Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

Over the cliff edge – what would happen if exports to the EU were subject to tariffs

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 6, 2017, 5:20 pm

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The continuing deterioration of relations between the British Government and the European Union has led to a renewed focus on the possibility of a hard Brexit, where all trade between the UK and the European Union would be subject to tariffs in line with WTO rules. Previously, I had written about how Northern Ireland would bear a disproportionate cost of a hard Brexit, due to cross-border exports of dairy playing a substantial segment of the local economy. Under WTO rules, …

Labour facing real risk of wipeout as their polling slump continues

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on April 24, 2017, 8:08 pm

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The past days have seen a number of opinion polls released ahead of June’s General Election, and they continue to make grim reading for the Labour Party. The ComRes/Sunday Mirror poll gave the Conservatives a 50% share, double that of Labour on 25%. The last fortnight has continued to give Tories a vote share in the high forties, whilst Labour have been languishing far behind on the low to mid twenties. Were these results to be replicated in the election …

The problem with the Lib Dems’ anti-Brexit strategy

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on April 23, 2017, 10:51 am

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The snap General Election called for June 2017 would appear to be a significant opportunity for the Liberal Democrats. In contrast with Labour’s mixed messages on Brexit, the Lib Dems are offering a much clearer stance on Brexit, positioning themselves as the party who will stop a hard Brexit and keep the UK in the single market. Could this year’s election provide an opportunity for the Lib Dems to become the party to speak for the 48% of the UK …

If #AE17 had been fought on the proposed new electoral boundaries

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 13, 2017, 11:31 pm

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Unless there is a snap Assembly or Westminster election called within the next 18 months, this month’s Assembly Election will be the last Northern Ireland election to be fought under the existing 18 constituency map. Under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act of 2011, the number of Westminster constituencies will fall from 650 to 600, and as a result of this there will be a reduction in the number of Northern Ireland constituencies by one, from 18 to 17. …

Constitutional recoupling – the rise in the Nationalist vote in context

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 9, 2017, 10:59 pm

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The increase in the Nationalist vote at last week’s Assembly Election came as a surprise to many commentators. However, it is worth bearing in mind that support for the SDLP and Sinn Féin amongst the Catholic population of Northern Ireland was at a historic low in 2016, and therefore the increase in the Nationalist vote was starting from a low base. After last year’s Assembly election, I wrote about how the support for the SDLP and Sinn Féin amongst Northern …

It’s Groundhog Day! Looking ahead to a potential second 2017 Assembly Election

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 6, 2017, 12:43 am

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The clock is ticking. Following the seismic results of last Thursday’s Northern Ireland Assembly elections, the rules state that the local parties have three weeks to form a government before the people of Northern Ireland are asked to go to the polls for the fourth time in a year. Previously, I had discussed the forecast model that I had created for the election, based on the results from 2016 and polling published by Lucid Talk. Overall, the accuracy of the …

Running to stand still – how the move from six seats to five seats could hurt the UUP much more than the DUP

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 16, 2017, 9:55 am

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Previously, I looked at what might be expected from next month’s Assembly election if the current polling, showing a fall in support for the DUP with a corresponding rise in support for the Alliance Party and the UUP, is indicative of public support. The forecast model anticipated that the UUP could expect to receive 14 seats under such a scenario, which would be a respectable result given that they won 16 out of 108 seats in the previous mandate. However, …

Forecasting the 2017 Assembly Election

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 12, 2017, 12:21 pm

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The snap Assembly election called for the 2nd of March 2017 will be the first to return 5 MLAs from each constituency, reducing the total number of MLAs from 108 to 90. This, combined with indications of a fall in support for the DUP and a rise in support for the Green Party and People Before Profit, makes this year’s election less predictable than is usually the case for Northern Ireland elections. I have built a forecast model in an …

Dublin Airport – Northern Ireland’s gateway to the world

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 1, 2017, 10:50 pm

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Yesterday’s announcement that Brussels Airlines are withdrawing their route from Belfast City Airport to Brussels is the latest in a series of setbacks for Northern Ireland’s aviation sector, following the controversy surrounding the termination of United Airlines’ route from Belfast International to Newark. The habit of throwing government funds at airlines to coax them into flying to Northern Ireland, only for them to pack their bags and leave when the subsidies run out, has become routine. Serious questions must be …

UK exports have boomed since the Brexit referendum, but mostly to the EU

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on December 15, 2016, 9:18 am

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In the immediate aftermath of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union on the 23rd of June 2016, the pound fell sharply against other major currencies. At the time of writing, £1 will buy €1.19 or 1.25 US dollars, down 8.5% and 14.7% respectively $1.47 and €1.30 on the eve of the referendum. It has been claimed by various sources that a fall in the pound, whilst obviously bad news for importers and holidaymakers, will prove a …

Fake news didn’t make Trump president – there is just as much junk on the left as the right

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on December 2, 2016, 1:38 pm

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As the world reacts to the news that Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States, the role of social media in general and Facebook in particular has come under close scrutiny for the role it plays in disseminating news and opinion. Social media is used as a news source by 62% of US adults, and Facebook is by far the most widely used social network, used by over two thirds of the adult population. From …

Hard Brexit, trade, and the border

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on October 2, 2016, 8:16 pm

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Today’s announcement by the Prime Minister Theresa May that Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon will be triggered in March 2017 has brought into sharp focus the potential impact that a hard Brexit could have on the Northern Ireland economy. Should the UK leave the European Union without any form of free trade deal with the EU, then trade across the Irish border could be subject to tariffs in line with World Trade Organization rules. A hard border between …

Why we need more sixth century historians

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 5, 2016, 11:36 am

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“All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” – Battlestar Galactica Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, Patrick Johnston, caused a furore this week with his comments claiming that “society does not need a 21-year-old that’s a sixth century historian”. Instead, he opined that “It needs a 21-year-old who really understands how to analyse things, understands the tenets of leadership and contributing to society, who is a thinker and someone who has the potential to help society drive …

Constitutional uncoupling, or the decline in support for Nationalist parties amongst the Catholic community of Northern Ireland

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 12, 2016, 9:00 pm

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Unmistakeably one of the main stories of the 2016 Assembly election has been the sharp drop in the share of the vote of Sinn Féin and the SDLP, which has fallen 3.6% since the 2015 General Election and 5.6% from the 41.2% combined share that they polled at the previous Assembly election in 2011. This is certainly a very disappointing result for those in favour of Irish unity, especially amongst those who had hoped that the centenary of the Easter …

Limerick tops global property price affordability index for the second year in a row

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on January 25, 2016, 11:37 pm

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The latest release of Demographia’s annual survey of house price affordability has created headlines for highlighting how chronically unaffordable property is in Hong Kong. Median property prices in the territory were a staggering 19 times median household incomes in the third quarter of 2015, a new record in the twelve years that the survey has been published. Hong Kong has beaten its own record set in 2014 of properties being valued at 17 times median incomes, which in itself beat …

Should Northern Ireland follow Finland’s example and consider a universal basic income for all?

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on December 13, 2015, 9:59 pm

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Anti poverty campaigners and economics geeks alike have reason to be cheerful this week with the news that Finland is to carry out a trial of a basic income. A basic income, in its purest sense, is a non means-tested payment to all citizens regardless of income or wealth which replaces existing benefits such as unemployment benefit. The Finnish trial, which has been developed at the behest of new centre-right Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and is supported across the political …

The Importance of Not Being Idle – Northern Ireland’s productivity problem

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 9, 2015, 9:59 pm

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Since the financial crash of 2008, and the Great Recession which followed, the UK has been struggling with a productivity crisis. Productivity, defined here as the increase in GDP per hour worked, increased very steadily in the UK for fifty years until 2008. Since then, productivity growth has halted entirely. As is becoming traditional when looking at any sort of economic analysis, the situation in Northern Ireland is particularly bad. Northern Ireland has always had lower levels of productivity than …

Truth or Consequences: the potential impact of un-devolving welfare

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 27, 2015, 12:29 am

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One of the more idiosyncratic aspects of life in Northern Ireland is that the sort of constitutional crisis that would leave most countries in a spate of ear-to-the-radio, markets-tumbling panic, barely passes as newsworthy. The threat of dissolution of the Assembly and the end of the power-sharing Executive is regarded with the same complete lack of interest that, say, Louis Walsh threatening to leave the X Factor again might be. Indeed, such is the widely perceived ineptitude of the devolved …

What’s that got to do with the price of fish? The growing gap between inflation and the perception of inflation

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 25, 2015, 7:17 pm

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Last week’s news that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of UK inflation has dipped below zero for the first time since official records began in 1996, and for the first time since 1960 based on equivalent historical estimates, caused a range of reactions amongst commentators and politicians. The Chancellor, George Osborne, was keen to emphasise that this should be termed “negative inflation”, a brief spell of decreasing prices, rather than the more damaging “deflation”, implying a longer term period …

Bloc Rockin’ Beats – how Scandinavia became the dominant force at the Eurovision Song Contest

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 16, 2015, 7:44 pm

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With parties bitterly divided over Europe, a voting system widely considered unfair, and tactical voting skewing the outcome, it’s clearly that time of year again. The 60th annual Eurovision Song Contest is being held in Vienna following Conchita Wurst’s victory last year in Copenhagen with Rise Like A Phoenix. This year Sweden is the favourite at the bookmakers, with Måns Zelmerlöw’s Heroes leading the betting at 2/1, making him the shortest odds favourite since 2012 when Loreen, also of Sweden, …