election

#AE22 Photo Gallery

| Readers 1142

I’m making the most of my media pass taking photos at the election count at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, for my own endeavours. But sharing them here out of interest. I’ll add more later tonight, but the rumour is that they’ll call time here at 10.00pm. Some fresh images from today’s continuation of the count at the Titanic Exhibition Centre: Final shots: Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster)Peacebuilding a shared Northern Irish society ✌️ Editor 🔍 Writer ✏️ Photographer 📸 https://mrulster.com mrulster.com

Where can the Unionist parties gain seats at the next election?

| Readers 7506

The DUP has started messaging ahead of next years assembly election that the combined Unionist parties need just five seats to remove the protocol. Now this claim has been fact checked that they can only remove certain parts, rather than all of it. But I thought it would be interesting to look at where Unionism could potentially find those gains. To start with, this is a very tall order for the combined Unionist parties. If the results of elections from …

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Sinn Féin’s Presidential Candidate Appears to Distance Herself from the Party

| Readers 3465

Liadh Ní Riada, Sinn Féin’s nominee for the upcoming Irish Presidential election has appeared to distance herself from her party in much of her campaign material. This includes Ní Riada’s election posters which have begun to appear on lampposts around the country and include no indication of her affiliation to the party she currently represents in the European Parliament for the constituency of Ireland South. The colour scheme of the posters, mainly purple and white, also does not hold connotations …

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Another angle on Sinn Féin’s Westminster abstention

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Any debate about Sinn Féin’s Westminster abstention policy tends to cover no new ground. It always starts with someone – most recently Polly Toynbee – suggesting that SF should take their seats to pursue some common, worthwhile objective, in this case, that of blunting the sharp edges of brexit. It ends with SF supporters asserting that (a) it is a key republican principle that can’t be easily argued away; (b) that the party has a clear mandate to abstain from Westminster; …

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Democracy Requires Another Assembly Election

| Readers 1178

In most established democracies there is only one solution when the political parties are deadlocked and cannot come to an agreement: hold another election. In Northern Ireland, for historical reasons, there has been the suspension of ‘normal’ rules with so-called ‘direct rule’ by the government in London instead of continued regional democracy. In the rules governing the Assembly, there is a short timeframe to form an Executive—just one week—after which the Secretary of State has the power to call another …

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A deal reached: May going to the palace

| Readers 3514

Just in… from the Guardian We wait for the detail, but it’s a reasonable guess that this is a supply and confidence deal. As I noted this morning, the Conservatives and DUP share 328 seats, which is an effective majority of 3. Sinn Fein abstentionism increases it to 6. Andy BoalAndy has a very wide range of interests including Christianity, Lego, transport, music, the Alliance Party, chess and computers. Anything can appear in a post. Andy tweets at @andyboal www.andyboal.co.uk

All over bar the shouting…

| Readers 580

As I write, the position is as follows:- Party Actual seats Expected final seats 2015-17 parliament Change Vote share Vote share change Conservatives 314 318 330 -12 42.4% +5.6% Labour 261 262 232 +30 40.2% +9.5% SNP 35 35 56 -21 3.0% -1.7% Liberal Democrats 12 12 8 +4 7.1% -0.6% DUP 10 10 8 +2 0.9% +0.3% Sinn Fein 7 7 4 +3 0.8% +0.2% Plaid Cymru 4 4 3 +1 0.5% +0.1% Green 1 1 1 – 1.6% …

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Whatever you do this election make your vote count…

| Readers 1436
vote ballot

As the scandal, exposés and drip feed of information continues from various departments and political parties over the renewable heat incentive scheme, there is one certainty.  We will be going to the polls on Thursday 2 March. Regardless of the why, we, the voters, have been handed a golden opportunity to pass judgement on the performance of our elected representatives. We have an opportunity to appease the ghosts of the 2016 elections, which saw Brexit and Trump triumph.  We have an …

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#ae17 in numbers

| Readers 3349

SEVEN DAYS before institutions collapse; 5 MLAs per constituency means a minimum of 18 MLAs not returning to the Assembly; 30 is still the magic PoC number; £85,000 still the estimated daily cost to the tax payer of the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.

#GE16 – The Goss 1

| Readers 411

ROUND UP: As #GE16 gets underway we will be taking a look behind the scenes to keep you informed of the latest gossip from the front lines. If you have views or news from your constituency then email [email protected] and keep us posted. All the gossip doing the rounds on the ground from #GE16.

Who Should I Vote For App’s – Accurate?

| Readers 697

I’ve noticed in this General Election more than any other that there is an abundance of tools online to help the electorate align themselves with a party that matches closer to their values than another. Does it work though? Take a look at where I ended up across different guides. And don’t judge me…   Who Should You Vote For The questions weren’t exactly in-depth, each policy area was skimmed across rather than actually getting down to the nitty gritty …

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Let’s All Vote

| Readers 1208

Peter Robinson and his party hope that soon, Stormont will take control of corporation tax… that very same institution that he recently declared as “Not fit for purpose” Join the club, there are a lot of us who feel the same…we’re waiting on a back order of membership cards, you see, the anti-Stormont membership packs are being handled by the DVLA in Swansea… Gregory Campbell said words to the effect of “we can call an election, but it will be …

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With less than 1% of first preference vote, two candidates still won seats in Australian senate!

| Readers 70

Nicholas Whyte blogged on From the Heart of Europe about a couple of remarkable victories where candidates with a minuscule proportion of first preference votes – less than 1% – went on to win seats in the Senate. The most stunning results of these is in Victoria, where the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party got a mere 11,232 first preferences, 0.52% of the total vote, 0.036 of a quota, less than twelve other parties contesting the election. But they appear to …

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Iceland election result: two parties blamed for economic meltdown returned to power

| Readers 42

Back to Iceland to look at the election result. The BBC report that: Centre-right opposition parties in Iceland are set for a return to power with nearly all votes counted after Saturday’s parliamentary election. The Independence party has 26% and the Progressive party 24%, putting them on track to win nearly 40 of the 63 seats. The ruling Social Democrats are trailing with around 13%. It is a dramatic comeback for the parties widely blamed for Iceland’s economic meltdown in …

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A historic vote just took place in the USA. Oh, and Obama won too…

| Readers 59

I’ve no idea how this flew under the radar, but the outside world (bar the BBC) has largely ignored the most historic American plebiscite since the 1950s. Obama’s re-election, important though it is in itself, might find itself eclipsed by what just took place in Puerto Rico – a clear popular vote in favour of statehood. If ratified by Congress (there is bipartisan support for the idea, although getting it though today’s cantankerous House may be tricky), PR will become …

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Adams damning McGuinness with faint praise..?

| Readers 14

IT would have been easy for Gerry Adams to be fulsome in his praise of Martin McGuinness’ presidential campaign. Instead, the intro to Gerry Adams’ latest blog entry seems both ambiguous and odd – although the former may be politically ingrained and the latter blamed on his a faux folksy writing style. And – for a party as single-mindedly obsessed with expansionism as SF – not a word about the size of the vote. Here’s the first par, the one …

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Stratagem TV: Hurtling towards our uncharismatic election day…

| Readers 5

Episode 4, the upcoming election… Not much change it seems, but Quintin’s tip towards the end (so you’ll have to watch the rest of us to get there!) that there will be big changes in the Executive make up is worth noting… Does he know something the rest of us don’t? I’d have liked to have heard more on the FM/DFM roles. I agree with Quintin that it seems not to be a big issue on the doorstep, but no …

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“The days of the Assembly as a novelty are over…”

| Readers 4

This classy little video from Stratagem is the first of a series with comment from a range of voices (yours truly amongst them)… It starts with a review of the last four years… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

UTV North Antrim Election Twitter roadshow

| Readers 8

So next Wednesday we are going to the Braid Arts Centre in Bridge Street Ballymena to host a discussion of the issue facing the voters of North Antrim. We’re hoping to draw in opinion from across the constituency, from Ballycastle down through Ballymoney and Ballymena not to mention the vast rural hinterland. As you can see from my interview with Marc Mallett earlier in the week, it will be held in an open format, and the point is to initiate …

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SNP steps out into the post Obama election era…

| Readers 30

Here’s a fascinating story from the Scottish political space, not least wearing my own Slugger Consults hat. There is, and I think rightly so, some scepticism about whether all this activity and emphasis on social networking means anything in real political terms. As you know we’re running a series of Twitter election meet ups with UTV (there’s still spaces in Ballymena and East Belfast) but it’s a completely different matter as to whether it ever works for a political party. …

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