Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) – Page 54 – Slugger O'Toole

Catching up with Paddy Meehan (Socialist Party)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 21, 2011, 12:00 pm

| Readers 127

The Socialist Party are standing on a Fight the Cuts agenda. With local government and Assembly candidates in Belfast and Enniskillen they’re in competition with a whole clatter of small left wing parties. Paddy Meehan is their South Belfast candidate for the Assembly, and is also standing in Laganbank for a seat on Belfast City Council. I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and asked what the Socialist Party was offering voters. We want to give the opportunity …

SDLP launch manifesto … flags, symbols, and upping the ante on unification

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 21, 2011, 9:05 am

| Readers 79

It was the SDLP’s turn on Wednesday to launch their manifesto. … make no mistake, the SDLP, an Irish Nationalist Party, desperately wants a better Northern Ireland. We want to see a North which is attractive to business: a North that takes care of its sick and gives dignity and respect to its older citizens. A North which is safe and a great place to work and to raise a family. It was back to their campaign’s central message of …

Bit of a cock up on the party logo front #lagv11

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 20, 2011, 9:42 pm

| Readers 52

When postal ballots started dropping through Lagan Valley letterboxes today, it was discovered that the UUP’s logo has been placed beside the DUP candidate Brenda Hale. Cue a rapid reprint of ballot papers and reissuing of postal ballots in Lagan Valley. An Electoral Office for Northern Ireland statement said: A printing error has been identified on the Assembly Election postal ballot papers delivered to electors in the Lagan Valley constituency. AV Referendum and Local Government ballot papers are unaffected. The …

Alliance Party launch huge manifesto

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 20, 2011, 12:45 am

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David Ford 2011 campaign launch speech wordle - wordle.net

The Alliance Party manifesto should come with a health warning. Dropping it on your toe could cause serious injury. On Monday, the DUP’s director of elections Simon Hamilton described his party’s spiral bound book of promises as “probably one of the most detailed and most comprehensive manifestos that any party will do in this election or indeed any party in any election in Northern Ireland’s history will have put forward”. A short-lived claim, as the very next day the Alliance …

Green Party manifesto launch – Economy for People and Planet

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 19, 2011, 11:55 pm

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Natty pale green ties were out in force as the Green Party launched their manifesto this morning. Steven Agnew opened by saying: Resources are stretched and we have to prioritise spending on areas that meet a number of policy objectives. There is no sense in squandering money on projects that may be good economically but environmentally damaging. Equally we should not be pushing environmental policies that are not good for people. The Green Party benchmarks all its policies on whether …

POTD – BNP spray can out in South Belfast last night

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 19, 2011, 9:30 am

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Graffiti on gable wall off Donegal Road - S. Belfast Supports BNP Ann Cooper

Moochin’s away. But the spray can hasn’t been absent from the gable walls on Belfast’s Donegal Road. Last night a whole string of graffiti appeared on countless walls in support of the BNP and its East Belfast candidate Ann Cooper. Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast)Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media …

DUP and Sinn Féin manifesto launches

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 19, 2011, 12:21 am

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Sinn Fein Gerry Adams shadow at 2011 manifesto launch

Two contrasting manifesto launches this morning. With light flooding in through the Waterfront windows, the DUP launched their ring-bound (landscape) manifesto. The DUP filmed the launch and have uploaded it to Youtube. Peter Robinson declared: We delivered on well over 90% of the commitments in our 2007 Assembly manifesto. Interviewed at the end of March, Peter Robinson explained that while “the average citizen will not read the manifesto but it is a guide for the party itself. It’s the party …

Catching up with éirígí’s John McCusker – starting “a community fight back”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 16, 2011, 10:26 pm

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éirígí won’t be everyone’s cup of tea on Slugger – but then name one political party that is. And in the spirit of exploring the smaller parties standing in the Assembly and local government elections, éirígí replied to the email that a number of other parties received but ignored. I spoke to John McCusker at length a week or so ago. He’s éirígí’s West Belfast chairman and standing as the party’s candidate in Lower Falls for Belfast City Council in …

UUP Manifesto Launch and a chat with Basil McCrea about Lagan Valley

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 15, 2011, 8:30 pm

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It was the turn of the Ulster Unionist Party this morning to launch their manifesto. The Assembly candidates huddled in around party leader Tom Elliott as he spoke in Belfast’s Linen Hall Library. The glossy manifesto booklet was available, along with an us-versus-them pamphlet outlining 40 DUP Failures 40 Ulster Unionist Achievements Notably, all the sentences describing DUP “failures” started with the words “Sinn Fein/DUP”. All part of Tom Elliott’s message about reforming and improving “the current devolved government [that] …

Alliance PEB preview

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 13, 2011, 3:00 pm

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Alliance have avoided producing a traditional Political Election Broadcast and instead created something novel and modern. No voxpops. No politicians walking towards the camera struggling to remember their lines. No perfect families sitting in showhouse sets. It would be interesting to see the viewing figures for PEBs. Do people stick with them, or do they reach for the remote and channel-surf as they might do during the normal interstitials? It’s a shame that given the effort and thought that went …

“I would go so far as to say that Ronan Kerr voted for Sinn Fein”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 12, 2011, 9:10 am

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Jude Collins in conversation with Martin McGuinness and Mary-Lou McDonald

Is it right to claim a dead man’s vote? About 120 people gathered in the Wellington Park Hotel in South Belfast to hear Martin McGuinness and Mary-Lou McDonald in conversation with Jude Collins. Part of a series of town hall events that Sinn Fein promise to hold each year. They spoke about highlights from the political careers, the lack of backstabbing in the party given that everyone earns the same wage, and how to convince “dissidents” (a term that Martin …

TUV launch campaign and manifesto seeking to be a catalyst for change in the Assembly

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 12, 2011, 7:25 am

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TUV launch

On Monday morning, the TUV held their campaign launch for May’s Assembly and local government elections. They’re running 12 candidates across 11 (of the 18) constituencies, and 41 council candidates across 19 (out of the 26) councils. In the press conference, Jim Allister apologised to voters in constituencies in which they were not able to offer a TUV candidate. He explained that as a party with no public funding (ie, no Assembly, Westminster or European elected representatives), they had to …

Charting the Assembly election candidates

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 8, 2011, 11:24 pm

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Number of parties standing in each constituency along with number of independents in 2011 Assembly election

Following on the nominations announcement, we now know that Belfast East will have 17 candidates listed on its long ballot paper. Belfast South and Belfast West are next largest with 14 candidates each. South Antrim will have the shortest ballot papers with only 10 candidates listed. Just five constituencies have all six “sitting” MLAs standing again for re-election – Belfast North/South/West, Newry and Armagh, and South Antrim. Four constituencies have just four of their existing MLAs fighting to be elected. …

SDLP campaign launch: uniting people and building prosperity … and a tweet-up

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 7, 2011, 1:15 pm

| Readers 71

Having postponed from earlier in the week, Margaret Ritchie this morning corralled the SDLP’s Assembly candidates together with many of the younger council candidates in Belfast’s Hilton Hotel to launch their election campaigns. Each party expends a lot of effort and expense organising these launch events … all for twenty or so reporters (and the occasional blogger) to turn up and provide a few minutes or inches of coverage. That aside, the SDLP’s leader called it a “marvellous opportunity”. The …

Alliance: all (about leading) change

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 5, 2011, 1:00 pm

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Alliance leading change banner

Alliance launched their election campaign this morning but gave away little about the specific contents of their upcoming manifesto. The paper copy of David Ford’s speech this morning was titled: “Ford launches Alliance campaign saying the party is leading change”. Certainly it seemed like the party leader was embarking on a record breaking attempt to overuse the word change. If his short speech was passed through Wordle, the word “change” would overshadow all other content. [Ed – by popular demand, …

Suzanne Breen’s take on destabilisation, denunciation and condemnation

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 4, 2011, 5:00 pm

| Readers 41

This morning’s BBC NI news website has a summary of how the editorials in local newspapers reacted to the murder of PSNI Constable Ronan Kerr on Saturday. On the way out of Belfast International Airport this morning, I picked up a free copy of the Irish Daily Mail which contained a comment piece by Suzanne Breen. [Update – Nevin’s turned up the original article on Nuzhound. Thanks.] Headlined “Destabilising any normality in the North is the aim” Breen offered her …

“I think there has been a desire not to delve into anything that upsets the current status quo in Northern Ireland”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 1, 2011, 12:30 pm

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Head shot of Suzanne Breen and Malachi O'Doherty

Since Malachi O’Doherty took over as the BBC Louis MacNeice Writer of Residence at Queen’s University, he’s embarked on what sometimes seems like a one-man festival of events. Fortnightly meetings of Blog Standard (a kind of Bloggers Anonymous), a book group, interviewing BBC correspondents and presenters as well as local political journalists. This afternoon, it was the timely turn of Robert Peston. But last week, Malachi cosied up to Suzanne Breen, who until its recent demise was the Northern editor …

I don’t agree with [insert party name] … but that’s what politics is about

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 29, 2011, 11:30 am

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Still image grab from Peter Robinson talking before DUP's 2011 Assembly Election launch

Ignore my first utterance in the embedded video. The DUP had assembled their 44 Assembly candidates in Ormeau Baths Gallery to launch their election campaign. Their manifesto won’t appear for another fortnight. I asked Peter Robinson about how their performance in delivering their 2007 manifesto and the ongoing need to produce them. Ormeau Baths’ last exhibition just finished at the weekend. But there was no sign of “Expecting the Terror” at this morning’s launch. (The “Terror” in question was “HMS …

Looking back at the DUP’s 2007 Manifesto

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 29, 2011, 9:00 am

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Stormont’s political structures don’t lend themselves to parties making too many promises in their election manifestos. And so reading through the DUP’s 2007 Assembly manifesto, could have been titled Playing it Safe rather than Getting it Right. This morning the DUP will launch their latest campaign manifesto in the run up to May’s Assembly elections, but I wanted to take a look back to see how their performance matched their promises in 2007. Unionism needs a strong DUP. The safeguards …

Educational underachievement and disadvantaged PUL males

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 27, 2011, 11:28 pm

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One subject which didn’t get raised on Slugger last week was the publication of the report into educational underachievement and disadvantaged protestant males by Dawn Purvis and her independent working group. Protestant educational underachievement has been a much talked about situation over the years: generational unemployment, last of aspiration, lack of positive role models on top of the Troubles legacy, poverty, deprivation and family breakdown. Statistics bounce around the media about the low number of boys on the Shankill Road …