Michael Hehir

Grim reading this morning for the leaders of the three largest Executive parties, as the Belfast Telegraph reports the new LucidTalk poll. This won’t have come as much of a surprise. The DUP has been polling badly for the last two years. On the other hand, it had also done so before the last Assembly election but still managed to retrieve some lost ground – as the gravitational pull of being the unionist champion in the contest for First Minister …

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“Do you believe the DUP is being fully honest about what it knew in relation to Jeffrey Donaldson’s double life?” That is the question voters were asked by LucidTalk in their latest poll for the Belfast Telegraph. The BT is holding over the results on voting intentions for another day or two.  There can be little doubt that, after reading today’s responses, the DUP leadership’s anxiety levels will be twisted up another few notches as they are forced to wait. …

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A LucidTalk poll will deliver the initial public verdict on the DUP since the jury had their own say on Jeffrey Donaldson. The results are due in the Belfast Telegraph at the end of next week. Meanwhile the constant drip of Donaldson related stories continues. Sam McBride was mining a fresh seam in the BT at the weekend asking ‘Where did Jeffrey Donaldson’s fortune go?’ From the moment of Donaldson’s conviction, the DUP has failed to get ahead of the …

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First up, a confession. Strictly speaking this was not an Irish Unity poll, it was conducted on behalf of the European Movement Ireland as one of an annual series on Irish attitudes towards the EU and the policy choices it faces. But it contained a question on voting intentions in a referendum on Irish Unity. You can download the full report from https://www.europeanmovement.ie/em-ireland-eu-poll/ Second confession. Brian asked me if I would be interested in writing about it, and at first …

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By this time next year the candidates for 90 Assembly and 462 Council seats will have been nominated, posters will be up and the first leaflets on their way. This will be the first time since 2011 when both elections will be held on the same day. But when you look at the results for this month’s LucidTalk poll in the BelTel you could be forgiven for thinking that you were back in 2021. For most parties the picture today …

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We are still almost a year and a half away from the Assembly and Council elections, but the parties will already be seriously considering how best to position themselves in the eyes of the voters. Opinion polls will play a major part in their considerations. A good score means a party is on the right track to maximise its vote. While a bad one will leave it asking what, or who, has to change. The problem for the parties is …

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The Belfast Telegraph reported on Saturday that the public was not much impressed with the performance of the Assembly and Executive over the two years since its restoration. In a LucidTalk poll taken earlier this month almost half (45%) said that they had made no impact on life in Northern Ireland, while most of the rest were almost equally divided between those who thought they had had a positive impact (27%) and the 26% who felt they had made life …

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The latest occasional poll from Liverpool University’s Institute of Irish Studies has been picked up by the Belfast Telegraph. It shows a pattern of party support similar to recent LucidTalk polls. All the Executive parties are shown losing ground, apart from the UUP, with the TUV and Greens being the main beneficiaries. It differs from LucidTalk by not showing growth for the SDLP. It should be noted that while the performance of Liverpool’s polling before the last Assembly elections suffered …

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Back in June, when it was revealed that Reform UK were actively considering the possibility of setting up branches in Northern Ireland in order to contest elections, many scoffed. On Monday the Belfast Telegraph revealed the results of a LucidTalk poll question which for the first time provides data on the potential support for Reform candidates. It makes sobering reading for the leadership of the three main unionist parties. Now before looking at the figures, and their implications, there is …

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For three of the four Executive parties the misery continues – with the UUP the only one escaping the consequence of belonging to an Executive which gives its members no power to deliver but only to obstruct. The structures were designed to force the parties to pull together instead they are hanging apart. The last LT poll before the restoration of the Executive gave its current four members a 83%. This is the story since: Sinn Féin is down 6% …

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Danny Kruger MP’s defection from the Conservatives to Reform was certainly a surprise. If Reform continued to lead the opinion polls and, much more importantly, to outperform the Tories in elections for councils, mayors and Scottish, Welsh and London assemblies, for the next two years then such defections would be expected. While a handful of former Conservative MP’s had already made the move, I had thought that sitting Conservative MP’s would wait another couple of years before taking any irrevocable …

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The combined support for the four Executive parties continues to slip. It is now 13% lower than when the Executive was restored in February last year, according to the new LucidTalk poll in today’s Belfast Telegraph. Only the UUP has escaped the Executive curse, with the DUP down 7% since the restoration, Sinn Féin 5% and Alliance 2%. If this trend continues there will be political consequences. The other big headline is the steady advance of the TUV, up another …

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Forget the notion that Reform UK is merely “gauging interest” for organising in Northern Ireland. The Belfast Telegraph quotes a Reform officer as saying, “we’re simply trying to identify individuals who may be interested in… helping set up interim branches, co-ordinating local activity, being a local point of contact.” What this actually means is (a) in principle, the decision to organise in Northern Ireland has already been taken, and (b) the intention is that this should be a properly rooted …

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All three Executive parties took a hit in the latest Lucid Talk poll in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph. For Sinn Féin it will be concerning, but not yet alarming. But for the DUP it could prompt some to wonder if a little panic might not be justified. Adding the votes for the DUP and TUV together shows no essential change since the last Assembly election. What is clearly changing is how the parties share out those voters. The DUP has dropped …

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It is unusual for NI to have a period of more than two years between elections. It has only happened twice before in the last 50 years. With last year’s Westminster election receding rapidly into the background, the next planned elections will not take place until May 2027. And they will also be unusual, with the Assembly and Council elections due at the same time, which only happens once every 20 years. A party that does well in those elections …

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Perhaps you can spare a little sympathy for the poor soul who has to bring you the results of the new opinion poll from LucidTalk, straight after most US polls failed to pick up the full extent of support for Donald Trump. Or perhaps you feel that anyone still treating polls seriously deserves all the embarrassment coming their way. (Although you can’t quite resist checking out the results anyway.) In a way the US experience is a healthy lesson in …

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In a fascinating article in Irish Political Studies, Jon Tonge and Thomas Loughran draw on survey evidence to examine the attitudes of those who do not identify as nationalists or unionists, whom Tonge and Loughran dub the “neithers”. It is frequently noted that this group would hold the “casting vote” in any future constitutional referendum. Beyond unionism and nationalism: do the ‘neithers’ want a border poll and a United Ireland? (tandfonline.com) Details on the survey’s methodology are given at the …

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Today’s LucidTalk poll in the Belfast Telegraph certainly makes interesting reading. Or if you are Gavin Robinson horrifying reading. It says he has lost a quarter of the party’s voters since taking the DUP leadership. How worried should he be? Before we answer that question let’s look at the poll in detail. Once again Sinn Féin are the leading party with a support level which has been highly consistent over the last two years. At an Assembly election this would …

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A new LucidTalk poll is due this weekend. Before it is published I would like to look at what clues the Westminster election might hold for us on the status of the parties nearly half way to the next Assembly election. Then I take a look at how well the pollsters did in that election. Tactical voting makes a real mess of any attempt to project a full notional Assembly result from the Westminster results. But that does not mean …

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