Profile for Valenciano
Been commenting on Slugger since Autumn 2003.
Latest comments from Valenciano (see all)
Valenciano has commented 93 times (4 in the last month).
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Books
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Books: Listening to Van Morrison…
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
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“Good Friday. The death of Irish Republicanism” by Anthony McIntyre: a review
This was a book that I first reviewed at the same time as “Unionism Decayed” back in 2008. Like Vance’s work, it is the author’s portrayal of a defeated political movement or ideal and as a Unionist it was instructional to read an interpretation of the immediate post-Agreement period from the other side of the fence. [...] read our review » -
Risk of going beyond either/or…
This is article was first published in Fortnight magazine back in February 2003. Chris Farrington is now a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin. Although the circumstances it describes has changed radically and [...] read our review »
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Comment on Premiership: Not all teams are actually ‘participating’ in the same competition
on 6 May 2012 at 12:22 pm
I think that like La Liga, it’s easier these days just to see the Premiership as three separate competitions.
1) The title race: fought over by Man U, Chelsea and Man City
2) The European race: Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool, Everton with occasionally Villa involved
3) The survival race: everyone else
The odd time you might get a team disrupting that pattern, like Newcastle this season but in the long run, teams only change positions through a massive injection of cash, in the table above Man City and Arsenal have swapped places compared to 5 years back.
La Liga is another example of where all this is headed. From 1995-2005 it was quite an exciting league to watch. Now, well I went to watch Valencia clinch third place last night and we did but we’re a massive 29 points behind Barca in second with absolutely no hope of mounting a serious challenge for the next few years while we restore our financial health.
The TV deal here is even more corrupt, with Barca and Real getting 140 million each out of 607 million euro available. Valencia and Atletico Madrid get 42 million each, nearly 100 million less, then it tapers off down to the smallest clubs who get a miserable 12 million. The main competition is for third, though we’ve won that comfortably the last three seasons, with the Champions league cash windfall giving us a big advantage over all the other also rans.
Someone mentioned Irish football. Locally Linfield fans will probably be supporting Chelsea in the champs league final, which is ironic. If Chelsea win, Linfield start in the first qualifying round, with a trip to the footballing powers of San Marino, Andorra or Luxembourg. A Bayern win and Linfield get a bye to the second qualifying round.
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Comment on de Brun resigns as MEP
on 5 May 2012 at 1:57 pm
“Val, the sub list would be submitted before the election, sometimes the no. 2 will bomb at the polls, with the electorate being a better judge than the party!”
The problem with this and other arguments against subs lists is that the situation applies equally to co-option. There’s nothing at all to stop the party co-opting a failed candidate or one from a different part of the constituency. The main difference is that at least in the case of subs lists, the public has had the chance to approve or disapprove.
Also no one has dealt with my point about independent candidates. What if one is elected and then dies? Since they don’t have a party leader or party structure then surely there has to be a by-election? But as we all agree, by-elections are unsatisfactory under STV. So why is it okay to discriminate against independent candidates and their supporters when a perfectly valid alternative method, subs lists, exists which doesn’t differentiate between the two?
“I’ve commented in the past that nomination by the party leader to fill the vacancy is perfectly satisfactory from a democratic point of view.”
There I’d have to completely disagree, I honestly can’t think of anything less democratic than having people appointed to a legislature AFTER a democratic election by a party leader. Especially when in many cases they
weren’t even on a ballot paper and maybe (like Sinn Fein’s recently co-opted MLA Chris Hazzard) have never even stood for election before.
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Comment on de Brun resigns as MEP
on 4 May 2012 at 2:37 pm
Drumlin, I’m confused. You say…
“the Co-optee is often a former candidate who had a good but insufficent vote the time before.”
and then go on to add
“I strongly disapprove of the sub-list idea, as it favours “failed candidates”, the very people the voters rejected,”
What is a co-optee who had “an insufficient vote the time before” if not “a failed candidate who the voters rejected”?! I really don’t see the distinction!
Also if the subs are on a list at election time, then they have been approved as a stand in.
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“The trouble with having a list of substitutes is that it then acknowledges that voters are voting for a party rather than the indivdual.”
Not at all since independent candidates will also have a list of subs.
Anyway, what is co-option by the party of the departed individual other than a belief that voters are voting for a party? The only difference is that with a list of subs, the voters have approved the stand in. With selection by a political party, they haven’t.
Independent/non party candidates would also benefit. What happens at the moment if an independent is elected then dies/has to retire? A by-election then has to take place surely, with all the problems noted above doesn’t it?
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Comment on de Brun resigns as MEP
on 4 May 2012 at 12:41 am
Co-option is a disgrace. It effectively means that some members of a legislature are chosen after the election by political parties without being given any democratic mandate at all. Surely it’s much more democratic to have a list of subs to fill vacancies as that way there’s been some kind of democratic approval of representatives?
It’s hard to think of any other country in the world where representatives are selected by a political party, post-election.
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Comment on Boundary Review: Belfast SE, North Down and Strangford…
on 7 October 2011 at 10:47 pm
Mallusk ward has an electorate of 5105 and that makes it the second largest ward in the whole of Northern Ireland out of nearly 600 wards. Its electorate in the mid 1990s was 2000. Why has it grown? Well not because farmers been havin babies but because people have moved there, mostly from North Belfast.
I agree with you about North Belfast past the Sandyknowes roundabout but you need to remember that 90% of Mallusk’s voters live in urban Newtownabbey and the number of voters past the roundabout in Mallusk ward isn’t more than a few hundred. The majority live in Hyde Park and the areas west of the Hightown Road (which is the ward boundary.) Sticking those urban ex North Belfast voters in South Antrim isn’t the best solution.
Incidentally I notice from the boundary commission site that public hearings are to take place next week in Belfast on Monday in the Ramada hotel and then in the Silverbirch Hotel on the 19th October and on the 24th in the Tullyglass Hotel in Ballymena. I’m a bit surprised and disappointed that the commission has scheduled the hearings so soon when the timeline for written representations hasn’t yet expired.
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Comment on Boundary Review: Belfast SE, North Down and Strangford…
on 4 October 2011 at 11:50 pm
Yes I’ve moved it to the north because that makes more sense, that way you basically keep each quarter of Belfast together. West recognisably survives and respecting existing ties is one of the rules they have to work under. South also stays intact and basically gets merged with East, a better solution than having a boundary weaving arbitrarily through the south.
Also, I haven’t said all of Newtownabbey, I’ve said most of urban Newtownabbey. Add Hawthorne, Ballyduff, Carnmoney, Mossley, Burnthill and Mallusk to North Belfast. Those are all North Belfast suburbs and their residents are most likely to work in Belfast, not Antrim Town. Mallusk does have rural bits but so does Legoneil and Mallusk also has a lot of industrial estates which provide work for North Belfast residents.
As for going with the Boundary Commission’s proposals and calling them north, west and east, they tried that in 1995 and it was thrown out at a local enquiry.
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Comment on Boundary Review: Belfast SE, North Down and Strangford…
on 4 October 2011 at 10:16 pm
Quite a few things here.
Firstly since the focus of Strangford is no longer the Lough, the name should be changed to Mid Down.
Secondly splitting Braniel is just bizarre. Kepp them both in one seat.
Thirdly (with due credit to Nicholas Whyte who suggested it) there’s a case for splitting Loughries ward. Currently it makes an odd salient into North Down and it might be better just to put the rural bits into North Down and the urban bits where 90% of the electorate live stay in Mid Down/Strangford.
Overall I’d go for a totall different solution anyway. Belfast divides neatly into four quadrants and Belfast people speak of North, South, East and West Belfast, so what’s with this South East Belfast rubbish? Does anyone who lives in Stormont, Belmont or Botanic really say that they live in South East Belfast? I’d keep the quadrants largely intact and base constituencies on them.
The 5 Ballyclare wards would go to East Antrim and the rest of urban Newtownabbey now in South Antrim would go to North Belfast instead. Those areas by and large look to Belfast, not to Antrim.
West stays as a constituency and gains Crumlin, Woodvale, Finaghy and Musgrave as well as the rest if Derriaghy.
The rest of Belfast city would form a “South and East Belfast” seat, probably together with Cregagh, Downshire, Wynchurch and Lisnasharragh.
All that makes for seats of West Belfast and South&East Belfast, much more identifiable for residents than any artifical SE/SW Belfast seats.
Carryduff would go back to Lagan Valley, where it was from 1983-1996 and the rest of Castlereagh and Ards would form a Mid Down seat along with Saintfield, Derryboy and Killyleagh.
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Comment on The latest Boundary Commission News..
on 13 September 2011 at 9:40 am
Those are not too far away from the proposed boundaries I posted on here months back. I’d expect some tinkering with the boundaries and the names but overall, with the exception of 1995, the initial proposals are generally pretty close to the final proposals.
On the names Mid Ulster would seem better than Mid Tyrone and it’s questionable if you can call a seat North Antrim when its largest town is Coleraine. Causeway Coast or Coleraine and North Antrim would seem more likely to me. There’s a number of other things round the edges e.g. why, yet again, try to move Loughbrickland out of Upper Bann when they proposed that in 1995 and 2003 and both times it was rejected at local enquiries. Same with Aghagallon, especially when Upper Bann and South Down don’t need any changes.
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Comment on Shamrock Rovers hit the jackpot and get through to the European group stages
on 26 August 2011 at 3:41 pm
“Can a club switch a match like that? I thought each club had to register an approved home ground in order to get a UEFA licence.”
Quite easily, when Ventspils got through a couple of years ago their own ground only held 4,000 so matches got played in Riga instead (10,000 capacity.) BATE Borisov have pretty much the same situation.
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Comment on Shamrock Rovers hit the jackpot and get through to the European group stages
on 26 August 2011 at 1:06 pm
Scotland has really fallen down the rankings. Until this season they got an automatic place in the champs league, with the runners up (the other Old Firm team basically) having to beat two teams to get there. As of next season, the Scots champs will have to beat three teams to reach the champs league group stages with the runners up now in the Europa league, a very poor substitute.
While Shamrock have done well, there are other teams in a worse financial situation that have got there, Ventspils in 2009-2010 being one example, but such teams will be whipping boys for Europe’s b-list sides and the financial rewards in the Europa league really aren’t that great. Long term, they have zero chance of making any impact in such competitions due to the money factor.
Money is really ruining football, look at Spain’s La Liga. In 2006 it was one of the most competitive leagues in Europe with 5 teams having won it in the previous 10 seasons. Now it’s degenerated to a Scots Premier style farce, everyone knows Barca will win it, with only Real Madrid in touching distance and the rest a good 18-20 points behind scrapping for the champs league place. The English Premier the same. Much as I hate Man Utd, they’ve at least got where they are through developing and nurturing talent, a great manager, clever marketing and success on the pitch. The only teams that will challenge them are Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool and only because all those teams have rich foreign sugar daddies. Any team who gets close to challenging the upper echelon will have their top players snapped up (cf Valencia with Villa, Silva and Mata or Arsenal with Nasri and Fabrecas) losing competitiveness in the process.
It’s sad and a bit boring that the only teams in with a chance of winning something are those with insane amounts of money to throw at anything that moves, and even when they make bad buys (Fernando Torres) they still have the cash to splash out.
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