Election 2015

How do we decide who forms the next UK government?

Brian Walker on May 7, 2015, 3:11 pm

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We in the Constitution Unit of University College London have produced guidance on the arrangements for forming the next UK government, assuming there is a hung parliament. The short answer first is: it’s complicated and great fun for anoraks but it shouldn’t mean a constitutional crisis. David Cameron stays in office on a caretaker basis. Under civil service guidance he has to be careful to act even-handedly on the question of civil service support for interparty negotiations. For instance it would …

Carál Ní Chuilín: “Electoral commission vetoed using last election figures…” – Update

Pete Baker on May 2, 2015, 7:40 pm

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David may not want to go there, although ‘idealistic’ wasn’t the first word that sprang to mind. [Was it another word beginning with ‘i’? – Ed] You might very well think that… ANYhoo… Gerry Kelly’s Sinn Féin colleague in north Belfast, and the Northern Ireland Culture Minister, Carál Ní Chuilín, MLA, should, perhaps, have other things on her mind. But, on Thursday, the Minister was on Twitter defending Sinn Féin’s use of the 2011 census’ breakdown of the constituency by religion in support of the party’s …

Calm down, Alex Salmond is not Attila the Hun

Brian Walker on March 7, 2015, 6:17 pm

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The appeals to Labour to put the Union first and spurn an SNP deal coming from Tory warhorses John Major and Ken Baker sound very statesmanlike. But what do they really mean, with Labour just ahead of the Tories in the forecasts? First, based on all the predictions of main party scores and an SNP landslide, Labour could not form a minority government without some form of SNP support. The Conservatives are stubbornly behind in the polls even though they’re running …

Signs of real politics emerging from Stormont House Agreement

Brian Walker on February 11, 2015, 12:13 pm

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Be grateful for small mercies. With less than a hundred days to go before the election, implementing the Stormont Hose Agreement has had the effect of postponing the worst kind of dog-eat -dog sectarian campaigning – so far. Sinn Fein like the rest of them have had to swallow the basics of the Welfare Bill in the interests of political reality. Syriza type resistance has collapsed. To ask a different question: are there any signs at all of left-right politics …