For all its detractors (and I don’t count myself as the greatest fan of its ‘Brixit’ policy) UKIP does something most mainstream parties in Britain are struggling with. They connect with the ordinary man (and I suspect it is mostly men, to be honest) in the street, and they speak in a language they understand. They may get dismissed as saloon bar politicians, but in England they know how to put on a show with a sense of drama that …
After Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail is the longest continuously operating party in the Republic. Their long ongoing argument with big rival Fine Gael is often characterised as a continuation of civil war politics. Yet such reasoning is largely academic. These historic if unresolved issues have barely featured in southern political life in thirty years. Class is probably a more significant factor, with Fianna Fail traditionally drawing more support from the lower end of Ireland’s social scale. Yet even that is …
I don’t normally scatter too many hostages to fortune, but in a fit of foolish madness I decided to furnish the world of Twitter with my great wisdom on how the parties would fare, before the election… The DUP will perform significantly better in #LE14 than #EP14. Competition from UKIP & TUV will hollow out their EuroSceptic credentials. — Mick Fealty (@mickfealty) May 22, 2014 So what did you get wrong, or right about what happened last weekend? Mick FealtyMick …
So, Fine Gael. Not a great election. Probably slightly less damaging for them since the poor old Labour Party mudguard is catching most of the attention of the press in the immediate aftermath. But they know better from their own sweeping of FF council trenches in 2009 that a lot of the damage they shipped at the weekend is already irreversible. Even in the European elections, the core figures for both party’s actual vote are scary: Fine Gael 369,120 1st preferences …
I confess, I love elections. I don’t particularly like how party activists on Slugger slightly lose the run of themselves in the run, but it is an urgent life and death struggle. And at the end of the day in some of them, the earth just seems to move a little. This was case in 2003 and 2005. This is probably the first time since then we’ve seen some genuinely interesting shifts. Personally, I am going to wade patiently through each …
Briefly (since the long post I just spent a couple of hours writing just went phut), Britain… – Big win for UKIP (is this sounding familiar?), the “let’s have a beer and a laugh” party… Big everywhere (even in Scotland where the SNP’s sustained attack only seems to have increased their populist appeal). Two notable exceptions were London, where a large immigrant population and sheer busyness seems to have dampened their appeal and the South West where they were blocked by Labour and the …
And Boris Johnson, himself a decent performer in the old populist stakes is well worth quoting… There is a kind of peasants’ revolt going on, a jacquerie. From Dublin to Lublin, from Portugal to Pomerania, the pitchfork-wielding populists are converging on the Breydel building in Brussels – drunk on local hooch and chanting nationalist slogans and preparing to give the federalist machinery a good old kicking with their authentically folkloric clogs. There are Greek anti-capitalists and Hungarian neo-fascists and polite …
So, a short addendum to my rhetorical question from this morning. On Talkback Martina Purdy has added a little more to the explanation of what’s been going. She suggests that the decision to undesignate (if it gets returned to the next Assembly) is a response to the new people it has drawn in from a highly diverse set of backgrounds. However, there may also be other factors involved. Post unionism for instance was always going to be more attractive to …
Sam McBride reports John McCallister’s comments in The Newsletter… “The way in which the [NI21] executive was handled points to a lot of the dysfunctionality in the party. There was no agenda sent out. This was organised this afternoon; I was literally told to come down from my constituency to Belfast to do it, with no idea what it was about.” He said that the meeting consisted of a “15 or 20-minute discussion with everyone keen to get back out …
So, the UTV debate last night. If you haven’t watch it, do. It’s not pleasant, but it’s very instructive on the shockingly poor quality of the main party candidates (see Ronan Mullen from the RTE PrimeTime debate, h/t Suzanne, for comparison). The format is not kind to any one wanting to push out anything more than a populist soundbite. Will it make any difference? Sadly, I doubt it. Electorates across Europe are more likely to settle local and national scores …
UKIP on their way to an unprecedented victory in the European elections… 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
Tom Kelly’s column in the Irish News today offers this explanation the upcoming success of Sinn Fein in the north and the south: Sinn Fein’s greatest strengths are its twin planks of discipline and an ability to learn lessons fast. Add into the mix its utter shamelessness in doing “u-turns” faster than Ayrton Senna with make moves that would embarrass Max Mosley. While other parties agonise like St. Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane – Sinn Fein just do it …
So below is a list of the new councils for the Local Elections in Northern Ireland, along with suggested hashtags. These are all pretty obvious, and I’ve not tested any of them, so if you find major clashes with others let us know? Belfast City Council (#BCC) North Down and Ards District Council (#NDA) Antrim and Newtownabbey District Council (#AND) Lisburn and Castlereagh District Council (#LCD) Newry, Mourne and Down District Council (#NMD) Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon District Council (#ABC) Mid and …
There’s been lots of polling figures out over the last 24 hours for the southern European elections. I’ll sow them in later since I’m on the hoof in favour of highlighting the Irish Times Inside Politics podcast analysis of their latest polling (albeit on a 4.5% margin of error). I’d quickly highlight the following: – Fianna Fail’s only banker candidate covers a significant weakness in the party brand. Brian Crowley always madly tops the poll independent of the party rating, …
So, the southern elections. What’s to say with less than a week to go? Well probably not much more than last week’s issue of The Phoenix: Mid term, there’s probably little in it for Labour. – Fianna Fail should pick up a seat in each of the four seater constituencies, but will struggle to get back into three seat Dublin. Their Dublin West candidate came second last time out, but it’s likely to get decided on the floating Labour vote …
In just under a week the polls will open for elections to the European Parliament. In order to help citizens in Northern Ireland answer the question – who should I vote for? – researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a Voting Advice Application. The aim of this user-friendly ‘app’ is to help Northern Ireland’s voters identify which political party most closely represents their political, economic and social values using a series of scenarios and policy orientated questions. The utility …
Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting… My reading is that EdM and his team are paying the price for not having a clear message for the Euro elections. Their campaign has almost totally avoided any mention of the EU unlike the other three parties competing for votes which each have specific and relevant positions. 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 …
So, courtesy of Alex Kane, here’s the latest poll survey for the #EP14… From today’s @BelTel. Very similar to polling stuff I tweeted on Saturday morning. Could be an interesting battle. pic.twitter.com/VgH11RY4rm — Alex.Kane (@AlexKane221b) April 30, 2014 Adds: This was a survey of an expert panel of 220, not as I wrongly suggested a poll. So treat it as an intelligent guess rather than an opinion poll. Apologies. Three things stand out for me: One, the small shift between the …
Tom Kelly makes an important point in today’s Irish News about voting, not least the historic precident of not having it and the contemporary consequence (as he sees it) of not doing it… Proportional representation was enshrined in the legislation on both parts of Ireland at partition to maintain if possible the broadest reach of representation. That the north abandoned it for 50 years is a travesty of historical proportions, which allowed militant republicans to propagate and exaggerate a myth …
Having a good idea (NI21) is not the same as putting it into action… Trouble in Holywood and Clandeboye… Gerry Leddy, who had been involved with the party since its inception almost a year ago, said that he could not tell people to vote for its European candidate, Tina McKenzie, as he had “no confidence” in her. In a message posted on his Facebook page, the former North Down and Strangford constituency association treasurer said that Mrs McKenzie, who is …
