legislation is still being dealt with and implemented through OFMDFM. The work IS ongoing!!! ‘
RC, yes…and strategies are ‘ongoing’ and reviews are ‘ongoing’ and implementation of existing policies, by definition, is ‘ongoing’. But that hardly satisfies and merits the necessary, and occassionally noble, definition of governance.
There is a world of difference between administration and governing…and to be generous, I think you know that.
Okay, update:
- Get back to work now: 61
- Replace current Minister for Education: 41
- Reduce public transport costs on all services: 32
- That the proposed “White Elephant” Stadium is binned: 28
- Sack the Minister of the Environment: 20
- Slim down government departments: 16
- Build the new national stadium at the Maze: 15
- Go for shared sovereignty; merge Strands 2 & 3: 6
- Scrap the whole idea and work for a socialist republic: 4