ae11 – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

#AE11 Open Thread: Fermanagh and South Tyrone (#fst11)

Mick Fealty on April 2, 2011, 9:19 am

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Okay, today we drift on from North Antrim to Fermanagh and South Tyrone. There’s a little something in this for the four main parties (it’s too far west for the Alliance and Greens to have any skin in this most westerly game). How will the SDLP vote hold up after Sinn Fein’s successful big heave against the single Unionist candidate last May? Has Tom Elliot energised his local association to stem the turning tide of traditional UUers who’ve been steadily …

Planet of the apes?

Blank on March 31, 2011, 8:17 pm

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After a 30 year absence from electoral politics the IRSP have announced they will be fielding 5 Council candidates. (though one has been running as an independent recently) Unfortunately their greeness seems to have resulted in the same strap line as that of the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists a mere 10 months ago – Vote for Change. They also state: We have deliberately chosen to not contest the Stormont elections as there does not exist an appetite within our …

#AE11 Open thread: South Down (#sdo11)…

Mick Fealty on March 31, 2011, 12:34 pm

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Okay, we’re going to run a series of open threads on a number of constituencies throughout the campaign. I’ve picked up South Down first partly because of John McCallister’s uncharacteristically undisciplined outburst last week. When you consider there is a boundary change in the north of the constituency that could take 2k Unionist votes out of the equation, it must be a pretty tough hill climb for him to get over the win line, not least because he was 2k …

McNarry apologises for Nolan outburst…

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2011, 1:26 pm

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Interesting. Ken Reid reports that even though technically speaking David McNarry was right in suggesting Basil McCrea and John McCallister were unforgiveably breaking ranks on a party line (in suggesting the matter of Martin McGuinness becoming First Minister was not important to them), he has apologised for his outburst on Stephen Nolan’s show last week… Mr McNarry apologised for his contribution to last week’s First Minister’s row and said the party was now united. It might have helped if Basil …

Sinn Fein ‘flip’ from small ‘d’ to big ‘D’ First Minister…

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2011, 11:41 am

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Just putting together that last piece, I belatedly discovered Sinn Fein has resumed the capital D spelling of the Deputy First Minister (compare December and more recently, where Deputy First Minister or generic references to the First Ministers is commonplace. Not sure exactly when it was changed, but it now applies to official documents and news releases at OFMDFM, whereas it didn’t in early January. Looks like someone’s been rather cleverly getting all their ducks lined up in a row …

Gerry asks Protestants of West Belfast to get out and vote

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2011, 11:15 am

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Having more than likely twisted the arms of direct rule ministers to put in the clause that shifted the rules over who gets to be First Minister, Gerry Adams is now chiding Unionists gently saying they “should get real about what the issues are. The (First and Deputy First Ministers) have co-equal powers in a co-equal department.” But his next pitch was much more interesting. West Belfast no longer has a Unionist seat, not because it doesn’t have enough Unionists …

Commenting and the election….

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2011, 10:30 am

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Every conversational site experiences a drop in the quality (and a rise in quantity) of commenting when an election campaign hits. It’s not surprising. Usually the blood is up (though I do wonder in this campaign how far it will get up), and the temptation to play the man rather than the ball is often too much for activists to resist. I just want to make it clear in these early stages that I’d like to move towards a more …

Finalised Twitter hashtags for Election (#AE11) constituencies

Mick Fealty on March 29, 2011, 5:18 pm

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Okay, a big thanks to Dee Harvey at BBCNI for her work on these. She’s tested them all now so that there should not be any broken or misleading tweets on the constituency hashtags quoted below. If you are now scratching your heading and asking yourself ‘what’s Fealty on about now’, hashtags are a way of tagging individual ‘tweets’ that instantly transform into searchable terms. It should enable us/you to find tweeted information/data on Twitter than relates to a given …

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 …

The ‘end’ of community designation and the ‘rise’ of incumbency…

Mick Fealty on March 29, 2011, 9:01 am

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There’s an interesting piece by Fionnuala O’Connor in today’s Irish News. In it she notes that underneath the commonplace ‘wisdom’ that there is no functional difference between the offices of First and deputy First Minister lies a more profound political reality: …it will matter very much indeed if Sinn Fein comes out of the election as the largest party and can nominate Martin McGuinness to be the next First Minister. It will shift, irreversibly, the underlying psychology of the north. …

Constitutency Hashtags for #AE11?

Mick Fealty on March 23, 2011, 10:23 am

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When it comes to the Assembly elections it will be useful to have appropriate hashtags for Twitter. Some already write themselves. Fermanagh South Tyrone is already shorthanded to #FST, though it could probably bear some testing to see there’s no obvious replications. Here’s a list of opening suggestions. If you object to any of them, please offer an alternative: North Belfast – #NBel South Belfast – #SBel West Belfast – #WBel East Belfast – #EBel North Down – #NDown South …

Eamonn McCann, MLA?

John Ó Néill on March 23, 2011, 1:12 am

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…When Chekhov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet, we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. Before Mick loses interest – I think this is one to watch for the upcoming Assembly election (or #ae11 as you will come to know it). If you take the trajectory of Eamonn McCann’s vote in Foyle (I’m guessing #fyle) over the last three elections, it has risen from 3.6% (2005) to 5% (2007) to …

Preparing for another Groundhog Day Election?

Mick Fealty on March 22, 2011, 2:59 pm

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Nice piece from Alex Kane again this week, in which he points to the current stasis in which Northern Irish administration suffers: 13 years since the 1998 referendum and weeks away from the fourth assembly, there is still no evidence that the parties have any interest in agreeing a radical, era-changing agenda for what is supposedly the ‘new’ Northern Ireland. They still plan for the future with the signposts from the past and prefer to settle scores rather than govern …

Phony war over First Minister title begins…

Mick Fealty on March 22, 2011, 12:08 pm

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There’s an awful lot of flurrying over Martin McGuinness’ (deputy with a small ‘d’ First Minister) apparent offer to ‘consider’ sharing the office of First Minister, should he come through in first place in May’s poll. It should be noted it that is possible for Sinn Fein to achieve that, if they pick up every target they have, but it is unlikely… Anyway, here’s his interview for UTV: And here’s the companion dismissal from Arlene Foster… As Mark Devenport points …

Positive/negative campaigning

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 9, 2011, 10:45 am

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Political parties have choices in the run up to elections. They have to balance the mix of different sets of messages: celebrating past successes; selling their vision; denigrating their opponents. While local parties often start off election season talking about running positive campaigns, it feels inevitable that they’ll all be provoked into name calling and angry exchanges with their nearest competitors as the weeks go by. And with 48 hours to go before polling, they may even resort to dirty …

DUP announce Assembly candidates, including a new face in East Belfast and two double-jobbers

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 28, 2011, 10:15 am

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Political parties have been slowly announcing their council and Assembly candidates ahead of May’s elections. This morning, the DUP are announcing their full slate of Assembly candidates, which includes two MPs. There will be interest in the three man DUP line up for East Belfast. The party’s council candidates attracted attention a couple of weeks ago as Orangeman and Belfast County Grand Master Tom Haire displaced an irate David Rodway in the Victoria ward. The East Belfast Assembly candidates are: …

Looking back at RICS Hustings and talking to Elliott and Ritchie about water charges, budgets, programmes for government and culling departments

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 18, 2011, 12:42 am

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Panel at RICS economic hustings

The RICS Hustings event wasn’t a damp squid, but there were few surprises. Peter Weir (DUP) shone through as the most economically literate politician on the panel. He related the importance of the husting’s theme and the need for economic stability so that students wouldn’t “wander the world” like many of his peers had done to escape Northern Ireland. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) slouched in her seat with her arms folded, and leaned in towards ringmaster Jim Fitzpatrick when she answered …

Catching up with Dawn Purvis

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 16, 2011, 11:39 pm

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Often it feel like Slugger has a love/hate relationship with Dawn Purvis. The annual judging process is quick to give her awards, while critical commenters are even faster to cast doubt on her political credibility, particularly over the timing of her departure from the PUP last year to become an independent MLA. If you ask me, deep down Dawn Purvis is a political anorak who could carve out a career as a party strategist or advisor. While conveniently fitting her …

Tom Elliott kicks off campaign with UUP ideas on how to reform Stormont by 2015

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 16, 2011, 1:30 pm

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Gathered for breakfast in The Mount conference centre in East Belfast, the local business representatives, UUP candidates and Young Unionists were nearly all decked out in dark pin-striped suits and dresses. Tom Elliott looked confident and relaxed as he arrived in the room and got up following Danny Kennedy’s introduction. It was clear that the UUP were launching their election campaign as Tom Elliott stood at the perspex podium and delivered an end of term report on the past four …