Of all the voter choice thingies online, I like this one… Vote Match looks for your policy choices, and then in Northern Ireland asks you which parties you incline towards and then grades them against the match on actual policy… It’s not long, but you have to ‘think’… Which is a good thing; no?
Ireland is in the middle of a boom – a running boom. Chances are, even if you have never run a step yourself (apart from some painful P.E. classes many moons ago), someone you know has taken up running over the last little while. Road races in Northern Ireland and in the Republic have seen [...] read our review »
It’s not often we get free things to give away to our readers, but courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan we have a nice paperback copy of Brian M Walker’s excellent history of partition of the island and how identities shifted in both the north east and the south and west: as most of the territory that [...] read our review »
Party Match
Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party) 55/60
Steven Agnew (Green Party of Northern Ireland) 53/60
Bairbre de Brun (Sinn Fein) 47/60
Ian Parsley (Alliance Party) 44/60
Jim Nicholson (Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force) 36/60
Diane Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party) 29/60
Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice) 29/60
But thes eare weirdly skewed by three factors:
1. I’m fairly open minded on a lot of issues
2. Candidates having no answer. For example:
SF have apparently no opinion on:
The EU should make it possible for any EU citizen go to any hospital in the EU and have the doctor treating them able to access their health records instantly.
Plus being against this seems startlingly right wing for them:
The EU should stop internet service providers from limiting their customers’ access to websites and applications for commercial reasons. (I
I imagine they do, if you asked them. Worse, the greens apparently have no opinion on:
The EU should make it possible for any EU citizen go to any hospital in the EU and have the doctor treating them able to access their health records instantly.
It’s a bit odd.
3. They won’t let me select, by question what is important so I can’t exclude a lot of stuff I don’t care about or highlight something as really, really important. Doing ti indirectly I end up missing things.
No idea how that would move me. Ballpark is right. I suspect you could ask a few more questions of the Greens and tweak the importance that would stuff them.
So I balls the copy and paste of that post up. But like an impressionist painting, the general feell is there.
I got :-
Ian Parsley – 45/69
Jim Nicholson – 43/69
Alban Maginness – 42/69
Steven Agnew – 42/69
Bairbre de Brun – 35/69
Jim Allister – 33/69
Diane Dodds – 32/69
It’s a pity they don’t have Dublin where my vote actually is..
I got, in this order.
1) Green
2) Liberal Democrat
3) Social Democrat
4) Crazy Lefty
5) One-Nation likeable Tory
6) Thatcherite nasty Tory
7) Horrible anti-everyone Bigot
Surprised to find I have more apparently in common with the Nordic Green/Left candidate than the European People’s Party candidate (maybe on the border question but this survey didn’t include that). As I think Kensei says de Brun may have the benefit of less disagreement. She appears to have no opinion/no response on lots of stuff.
A Libertas position would have been interesting.
fd:
The CU’s do not oppose the Assembly they are fully supportive.
I stand corrected. Nicholson has a policy of “returning social and employment legislation to national control” and I stupidly overlooked that he was referring to the EU context, not an NI regional context. My apologies.
It seems like Angew is exactly what a lot of people want for europe. But not many seem to be to keen on putting him on your paper.
What more does the guy need to do?
What more does the guy need to do?
Posted by Pancho on May 28, 2009 @ 09:08 PM
Persuade people its safe to leave the tribal votings patterns of yore.
This is a european election. This not the time to gamble?
This is a european election. This not the time to gamble?
Posted by Pancho on May 29, 2009 @ 12:01 PM
For me yes; for lots of tribalist NI folk it’s all about the headcount. Sad really!
Pancho
I’m not terribly keen on this type of approach. It’s inetresting but limited. Politics is about more than a list of policies put up on a website.
Boxes can get ticked but mean subtely differnet things. Parties have different emphasis and different instincts, and what is actually likely to be done can differ markedly from the offical policy. The character of the indvidual matters.
With me, I like me poltiicians with a certain pragmatic bent. I just do not believe for the life of me that the Greens qualify in this regard and have a dislike of hair shirts.
Sad to see that none of the local candidates have responded to the Open Rights Group about their policies:
ORG EU Election Survey
SM
‘ it’s all about the headcount. Sad really!
What’s sad ? Thats the reality of an NI 6 county State . It can’t be anything else . You might as well tell a zebra to stop being born with black and white stripes and move to something a little less monotonous?
As long as you have an NI State in it’s present format, sectarian voting will continue which is why there is’nt ever going to be a change to mandatory power sharing – until the present NI State disappears from history or is replaced by a smaller predominantly Unionist State following a fair repartition of NI.
Putting a hungry lion into a cage with a lamb in the evening and expecting to see the lamb at breakfast is not an outcome I’d bet money on ! The lamb will not eat the lion -it will be the reverse . Nothing sad about this it’s just a natural outcome given the open cage environment and the natural proclivities of lions and lambs .
Now if you put a proper fence between the two so that the lion cannot get to the lamb then you will extend the lamb’s life dramatically . This will prove frustrating for the lion , and the lamb will suffer from extreme stress anxiety thus shortening it’s lifespan as well as turning it into a nervous wreck.
A possible solution could be to build not a rail fence but a large wall so that neither the lamb nor lion will be tormented by having to look at their ‘predator ‘ or ‘fresh meal on legs’ through a see through railing !
Question ,
What more does the guy (Agnew )need to do?
Obvious I’d have thought . Stand for a seat in the Republic or some other part of the UK other than NI . QED
sm ,
‘Sad to see that none of the local candidates have responded to the Open Rights Group about their policies:’
I can see this ‘sadness’ is getting you down if not upset at the failure of the NI parties to look beyond the tribal headcount .
I forgot to mention in the above lions and lambs analogy another course of action which could be taken by those of a more idealistic bent than myself . This would involve trying to persuade the lions not to eat the lambs but to repast on green cucumbers and spinach instead . This could be a hazardous adventure as some lions may listen for a while, but those who just have to be what nature intended them to be , may in a momentary lapse decide to have a taste of the persuader as an ahem appetiser
.
Not likely to be successful I’m afraid or about as likely trying to persuade Bernard Madoff the Great Ponzi Scheme Thief of Wall St that stealing 30 billion dollars was sufficient for his familie’s requirements for the next millenium at least and that continuing to steal another 30 billion was just not cricket and moreover likely to arouse suspicion ? ! Sometimes the only way to stop a dog barking on Sunday morning is to put lead in it’s ear of a Saturday night. The lead is inserted by means of a browning semi automatic .
Still give me a barking dog any day over a Madoff . The former might disturb a night’s sleep but the latter destroyed the lives of millions .
Greenflag
You’re such a cynic.
The constitutional issue was settled by GFA – status quo until referendum produces majority to change it. SF, SDLP, UUP, HM Government, Irish Government all signed up to that, two referendums and the Republic even changed its constitution.
So let people vote on policy not headcount! The two tribes are largely myth in my experience anyway – I went to uni with and have always worked with a very “mixed” crowd, we work together, socialise together, etc. and an outsider couldn’t tell which tribe was which. I guess a lot of us don’t vote because all the local politicians represent a world that we simply don’t experience – that of tribal hatred. Ironically the communities which perpetuate the tribal stuff so obviously and so violently at times have so much in common with each other and not very much in common with the affluent sections of their own tribe.
My top three were
Steven Agnew (Green Party of Northern Ireland) 53/69
Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party) 47/69
Ian Parsley (Alliance Party) 44/69
Which is good as it was who I was planning on voting for – only with Alliance 1st