SDLP MLA Margaret Ritchie has said she is receiving calls from inside and outside the party to enter the race to succeed Mark Durkan. Speaking on The Politics Show, Ms Ritchie said she would make her mind up soon but was very heartened by the number of people asking her to run. Alasdair McDonnell, the other likely contender is also expected to be a candidate paving the way for the first ever contest for leader in the SDLP’s history.
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 »
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 »
Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings in [...] read our review »
McDonnell vs Ritchie ? This is going to be vicious.
Never thought much of Ritchie but Alasdair comes across very well.
I feel sorry for McDonnell up against Ritchie in a leadership challenge. Recently in the Down Council instead of her replacement being Terry Andrews a community worker for over 30 years Ritchie managed to privately arrange the ballot so a 25 year old female law graduate could be the new councillor. Ritchie and the SDLP often says regarding P&J no nationalist need apply well in this case it was no one without a law graduate need apply or no one over 30. What does this law graduate do? She is Ritchie’s constituency office manager. I wonder why she was Ritchie’s first choice…..
Even though I am not McDonnell’s number 1 fan I hope he can keep Ritchie out to take the smile of her face.
seeing as she is possible the most unlikable member of SDLP (and I do have a soft spot for them) with her constant bickering in the executive it will be a death blow if she is elected..
Stormontspy,
This must be the 3rd time in nearly as many websites that you have posted pretty much the same post. Do you even know Terry and the other woman concerned or is this just some obsessive Margaret Ritchie tirade of the sort you have been engaged in for years on Mark Devenport’s blog?
I’m glad that Richie is running, if McDonnell expects a coronation then he has another thing coming.
Well it looks like Ritchie’s antics locally shafting Andrews, a good worker, have resulted in him finally paving the way for him to move to FF. With antics like that the SDLP should expect to lose decent hard working people on the ground to new options. Apparently Andrews has been a dual member of FF and SDLP in the recent past – how are the SDLP going to attack this issue going forward? Or would McDonnell open up full dual membership in order to keep SDLP FF/Labour people in the fold? The likes of Alban would certainly move to British/Irish Labour if he even sniffed an SDLP/FF alliance, which McDonnell has been blatantly in favour of in the past.
1967,
I will continue to write these things and tell the truth until people can see through Ritchie and people know her for what she is.
Maybe I know these people… maybe I dont…. I just hate seeing cheats prosper.
Ritchie vs McDonnell yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
What about this from Hansard? -
“Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many of the houses that had a grant application refused were checked to ensure that they met health and safety standards. Are there ramifications for the health of the families who live in those houses? Two such families attended one of her infamous roadshows in Newry to ask that question, but they were shouted down and heckled by SDLP members. Where is the concern for those families?”
Doesn’t say much for Ritchie does it??
The SDLP forming an alliance with FF at this time is like succulent geese forming an alliance with delicious turkeys in November to make a break for freedom in January.
FF are dead men walking.
Ritchie needs to work on her ‘delivery’ when speaking. Relax a bit and not be so formal and preaching. I think that her current style puts people off. After all abit of coaching worked for Thatcher..
I think she is what the party needs. Its about regeneration and getting new talent in place. That often involves overlooking hard grafting but limited older members. The new SDLP has to be a meritocracy not somewhere like the old civil service where you get promoted just because you are next in line. If Ritchie can mobilse a new generation then she will gte my support. Like Conall McDevitt said on TV this week, the last thing the SDLP needs is a personality contest for leader.
Patricia,
If the SDLP had a personality contest then the election would be null and void. Would you rather have an honest leader or dishonest one? It is a sad state of affairs where the youngest SDLP MLA is 49 and he is now leaving.
Dave, an excellent – and pithy – analogy there.
Only Northerners with a total disconnect from the current political reality in the RoI would regard joining FF as a career move. At least with UCUNF the Conservatives are on the up.
If anyone knows their political history, a fool would only write off FF as dead men walking. They have come through much more difficult times, and I can see them doing very well when they formally organise up here. Cowen will be gone, then expect either Dermot Ahern or Martin to take the reigns and lead the party as an all island organisation. What the SDLP needs is to harness this and get FF to agree that they will see the SDLP as a strategic partner for Westminster elections as they will not contest them. If anyone in the SDLP actually thinks FF are not a threat to us, just take a look at what the word is regarding comparing the recruitment success of FF Youth against SDLP Youth in northern universities the past few years – FF Youth have outrecruited them.
Re: Dave
If the FF launch in Down is anything to go by, they had 70 people there. We in the SDLP get by in South Down with in reality 40 active members – we’re already outnumbered. So I think the likes of Terry Andrews or Peter Fitzpatrick are clever in the sense that they have been plastering their faces on FF related articles in Down – they see that Cowen will not be there for long and either Martin or Dermot Ahern will take the party to an all island basis in the medium term. And as an SDLP man with relations in FF across the border, I can only see it flourishing.
Margaret needs to be careful that she’s not being used by the ‘Anyone but Alasdair’ camp. I suspect some of those calls are coming from people who don’t give a sh*t who runs as long as there’s someone else on the ticket and they get the chance to get stuck into McDonnell.
The ‘momentum behind Margaret’ that’s being briefed to certain media outlets smells dodgy.
A leadership contest is the last thing needed by the sdlp.Whoever wins will not get a bedding in period,if , as it looks now , the leadership fight will be just 3 months out from the general election.The winning leadership candidate will be judged on the party’s preformance in that election which going on the Euro job seems to have slowed or perhaps stopped.
Have the middle class voters conscripted during the peace process by the Sinnfein machine about to desert? Provos , so far, have failed to deliver on anything, which to be fair the DUP roadblock has ben hard to get round.
But stalement on the transfer,on Police and Justice and the Irish language act, which the provos keep talking about but must know has no chance of being introduced(the quality of irish spoken by the shinners at stormint is as bad as the Ulster scots spoken by the unionists)but they will support the failure of mkt economics by supporting cuts in publc services. How will their members in the trade unions cope when they are called out on striketo oppose cuts? Will murphy and co cross the picket line? We know catroina will have no problem after the Classroom Assistant dispute.So a leadership contest within the second nationalist party maybe hidden within other issues facing the shinners.
The election of any leader to any political party is everything to do with personality and its nonsense to say anything else. This current election ie within the SDLP is bugger all to do with FF/ Irish Labour or anyone else. These are only in machinations in the minds of the internal and external conspiracy theorists. No one in the running for the SDLP leadership is much of anything when it comes to political allegiance in terms of South politics. Nor has the SDLP any men or women in grey suits who can do the honest thing and tell some people that outside of their ego and families .. they have no chance of improving the SDLP lot by seeking the leadership. At present leaving the mainstream personalities aside -the future leadership of the SDLP can only come from three constituencies.. Derry, South Down and South Belfast and possibly Mid Ulster. Derry one assumes is ruling itself out. The reality is quite simple the SDLP membership cannot afford to select a Leader or indeed a Deputy Leader from a constituency where that seat may be at risk during the next Assembly election. Whatever about not being able to lead the Party from Westminster( which I disagree with) the SDLP cannot be lead by someone who is unelected to the Assembly. To hand any of the key positions next February such as leader or Deputy leader to people who have in the past been last man standing or been elected without reaching a quota or whose vote over ten years has plumetted will throw the SDLP into turmoil within 18months.
There will be no recovery from such decisions or their possible subsequent loss.
Therefore in pure practical terms that rules out some good capable performers but in truth harsh as it sounds people who struggle to keep themselves elected -never mind a party to afloat cannot lead a party! That should rule out potential candidates from North Belfast, East Derry, Upper Bann, North Antrim and the most vulnerable seat of all West Belfast. The axis points become fairly obvious when one faces the truth of harsh electoral reality.. the leader can come from an urban or rural area but their deputy will have to come from the opposite. Neither can be seem as vulnerable electorally. The so called competition for leadership should be the outcome of a ‘cut’ deal. And there are only three people in the SDLP who fit that bill- The vision thing will have to take place second to the pragmatics of real politics..otherwise the SDLP will whither on the vine. Brid Rodgers unwisely was allowed to slip into the Deputy Leadership of the SDLP – that neutralised the position and gave her no relevance at the following election..whatever the fallout of electoral meltdown – the SDLP should learn from their own mistakes and not make them again..choosing someone to stop someone else is the luxury of parties with a variety of choices ,, if they get it wrong…. they can rectify it but the SDLP is not in that place.
I’d like to see Alban Maginness throw his barrister’s wig into the ring.
Put simply, I cant see anyone who is going to do any better than Durkan, or be significantly better so as to change people’s minds.
At least we have the novelty value in McGuinness (an ex-terrorist) having to get on with Peter Robinson (an ex unionist-aggressor estate agent). Both of whom would rather have taken their chances with anybody else, that’s the amusing part. Watching them both, the calm and ruthlessly calculated McGuinness battle it out with the truculent and argumentative Robinson, prone to losing his temper, all of this plus old ideological differences makes it interesting. The wise boys sitting on the sidelines waiting to tell us all: we told you so, it’d never last!
It’s difficult, at least the UCUNF is interesting as it provides a potential train wreck from failing to overhaul the UUP to something more vibrant and modern and non-sectarian, or it could be real change in the making.
The SDLP, whoever wins out of the above two, is the same old same old.
We must have cross-posted TK. There will always be a seat for the Stoops in North Belfast.
DC say “Ritchie vs McDonnell yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
If its so boring to you why bother coming on and posting twice about the matter in the space of just over 4 hours? Surely you must have wet paint to watch or whatever?
the sdlp could elect Obama and it would still get them no-where.
To paraphrase Trotsky, they soon will reside in the dustbin of history.
Now we need FF, FG and Irish Labour to move North.
Even Obama is in need of something that gives him a bit of a backbone at the moment.
StoopDown, the FF link might have made some populist sense before FF were once again exposed as corrupt shysters of clientelism who care not one iota for the national interest, but the easy-glamour has worn off and as Bob Dylan croaked, “Things have changed.” It makes no sense at all to align yourself with a party that will be out of action for three or possibly four terms of office.
That aside, FF will have the same problem that SF have in trying to operate one political party in two separate jurisdiction, i.e. one-size does not fit all and one party cannot have two sets of political, economic, and social policies. And that’s before they get to the separate political institutions of the British state. The mandatory power-sharing provision of the GFA, for example, was tailor-made for Northern Ireland but it has no relevance whatsoever to Ireland.
Now we need FF, FG and Irish Labour to move North.
So then the ‘nationalist’ vote will be split between SF, SDLP, FF, FG, Labour, WP, éirígí, RSF, etc. Unionism wins!
FF is now a tarnished brand. What a difference a year makes!
One thing that Rithie has got going for her is that she is gritty & appears to have fire in her belly! whether enough to keep SDLP alive I don’t know! And as a minister at least we know she exists? Other than Robinson, McGuinness, & Wilson for either the wrong or right reasons the rest seem to be the cabinet of nobodies!!
1.”The mandatory power-sharing provision of the GFA, for example, was tailor-made for Northern Ireland but it has no relevance whatsoever to Ireland.”
Like a cumbersome political leg brace for a disabled body-politic.
There is no doubt that the manner in which Ritchie manipulated the election of her replacement on Down Council has a serious, wider implication for the SDLP. There is real anger locally that the man bypassed by Ritchie for the seat (Terry Andrews) was treated so poorly. Outcome? Andrews is a leading light at the launch event of Fianna Fail in South Down giving the soldiers of destiny immediate credibility locally.
Thus by one underhand stroke, Ritchie has seriously undermined the electoral prospects of her Party in what was until now the impregnable fortress of the SDLP. The actions of a leader in waiting? I think not…
DC, I actually think that it is needed in NI. It is certainly consistent with the two-nations concept of Northern Ireland that is enshrined in the GFA. Since their are two nations, each nation must have a majority and both majorities must agree on policy. It’s awful, of course, but it’s needed because you have two nations sharing one state.
In Ireland, however, there is only one nation: the Irish nation. I wonder if FFhave actually read the SDLP’s blurb on their united Ireland vision? It is basically that the Irish nation-state should be dismantled and replaced with a replica of Northern Ireland. If that is to be FF’s new vision of a united Ireland, then they will have divorced themselves from their tradition supporters in Ireland and will be reviled as quislings; and if it isn’t, then they’re in for an unhappy marriage with the SDLP.
Dave
It is basically that the Irish nation-state should be dismantled and replaced with a replica of Northern Ireland.
Nonsense. I don’t know what you’ve been reading but that is just simply nonsense on the SDLP position.
The SDLP position depends on recognising the unionists just Nationalists are recognised now but the 26 county area will be largely unaffected by this.
Austin,
I agree with you. More people are now seeing through Ritchie for what she is. Many people think Ritchie will stop at nothing to be the leader. I wonder what skeltons will be un-earthed in relation to McDonnell or anyone else who gets in her way. It is time for Durkan to dump her before she dumps the party.
On the ground in Downpatrick the only people who contact her are those looking for homes or benefits. What else has she done? She hasn’t tackled issues like the economy, jobs, anti social behaviour or underage drinking.
‘On the ground in Downpatrick the only people who contact her are those looking for homes or benefits. What else has she done? She hasn’t tackled issues like the economy, jobs, anti social behaviour or underage drinking. ‘
As she’s the DSD Minister, homes and benefits are within her remit and I wouldn’t find fault with her for concentrating on those issues.
As for underage drinking, are you serious-or are you a serious troll?
“It is certainly consistent with the two-nations concept of Northern Ireland”
No, two main political identities Dave.
I’m part of a somewhat younger generation and there a lot of things both communities share in popular culture such as music, dance music and shared social life that I think there is a very serious political lagtime at Stormont, and even worse incomprehensible behaviour there, that makes me believe strongly that it really is out of sync with the life that I know exists in NI.
The sad fact is that to these people a trip to the polling booth is as boring and as uncool if not unusual as say a trip to an antiques shop in Groomsport with someone’s granny looking for bone china. It ain’t going to happen, not with the leadership shown at the moment, which as I have said before is tantamount to a very Conservative Christian Democracy. Simply, the parties are all occupying the same Conservative space.
The only people on the ground working is Sinn Fein. Whether you like or hate them they are trying.
As for Margaret Ritchie surely it would be a conflict of interest for her to get people homes within weeks rather than let them sit on waiting lists. Good win to win votes…………
‘The only people on the ground working is Sinn Fein. Whether you like or hate them they are trying’
They can be very trying indeed. As for Ritchie, I don’t know much about housing but are politicians allowed to decide who gets houses? I thought that they done away with that after Caledon?
Downpatrick Resident
It just shows how much you in Sinn Fein dislike Margaret Ritchie. It proves nothing else.
I know one person who told all that their daughter and grand daughter got a home within 3 weeks of contacting Ritchie’s office.
As for JOC I am not in Sinn Fein. I am just giving credit where it is due. One Sinn Fein man went the extra mile regarding anti social behaviour. Did Ritchie? No so unless you know don’t say anything at all
Seems to me that SF supporters on this thread are threatened by Ritchie. She must be doing something right!
Peter you anything to Downpatrick SDLP councillor Colin McGrath? One of Ritchie’s mates!!!
DR
I know one person who told all that their daughter and grand daughter got a home within 3 weeks of contacting Ritchie’s office.
All politicians provide those services and the rules still stipulate that they cannot interfere with NIHE decisions. The points system prevails and the game is to maximise those points in order to prioritise housing preference. I suspect you know all this or you wouldn’t be pretending to be very thick so that you would sound sincere.
I maintain that you’re a Shinner.
JOC,
I think your one of these SDLP people who believe that Margaret Ritchie is the best thing to have walked this earth. I suppose you are going to tell me you like the SDLP so much you canvass for them…..
DR
You bet
Have you ever been to a Turkish prison yourself?
Meanwhile getting back to the topic. Is there any other SDLP candidate who could put up a creditable fight for the leadership? What about Patsy McGlone?
JOC,
What a weirdo.
Everyone else. Yes Patsy would be a good candidate. He spoke well during the week when criticising the spending off £100 million on Civil Service consultants. I thought Ministers took decisions not consultants…
Why is nobody mentioning Alex Attwood. He has been such a long serving representative?
‘Why is nobody mentioning Alex Attwood. He has been such a long serving representative?’
Thanks for that contribution,Alex-sorry I mean Alan56…….
Please let me be leader…I deserve it…
So then the ‘nationalist’ vote will be split between SF, SDLP, FF, FG, Labour, WP, éirígí, RSF, etc.
The Sdlp will implode and disappear and as for the dissidents and the sticks, they and all their supporters could fit into a medium sized toilet.
Southern parties moving North would force a long overdue realignment of northern Nationalism.
As for Attwood for sdlp leader, isn`t he more loathed inside the sdlp than he is outside of it!