Philip McGuinness – Slugger O'Toole

What might the Assembly look like in 2030 and 2040?

Philip McGuinness on February 17, 2023, 7:00 am | Readers 2956

person holding clear glass glass

Unionism is facing a huge electoral challenge. Unionist political ineptitude since 2016 has been honed to a fine art: RHI, crocodiles, rejection of Teresa May’s backstop, and cosying up to Boris have all got them nowhere fast. The result has been to convert many pro-union voters to anti-unionist-party voters, as witnessed by the rise of Alliance. And DUP politicians have essentially ignored Peter Robinson’s 2012 exhortation that unionism must reach out to Catholic voters. Demographic decline makes such a genuine …

A PM (Prime Mediator), not FM-DFM, for NI

Philip McGuinness on January 9, 2023, 7:00 am | Readers 4301

woman wearing gray jacket

Stormont is dysfunctional. The Belfast Good Friday Agreement (BGFA) was supposed to bring people together in a new era of tolerance and power-sharing. Instead, party elites have sporadically cobbled together a stuttering non-war dispensation that has rolled out mediocre governance, leaving health, RHI, education and other services as beacon exemplars of how not to run a polity. Peace dividend it is not. Good governmental efficiency it is not. There must be a better way. The BGFA is predicated upon the …

Recognising Ulster-British Identity in a United Ireland: a Federation of Ulster-British Communities (FUBC).

Philip McGuinness on August 18, 2022, 7:00 am | Readers 5630

The Belfast Good Friday Agreement recognises that: “… it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of …

Unionism Continuing to Slide: the 2022 Assembly Election and Longer Electoral Trends…

Philip McGuinness on May 18, 2022, 7:27 am | Readers 5921

A serene gradient from red to smoky blue-gray seems to mask a chaotic scene underneath, expressing a wide range of emotion. Looking like a NASA closeup of Jupiter, this image reveals sediment in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.

After the 1997 Westminster election, unionists held 13/18 Westminster MPs, 61/110 1996 Forum seats, and were about 10% ahead of nationalist bloc votes. Now they have 8/18 Westminster seats, 37/90 Assembly seats and were about 0.5% ahead of the nationalist bloc vote in the 2022 Assembly election. Unionism has become a minority in all election types and looks close to losing its vote-plurality status. There are always variations of turnout and tactical voting depending on the type and significance of …

How Might Differential Constituency Turnout Affect a NI Referendum?

Philip McGuinness on August 25, 2021, 8:22 am | Readers 2570

Recently I speculated on how differential turnout could impact on any future referendum on a United Ireland. Having done a bit of number-crunching since then on Assembly election results since the seventies, focusing on the post-GFA elections in particular, the answer seems to be: six years. Differential constituency turnout means that the turnout varies between constituencies. Stating the bleedin’ obvious, I know, but there seems to be a political edge to it in NI. Border (mostly nationalist) constituencies have greater …

What if NI Voted by County? Analysing the 2019 Local Election Results…

Philip McGuinness on July 27, 2021, 8:09 am | Readers 6981

It would be interesting to compare current voting patterns with those of 1921 when NI came into being. The exact location of Northern Ireland’s land border – once Thomas Agar-Robartes, MP, let the partition cat out of the Home-Rule bag in 1912 – was always going to be by county, given the Westminster constituency boundaries and census returns at the time. Today’s Westminster, Stormont and local government constituency/electoral area boundaries cross the six county boundaries more often than they did …

You Are Wanted: A New Preamble for The Irish Constitution…

Philip McGuinness on June 18, 2021, 11:31 am | Readers 2690

Reading David McCann’s Slugger article reporting on Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael Ard Fheis speech that sets out his vision of what Irish unity could be, I was saddened to read a comment from the_swerve: “Fundamentally, people here want to feel wanted”. To the_swerve, I would say: you are wanted, all of you. There is a great desire among many southern Irish people to actualise their belief in the essential fraternity of sharing this island together. The vast majority of southern …

Northern Ireland at 100: Unionism failing; Nationalism stuck; Moderates thriving…

Philip McGuinness on April 27, 2021, 8:00 am | Readers 3944

One hundred years after Partition, Northern Ireland is still in existence. It would surely come as a big surprise to many who thronged the streets of Belfast on June 22nd 1921 – the date King George V opened the first NI Parliament in City Hall – that unionism is now a minority in Stormont. It would also surely come as a big surprise to many nationalists in 1972 that the state set up to guarantee unionist rule in north-east Ireland …

A Song for a Shared Island…

Philip McGuinness on July 28, 2020, 7:32 am | Readers 714

There are many conversations happening across the island about what a shared island might look like. Talking is vitally important but so, too, is singing. What might a shared island sound like? To be emotionally carried along by – and to sing along with – a beautiful song that appeals to the more noble, inclusive and generous parts of our common humanity is one of the greatest creative acts we can experience. Is there a song that encapsulates the desire …

Time to Reform First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) for Westminster Elections?

Philip McGuinness on June 30, 2020, 8:47 am | Readers 1465

In the 2019 Westminster general election in Northern Ireland, the 18 successful candidates gained 359,000 votes out of a valid poll of 799,034. This represents only 44.9% of the electorate. A clear majority of voters are not represented in Westminster. Unionist voters in border areas are not represented; nationalist voters from North Antrim to Upper Bann to Strangford are not represented. Twice as many Alliance voters are unrepresented as are represented. The DUP garnered 30.6% of the vote and won …

COVID-19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Dublin’s success will pose dilemmas for both SF and Unionists:

Philip McGuinness on May 5, 2020, 7:09 am | Readers 2207

Number-crunching the past few days’ COVID-19 statistics is bringing clearer evidence by the day that RoI seems to have definitively turned a corner in its struggle against this frightening adversary. If we define ‘peak covid’ as the date when a jurisdiction had its largest 7-day rolling average of new cases, we find that peak covid occurred on April 15th for the UK, April 18th for the RoI, and April 20th for NI. The graph shows the 7-day rolling averages since …

COVID-19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Four stories in the Republic:

Philip McGuinness on April 28, 2020, 7:22 am | Readers 8272

We are a small island, but the story of the COVID-19 pandemic is being written differently in each county. The four graphs added to COVIDWATCH show these differing narratives. Continuous data for Northern Ireland councils were not available (when this data is available it will be displayed). One of the graphs is shown above. Methodology: New cases can vary hugely within a couple of days. These huge undulations can hide underlying trends. A 7-day rolling average will allow to some …

COVID-19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Early clusters difficult to flatten:

Philip McGuinness on April 21, 2020, 12:39 pm | Readers 3075

The COVID-19 cases for April 20th have been used to draw two maps: one showing the rate of incidence of counties and councils relative to their jurisdictional average, and the other showing the rate of change over the April 15-20 period. The ‘rate of incidence’ map shows essentially the same pattern as did the earlier two maps (for April 9/10 and April 15). Once a county or council got off to a bad start with respect to the number of …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Cases Rates of Change by County and Council:

Philip McGuinness on April 16, 2020, 6:43 am | Readers 2008

The rate of increase of Covid19 cases on the island seems to be slowing down in the greater Dublin and Belfast metropolitan areas. However, Donegal and Derry & Strabane have had a large rate of increase, as have Monaghan and Roscommon. Also, commuter-belt counties around Dublin-Wicklow have also had increases greater than average. Dublin, Wicklow, Belfast, Lisburn & Castlereagh, Cavan, Westmeath, and Monaghan are the only counties or councils whose cases per head of the population is above their jurisdictional …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: The Geography of COVID19 in Ireland

Philip McGuinness on April 13, 2020, 6:35 am | Readers 15012

The map below displays how your county or council is doing in terms of COVID19 cases, relative to the jurisdictional average for COVID19 cases. The approach taken is to work out a county’s /council’s share of its jurisdictional population, and then work out its share of jurisdictional Covid19 cases, then divide this ‘case’ percentage by the population percentage. That will tell us whether the county/council is above or below average. <br> The map shows how the greater Dublin and Belfast …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Both Irelands possibly plateauing for new cases; NI death rate less bad than RoI’s; Global situation: disimprovement:

Philip McGuinness on April 9, 2020, 6:39 am | Readers 3914

The deaths per million curves for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland continue to flatten. New cases appear to have stabilised somewhat.The Republic of Ireland has 71.96% of the island’s population, but 75.58% of the COVID19-related deaths. This divergence has increased in recent days. Is the better performance of the North regarding COVID19-related deaths a function of having the NHS rather than the two-tier system in the South? Simon Coveney seemed to be essentially accepting this when he stated …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: An Improving Picture in Ireland and the World; Not So Good in Great Britain and USA:

Philip McGuinness on April 6, 2020, 7:47 am | Readers 61223

The latest figures show that, despite the divergent public health approach of the UK compared to the WHO recommendations, the Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland COVID19 death rates for April 5th are very similar. Northern Ireland has 28.04% of the island’s population, and it has 28.51% of the island’s COVID19-related deaths. Moreover, Northern Ireland’s ‘deaths per million of the population’ and ‘cumulative cases per million of the population’ curves are flattening at a rate similar to the South. And …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Good News Down South; Bad News Up North

Philip McGuinness on March 30, 2020, 8:51 am | Readers 3383

Northern Ireland: Deaths per million curve steepens. New cases getting closer to the Southern new cases. Total cases appears to be doubling roughly every 4 days now. Republic of Ireland: New cases (200) only very slightly above new cases 10 days ago (190). New cases drop: the lowest number of new cases for six days. None of the other countries on these graphs have had a 10-day ‘stasis’ and then returned to steepening behaviour. Could we be on a 6-day …

COVID19 Spread In Both Irelands, the UK and Selected Countries: Updated Daily Graphs

Philip McGuinness on March 28, 2020, 2:18 pm | Readers 3447

I am collecting the daily statistics for cases and deaths due to COVID19 on a daily basis for both Irish jurisdictions, the UK, the USA, China, South Korea and Italy. Updated graphs can be seen at http://mysql02.comp.dkit.ie/mcguinnp/covid19/. Graphs show “Deaths per million of the population” (Northern Ireland doing worryingly badly in this regard; Republic of Ireland approaching the Italy curve); “New cases per day” (lack of testing in NI resulting in low figures); “Cumulative cases per million of the population” …