Despite holding his South Belfast seat, there is nothing certain about the Alasdair McDonnell stewardship of the party as SDLP colleagues revolt. Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
After last night’s The View it’s hard to know whether to go with MacBeth’s “…art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?” for Durkan, or the Carry on Cleo, “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy…” route for Alasdair. Neither would quite be fair to either man. It’s hard, despite his protestations, to imagine Alasdair lasting for too much longer after Mallon pulled his support. Yet his reluctance to go quietly may provide the party …
More here… Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
John Manley has a great scoop in today’s Irish News with comments from the former Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon on the leadership of Alasdair McDonnell. It is no secret that some party members are unhappy with McDonnell but now one of the big beasts of the party has came out to call on him to go. Speaking to Manley he said that McDonnell should resign “as soon as possible” adding that if he acted decisively it would be good …
The SDLP’s post election profile rarely makes good reading for party loyalists, but this year is at least a partial exception. Alasdair McDonnell may not have turned round the decline the party has suffered under its two previous leaders, but like a football team with very few opportunities to score, he has at least managed to successfully recycle the ball. In Foyle an increase in the Durkan vote augurs well for Assembly team safety. In South Down, Margaret Ritchie’s 6.2% decline indicates little more than moderate Unionists no longer worry about her …
I was in a very vulnerable seat in South Belfast. I’m re-elected there and I will be choosing Westminster [interrupted] We will sort out Stormont in the next few months, that will be done. (Alasdair McDonnell) Bookies will be opening two sets of odds today: Who will be Alasdair McDonnell’s replacement as MLA for Belfast South as he confirmed on today’s Sunday Politics that he will step down from his position as MLA? [Claire Hanna must surely be the favourite, …
Saving my usual series of where the parties stand analysis for next week, for now I want to do a short series of head dumps on the election. First, that tough (and very dirty) battle for South Belfast. There was a number of factors in this seat that made it hard to predict. When the DUP selected Junior Minister Jonathan Bell I thought it was a good choice. I still do. His problem in getting ahead of Alasdair McDonnell was …
The warning is there in Martin McGuinness’ speech to his party’s ard fheis on Friday evening. Of course, as George Mitchell famously pointed out, the most difficult phase of any agreement is the implementation. That is the phase we are now in but let me give you this commitment: The welfare protections we agreed are an absolute red line issue for SF. No matter how difficult the implementation process may get, we will not – under any circumstances – tolerate …
The SDLP is in a bit of a pickle at the moment with its council members in Newry and Mourne appearing to have refused the party whip over the naming of a park after local man and IRA Hunger Striker Raymond McCreesh. The history of the park, the SDLP’s original support for its naming and the reaction to it has been well-documented elsewhere and I do not intend to revisit those issues in this column. What is interesting in this …
On Wednesday night the DUP’s newly minted candidate for South Belfast launched his campaign to become the new MP for South Belfast. In the middle of all hustle and bustle of the Four Winds I caught up with the candidate, Junior Minister, Jonathan Bell. To start with I wanted to know why the DUP thought that South Belfast was so ripe for change? Bell told me that when you look at the last local election results it is clear that …
The recent comments by the SDLP Leader over the issue of Abortion has caused a stir. Analysing his comments Ulster University academic, Dr. Cillian McGrattan argues that he is playing politics with medicine. The latest of the series of embarrassing PR-disasters that have characterised his tenure as SDLP leader, Alasdair McDonnell’s ostensible defence of his party’s abortion policy has managed to plumb a new low in what is otherwise an intensely emotionally sensitive debate. In order to avoid misinterpretation of …
It’s never easy to fit in time for an interview with one of Northern Ireland’s most active politicians. Always on the move, the new Sinn Féin MLA for South Belfast, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir met me at the Welcome Organisation on the Falls Rd last night to talk about his views of Stormont and the upcoming elections in May. I began by asking him about stepping down as Mayor of Belfast last June. I recalled my impression of that night in …
Platform for Change’s latest – and perhaps last – panel event was hosted last night by Mark Carruthers in the Crescent Arts Centre. Around 40 people attended the session with its bizarrely worded title: Political Inertia to a Flourishing Society – How? The six panellists from centre-ground parties made four minute opening statements before the discussion was opened to the floor. Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP leader, MP & MLA) had come straight to the venue from the airport. He said there …
The Belfast Telegraph published the results of their straw poll survey of 50 delegates at the SDLP party conference on Saturday. When walking through the exhibition space outside the main hall I declined the opportunity offered to answer the interviewer’s questions. 32% of surveyed delegates did not want Alasdair McDonnell to lead the SDLP into the 2016 Assembly election. And only 36% positively did want him to, leaving 32% undecided (or unwilling to express an opinion). From the mood of …
As things wrapped up on Saturday and the exhibitors were packing up I caught up with the SDLP Leader, Alasdair McDonnell MP. Throughout the day I had heard criticism that the conference was a little flat, so I began by asking about how he felt the mood of the conference was? McDonnell detected a sense of hope and energy in the Ramada as around a third of the delegates were attending the conference for the first time. For him, this …
The SDLP conference took place on Friday and Saturday in the Ramada Hotel. Using the same venue as the UUP’s get-together four weeks ago, the nationalist party had chosen to divide the main ballroom in half, swapping delegate seats for more exhibitor space. But it wasn’t just the layout and configuration that contrasted with their unionist cousins. This year’s SDLP conference lacked passion. That’s not entirely true: on Saturday afternoon Dolores Kelly and Alex Attwood delivered speeches with gusto and …
Having spent last week in Washington, D.C. and New York, I spent the weekend catching up on the news from home that I’d missed and indeed mulling over the conversations about home I’d had. Secretary of State Theresa Villiers announced last week a new round of all-party talks designed to break the impasse on the past, parades, flags, welfare reform and anything else anyone cares to throw into the mix now or at any time before the commencement of talks …
So after some ribbing on Twitter for not covering this story (try Googling it guys?), John Manley reports this morning that Alasdair McDonnell is in a bit of bother again, this time over not reporting income from a rental property he bought in London in 2005 when he was first elected: The South Belfast MP and MLA blamed “an administrative error” for the failure to declare his London apartment on the House of Commons register of interests. Dr McDonnell has …
I remember being asked, rather pointedly by one leading Pol Corr why I even bothered turning up for the SDLP’s Newcastle conference which elected Margaret Ritchie as party leader. I was then told, in no uncertain terms, “they don’t matter any more” This is the wilderness pit that the likes of the SDLP and Ulster Unionists have been cast into by the media. Getting out of it won’t be quick or easy. For now the chosen tactic is to slowly …
Over half the motions at the SDLP policy-making annual conference were addressed on Friday afternoon and evening. Participation in debate was sporadic and the numbers of delegates in the hall were low compared to the number catching up in the hotel corridors and social areas. One observer recalled that not much more than 50 people were in the hall for Friday’s health debate, and a fifth of them were lobbyists! That was a large attendance compared with mid-morning on Saturday. …
