Profile for Nicholas Whyte
Latest posts from Nicholas Whyte (see all)
Nicholas Whyte has posted 4 times (0 in the last month).
Ending co-terminosity
Tweet One of the less frequently used buzz-words in Northern Irish politics is “co-terminosity”, which is shorthand for the fact that members of the Northern Ireland Assembly are elected from constituencies with the same boundaries as those used for Westminster elections. It seems to me that co-terminosity has had its day, and if the long-postponed [...] more »
Brussels (and Durban)
Tweet The EU summit is mostly over. A seven-page statement by the leaders of the countries using the euro outlines the solution: there will be a new treaty involving all the EU member states except the UK and Hungary, with the Poles Swedes (thanks for correction) and Czechs going away to think about it. (Edited [...] more »
Thoughts from Brussels on the euro crisis
Tweet I have been prodded – both by being on a radio panel discussion today and by the awesome Catie – to assemble some thoughts on the euro crisis and what it means for both parts of Ireland. There is a certain air of pessimism at present, driven largely by recent pieces in the Financial [...] more »
The SDLP leadership candidates, ranked on internet use and internal organisation
Tweet The SDLP elects its fifth leader this coming weekend, with four male candidates in the running (the deputy leadership has been filled, without contest, by a woman). Since 1998, when the party topped the first preference tallies for the first Assembly election, the SDLP has lost votes and seats at almost every election cycle [...] more »
Latest comments from Nicholas Whyte (see all)
Nicholas Whyte has commented 175 times (0 in the last month).
Comment on No surprises in Mid Ulster as Molloy wins; turnout dips down from 91.5% in 1969 by-election to just 55.7%
on 8 March 2013 at 3:26 pm
There’s not a lot to say here, and most of it has already been said. In particular I largely (and unusually) agree with Framer and mjh, and also (as is more usual) with Gerry.
A minor point, Alan – your percentages are a shade down on mine. I think you are dividing by total vote rather than total valid vote.
One wider point, though: while the case for Unionist unity candidates has certainly received a boost, it’s not clear to me that the UUP has strong grounds to demand more than a very few of those joint candidacies. Mike N may well ask for the Westminster nod in Belfast S, F&ST, N Down, S. Down and Strangford; the last of these is actually held by the DUP at the moment, and the DUP were ahead of the UUP in the Assembly election in all of the other four.
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Comment on The shrinking heart of the UUP: A lucky 13?
on 24 February 2013 at 3:22 pm
Framer,
The DUP is hegemonic in Westminster particularly where Rev Paisley still predominates and in the Peter Robinson fiefdom of Stormont which he always preferred but together they hardly represent a quarter of that community. The UUP probably represents near 50% but no longer in seat terms.
I hate to break it to you, but Rev Paisley retired from Westminster almost three years ago. He casts a long shadow, to be sure, but it’s a stretch to say that he still predominates.
The DUP’s share of the total Unionist vote has been well over 60%, and the UUP’s 30% at best, for the last several elections. On what evidence can you possibly claim that these figures are really 25% and 50%?
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Comment on To whom is a unity candidate accountable?
on 22 February 2013 at 9:45 pm
All elections here are on the border question anyway, so it only really matters if an MP switches from or to an Irish unity position.
Actually, neither part of that sentence is true.
Elections in NI are largely, but not entirely, about communal representation. A candidate’s position on the border is a useful cue for which part of the electorate they feel closest to representing, but it should be considered as effect rather than cause.
And empirically, an MP’s position on the border doesn’t really matter at all, or at last no more than any other voter’s; any future decision on sovereignty will be taken by referendum rather than by head-count of elected representatives, still less of members of the House of Commons from NI.
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Comment on SDLP chooses Patsy McGlone to contest Mid Ulster…
on 27 January 2013 at 2:42 pm
FJH,
You’re right of course. Looking back through our Magherafelt friend’s previous posts, it becomes clear that he is not exactly a fan of Sandra Overend and that the post I responded to was intended as irony. He (or she) was therefore perfectly aware that the statement which I highlighted makes no sense.
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Comment on SDLP chooses Patsy McGlone to contest Mid Ulster…
on 27 January 2013 at 11:53 am
FJH,
I agree with you, both on co-option and on the slim pickings.
Magherafelt Red,
they are “flat out” with people using this office. Hence there being no need to open other offices in either Cookstown or Magherafelt.
You do realise that this makes no sense? If the work is getting too much for one office, opening a second or a third is a rather obvious step.
Lionel Hutz,
Surely the big thing would be for the SDLP to get close enough to SF to make it realistic in the next elections to get Unionist tactical votes.
I don’t think that is possible. Unionists still have a third of the votes in Mid Ulster. If the SDLP manage to pull ahead of the combined Unionist total they will have already won the seat anyway, because necessarily that will mean getting more Nationalist votes than Sinn Fein.
If McGlone pulls ahead of the lead Unionist candidate in this election, that will make the tactical voting argument slightly less unrealistic in future elections, but it is an exceptionally weak argument as things stand and will not be a lot stronger even if McGlone manages to finish in second place.
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Comment on SDLP chooses Patsy McGlone to contest Mid Ulster…
on 25 January 2013 at 9:27 pm
I would say that if the SDLP can register an increase in vote share from the rather poor 14.3% they got in Westminster 2010 they have some basis for spinning it as a success. Obviously even more so if they can beat the DUP. If they don’t get either an increase in vote share or second place, it is a bad result.
For the Shinners, I think any win will do. Turnout will be poor, Molloy will retain the seat anyway and a decline in vote share can be (quite reasonably) explained as a result of low participation in a race with a foregone conclusion.
For the Unionists, it depends on whether there is a joint UUP/DUP candidate. If so, then they are almost in the position of the Shinners, that any second place will do to claim a moral victory. But the vote share would need to be significantly over a third of the total for it to be a meaningful result. (Such a joint candidacy would put into question the point of the UUP being a separate party, but its leader’s own actions have already done that pretty effectively.)
If there is no joint UUP-DUP candidate, then the significant questions are whether the DUP can retain second place, and whether the UUP can rise above fourth. The party pecking order here has been 1) SF, 2) DUP, 3) SDLP and 4) UUP in every Westminster and Assembly election since 2001. But the margins between second and fourth place have never been huge, and a good campaign (or a bad one) could shift the dynamics decisively.
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Comment on Orangeman`s take on call for a border poll
on 23 January 2013 at 10:22 am
‘Would a United Ireland be a unitary State or would there still be a devolved Stormont?’
If there’s a vote for a UI then this would be discussed or negotiated.
Actually it needs to be clarified in advance of a vote, not left until afterwards. There is a huge difference between merging NI into a unitary state and retaining Stormont in a united Ireland, to the extent that they are essentially two different propositions. If the UI side are serious about holding and winning such a vote (which, of course, they may not be) they need to get their lines clear on this very early in the game.
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Comment on The collapsing scenery of NI’s politics
on 16 January 2013 at 12:11 am
Viridiplantae,
Good points all. I don’t recall any 2013 predictions from 1993; here, however, is a 1997 prediction that the Nationalist vote would overtake the Unionist vote by 2012!
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Comment on The collapsing scenery of NI’s politics
on 15 January 2013 at 7:13 am
This pointing at a technicality … was transparent nonsense
Or to put it another way, this reporting of the facts makes some people uncomfortable, because it is actually true.
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Comment on Valence voters and the centre ground in NI
on 14 January 2013 at 10:26 pm
I am not sure about Kellner’s proposal of valence voting. It is a new term to me, and looks more like an encouragement to Labour modernisers than a serious analytical concept.
In any case, there has always been a lot more cross-community voting in Northern Ireland than people like to acknowledge – especially at Westminster elections. All three of the SDLP’s current MPs are clearly getting thousands of votes from people who do not normally vote Nationalist. I reckon both Sylvia Hermon and Ian Paisley Jr got a couple of thousand votes from people who will have been tallied as Catholics by the census, if for slightly different reasons. And of course many people who previously had largely voted Unionist voted Alliance in East Belfast in 2010.
There is a tendency to minimise these examples as transient and tactical. I think that is wrong, and that it is precisely the votes that don’t fit the traditional patterns that may be telling us the most interesting things about politics. But I am not sure that “valence voting” is really useful to help understand it.
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