Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

It wasn’t quite Twitter wot won it – social media and the General Election

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 13, 2015, 10:39 pm

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In the end, it was hardly a case of “as Twitter goes, so goes the nation”. If the election had been decided by the number of followers each candidate had before the election, Ed Miliband would have been elected Prime Minister, albeit needing the help of the Liberal Democrats and, um, the Pirate Party. The FT Data blog (£) has some fascinating charts showing how the conversation on Twitter was dominated by supporters of Labour and the SNP. It is apparent …

All the right votes in all the right places – how the Tory electoral strategy triumphed

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 9, 2015, 8:39 pm

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The General Election of 2015 has been the worst for opinion pollsters since their calamitous evening in 1992. Whilst almost all pollsters and commentators had expected a hung parliament, with weeks of constitutional crisis, deadlock, and possible three party coalitions, in the event the Conservative Party won an absolute majority. As was widely predicted, Labour were all but wiped from the electoral map in Scotland. But this eventuality had already been baked in to the forecasts; the real shock was …

What Goes Boom – the Northern Ireland housing bubble in an international context

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on April 18, 2015, 2:38 pm

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Yesterday’s reports that prospective purchasers were queueing to purchase properties at the new Belvoir Park development in South Belfast will have brought back memories for some of the housing boom of 2006-7, when it was a common sight to see people waiting overnight for an opportunity to purchase newly built apartments and houses. There have been other signs of a return to life in the local property market, such as a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) survey that indicated …

Economic deprivation, unemployment, and the sectarian divide

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on April 6, 2015, 3:09 pm

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There has been much discussion in recent days, both in Stormont and here on Slugger, on Disability Living Allowance. Specifically, following the Minister for Social Development Mervyn Storey’s disclosure in the Assembly that West Belfast is the area with the highest levels of DLA claimants, there has been debate about whether DLA claimant levels are higher in predominantly Catholic areas. Instead of tiptoeing gently around the issue, I thought it would be interesting to see if there was indeed a …

Valleys of trouble – Labour’s difficulties in their Welsh heartland

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on April 3, 2015, 5:14 pm

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Last night’s leaders debate marked the introduction of Leanne Wood, and her party Plaid Cymru, to the British mainstream political audience. Plaid received 165,394 votes in the 2010 General Election, fewer than the DUP (168,216) and Sinn Féin (171,942). Leanne Wood unashamedly played to the audience at home throughout the debate, and it is very likely that her party will receive a boost in the Welsh opinion polls in the aftermath. But, from Labour’s perspective, there was another party leader …

DLA, mental health, and the legacy of the Troubles

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 31, 2015, 3:25 pm

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The debate surrounding welfare reform in Northern Ireland has gradually seen opinion divide into one of two camps; those who decry any reform of the system as “ruthless Tory cuts”, and those on the other hand who see the swelling ranks of those claiming DLA as evidence that the feckless and workshy are gaining a free ride. The truth is, as ever, somewhat more complex. There is no doubt that the numbers in Northern Ireland claiming DLA are vastly higher …

The Royal rumbled – the worst Accident and Emergency department in the UK for waiting times keeps getting worse

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 22, 2015, 4:46 pm

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Previously, I had written on how the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast had the worst waiting times in the UK in September 2014, with 64.5% of cases being dealt with within four hours, against a target of 95%. Since this analysis, data has now been published showing performance up to February 2015. For anyone who may need emergency care (i.e. everybody), the data does not make for encouraging reading. In February 2015, only 52.5% of those presenting themselves to A&E …

Inattention to the deficit syndrome – how Northern Ireland spends more than it earns

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 13, 2015, 6:57 pm

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Today’s public sector strike reflects widespread antipathy towards what was agreed in the Stormont House Agreement. Traditionally trade unions have been supportive of agreements made between local parties, and as Eamonn McCann points out, this is the first time that trade unions have opposed a deal. There is certainly a lot of anger on issues such as redundancies and cuts to services, but it is important to bear in mind the reason why the fiscal measures outlined in the Stormont …

Six Degrees of UKIP – the link between university qualifications and voting intention

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 9, 2015, 11:27 pm

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According to the analysts at firstpasthepost.net, who have analysed bookmaker’s odds for each seat in the upcoming General Election, there are seventeen constituencies where UKIP have a 25% or greater chance of winning election to the House of Commons. These include the two seats that they are defending; Clacton, and Rochester and Strood. Also on the list are a number of seats in Kent and Essex, including the seat Nigel Farage is targeting of Thanet South, as well as a …

Belfast, shipbuilding, and the game of billiards that changed the world

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 6, 2015, 7:52 pm

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It is almost universally known that Belfast played a pivotal role in the history of shipbuilding. However, amidst the mania for all things related to the most famous ship built in the city, it can often be overlooked that Belfast produced ships that didn’t sink, too. It may not have the fame of RMS Titanic, but the development and launch of RMS Oceanic and her sister ships in 1870 may have been one of the most pivotal developments in world …

Shale of the century – the future for fracking in Ireland

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 1, 2015, 10:34 am

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Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” as it has become universally known, is a technique for extracting reserves of oil and gas that would be otherwise impossible or uneconomic to extract. The technique, which involves injecting rock with a mixture of water, chemicals and sand, has become one of most contentious issues in British and Irish politics. Advocates of fracking say that more widespread use of the technique could bring cheaper energy and reduce reliance on (not always friendly) foreign suppliers. Opponents …

You can’t mistake ideology – the way MPs talk, the way that they walk

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 22, 2015, 12:37 am

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With the unprecedented closeness and unpredictability of the next general election, there has been a lot of speculation about which parties may be able to do business together in the event of coalition negotiations, following another hung parliament. The SNP have ruled out the possibility of doing a deal with the Conservatives, but what other parties look like they may be able to do a deal based on the way that they vote? With potentially 10 or more seats in …

Fifty Shades of Green – a possible unionist comeback in Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 18, 2015, 10:39 pm

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The date was the 9th of June 1983. The Police were top of the UK charts with “Every Breath You Take”, Pioneer 10 was passing the orbit of Neptune to become the first man-made object to leave the major planets of the Solar System, and Ken Maginnis of the UUP took the Westminster seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone from Owen Carron of Sinn Féin. Owen Carron had won the seat in a 1981 by-election following the death of Anti …

Can Sinn Féin win three seats in Belfast?

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 12, 2015, 12:07 am

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Last night’s announcement that Strangford MLA Jonathan Bell will be the DUP parliamentary candidate for South Belfast means that it is now looking likely that all of the “big five” parties in Northern Ireland will be running candidates in all constituencies in Belfast. Sinn Féin have been breathing down the necks of the DUP in North Belfast for some time. However, Sinn Féin’s selection of Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, the Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2013-14, has led some to wonder …

Counting the cost of Welfare Reform

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 8, 2015, 10:01 pm

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One of the most significant outcomes of the Stormont House Agreement was an agreement to extend to Northern Ireland the reforms to the welfare system that have been introduced in Great Britain. These reforms were persistently blocked by Sinn Féin, who did not want to endorse what they termed “Tory cuts”. The Treasury has fined the Executive £114m in the current budget for failure to implement the reforms, but they now look as though they are going to be introduced. …

Labour’s Scottish Play – the onward march of the SNP

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 4, 2015, 10:38 pm

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Election watchers and political anoraks have been spending much of the day absorbing the eagerly-awaited Scottish constituency opinion polls from Lord Ashcroft. The SNP have been polling very strongly in national Westminster opinion polls since the failed independence referendum, and have consistently polled leads over Labour of over 20%. The big question for those trying to make sense of the upcoming election has been “Do these strong national polls for the SNP translate to possible gains in a first past …

General Election 2015 – the bookmaker’s perspective

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on February 1, 2015, 2:25 pm

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This week I attended the talk given by Peter Kellner, President of YouGov. It was fascinating to hear one of the leading lights of the political polling community explain his thoughts and opinions on the coming election, where issues such as the rise of the SNP and UKIP has made this a uniquely difficult election to call. Previously, I had taken the approach of using council election results to gauge the strength of opinion in each constituency. This time I …

Forecasting the 2015 UK General Election

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on January 24, 2015, 10:31 pm

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CON 252, LAB 231, SNP 52, LD 41, UKIP 38, DUP 9, GRN 9, PC 8, SF 6, SDLP 2, Independent 1, Speaker 1 Required for majority: 322 (CON 70 short, LAB 91 short) The upcoming UK General Election has been called “the most unpredictable for almost a century”. There are several reasons for this; the rise of UKIP, the Greens, and the SNP, the collapse of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless seem to maintain highly localized popularity in areas where they have sitting MPs, and the fact that Labour and the Conservatives are going in to the election essentially on level pegging. …

The casino budget – a triumph of hope over experience

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on January 19, 2015, 9:58 pm

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Well, it’s finally here. After what seemed like an interminable period of consultations, talks, talks about talks, and talks about curried yoghurt, we finally have some numbers. The fact that the Budget is not quite as gruesome as might originally been feared is being spun as some sort of victory. It is still deeply grim reading. First, the good news. Current spending (non-ringfenced DEL) will be £156.6m higher than was originally proposed under the Draft Budget. The £158.9m of extra …