It will be a good 12 years before my eldest child can vote, but already she, along with her younger sister, has come with me to the polling booth on two occasions. The third is looming large on the horizon. Quite possibly, it is only the children who get a day off due to their school transforming into a polling station who will benefit the most from this election. I certainly don’t see any benefit to it and am getting …
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 …
So the results are all in. The result: nothing has changed and a bit has changed. The fall in the nationalist / republican vote and levels of seats has been analysed and will bear further analysis. The changes or lack of them on the unionist side are, however, just as interesting. Ben Lowry and Sam McBride in the News Letter have their analyses and I would demur little from either of them. Arlene Foster and the DUP’s triumph is marked. …
One of the first books I read myself as a child was King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard. It is a ridiculous (and at times racist – though less so than was typical of the times) colonial romp across a fictitious Africa. One image that always stuck with me was when one army (the bad “savages”) attacked the elite of the good army (“noble savages”). The baddies rise three times and fall back each time, defeated but leaving a …
The Detail investigative website continues to create impact by laying it out facts you might suspect the main parties have an interest in playing down with an election in prospect. Paradoxically that comparative reticence may be a form of implied cohesion between the DUP and Sinn Fein. But is it good enough? How should they respond? In their latest report following an inevitably rough audit of the last Assembly mandate the Detail gives a stark account of the level of …
David McCann has already given his overview of the SDLP manifesto. On delivery, as is usual with these documents, the manifesto strains at being comprehensive without giving away too many hostages to fortune or burdening the reader with costings. And like all parties particularly the smaller ones, the SDLP can indulge in aspirations it knows it won’t be allowed to deliver – and may not always want to anyway. Aiming for (I make it) 26,500 new jobs by 2021, it …
In three months, the Assembly elections will give voters the chance to have their say on who will sit in Stormont for the next five years. At this point, it’s worth reflecting on what has (and hasn’t) been achieved by the current Executive. Use the comments to have your say and add anything (good or bad) that hasn’t made this list. 1: Integrated Education – The signatories of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 pledged “to facilitate and encourage …
