Robinson scores a palpable, if tactical, hit with the Daily Telegraph

Interesting front page story from my old Daily Telegraph colleagues Rosa Prince and Robert Winnett who may not have accurately read the implications of their story for their paper’s favourite man in the race… Effectively they are saying that Cameron may come to rely on a party they are currently engaged in a life and death struggle with in South Antrim (erm, the day after beating his way through hell, high water and volcanic ash to a part of the …

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Britain’s Wizard of Oz election…

It struck me the other day that, in Britain at least, we’re witnessing something of a Wizard of Oz election… Now please forgive the crude charaterisations here, it’s certainly not intended to wound or make light of profoundly serious matters, but it seems to me that the three party leaders roughly approximate to the characters of scarecrow, the tinman and the cowardly lion… So for starters, you have Gordon Brown as the lion wishing he had the nerve… Then Nick …

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What to expect at the count (AH AH AH AH AH!)

Ian Paisley Junior and others hunkered down on the ground tallying votes being validated face down at the 2009 European Election

What should you expect to see at the count on Thursday night if you’re turning up as a party worker, a journalist, an election observer or a member of the public lucky enough to find a count centre allowing you in? What follows is my understanding of what will happen. (EONI’s Guide for Candidates is a good source of information.) The first ballot boxes will arrive at the count centres from nearby polling stations shortly after ten o’clock. As soon …

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David Cameron talks to Mallie, with just thirty six hours to go…

Aspiring Prime Minister David Cameron has rubbished a Belfast Telegraph election poll, alleging it was carried out by a lobbying company linked to the Democratic Unionist Party. In a rousing speech to members of Ulster Unionist and Conservative parties David Cameron gallantly boasted of how he braved the elements of nature like young Lochinvar to reach La Mon Hotel for today’s political rally. La Mon Hotel was bombed by the IRA 31 years ago. The Conservative party leader raised the temperature declaring: …

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Fears over the end of the overnight count allayed

At the end of last summer, the media was buzzing with fears that right at the moment that Northern Ireland was re-embracing overnight counts, many English local authorities were threatening to pull out of nocturnal calculations at the General Election. As you’d expect, a Facebook group was formed, and electoral officers (described by Tory MP Peter Bone as “tin-pot, upstart little town clerks”) across the UK were surveyed to find out their plans. By January 2010, BBC Newsnight’s Michael Crick …

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David Cameron comes to Northern Ireland…

David Cameron is expected to tell the people of Northern Ireland today they will not have to carry  a disproportionate share of financial savings. The aspiring (or according to Peter Robinson last year putative) PM is on a flying visit to Belfast to boost his sister party, the Ulster Unionists. David Cameron angered members of the Democratic Unionist Party last week when he signalled over dependence on the public sector would have to be addressed. This was widely interpreted by political rivals as …

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So what happens on the doorstep?

UCUNF's Daphne Trimble and canvassing team consulting the street map before setting off around the doors

All the candidates (and canvassers) have a fixed patter that they repeat ad nausea on every doorstep. Rosettes and ties are out with the UCUNF team in Lagan Valley, but in with DUP and TUV. A sitting MP has an advantage – and knows it. No one tells unionists canvassers that they vote nationalist or Alliance. All that and many more reflections from watching the parties canvass in Lagan Valley.

And so four days out…

It’s been a weirdly uneventful campaign, on the Irish side of the water. All the action has been over in Britain. But it is precisely because of that action that the outcome in Northern Ireland may be that bit much more important than usual. Realistically, there are only two seats in play: Fermanagh South Tyrone (where, if the raw figures are anything to go by, will be SFs first northern loss for years) and South Antrim (win or lose, Reg …

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Quote of the day…

Heard in Fermanagh South Tyrone… Martin Ferris (TD, Kerry) catches up with Ferghal McKinney and informs him, “You don’t even live in the constituency”… 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

Canvassing for beginners

Bring pens, maps, water and a coat. Wear comfortable shoes. Don’t forget to eat. Keep track of the bookies’ odds. Develop a sixth sense for whether a house is empty or occupied. It’s all good advice for candidates canvassing around the doors of their prospective constituency. During last year’s Euro election I blogged about the process of checking postal ballots, polling day, the main verification of votes, and the eventual counting of the ballot papers. This year I’ve gone a …

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Are hustings a thing of the past?

logo for CARE's Make The Cross Count initiative

Am I the only person who has been disappointed by the lack of hustings in local constituencies? Reading election literature doesn’t give you a complete picture about candidates, and how they engage with difficult issues – and difficult people – could be crucial to how you’d vote. (OK, other factors like how you’ve always voted, and how your parents voted might also be crucial in NI too.) Under the banner of their Make The Cross Count initiative, the organisation CARE …

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Election 2010: Things I believed in yesterday…

I picked this up this morning, it’s a Tory leaflet warning people of the big danger of a hung Parliament… 24 hours ago it was a decent pitch. Today, I’m not sure anyone believes Gordon can be PM any more… 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

Gordon Brown’s gaffe ‘detoxifies’ Tory immigration policies…

Interesting times. Danny Finkelstein said on Newsnight last night that Brown’s clumsiness comes already discounted with the price, and therefore this won’t have much of an effect. I beg to differ Danny. It will have an effect almost precisely because in comparison with the larger affairs of state, it is relatively trivial. It will matter, because it shifts more of those crucial folk with light preferences in politics (ie, the ones who still ‘don’t know’ when they lift the pencil …

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Ford tries to ‘bump’ Long over the line?

I’ve not been able to take politicians forecasts of their own fortunes seriously since Mitchel McLaughlin told me in all seriousness that he was going to win the Foyle seat in 2005. Now David Ford is pushing his candidate in East Belfast as a real possibility for taking a seat, without quite saying that. With Sammy Morse’s warnings against any party (including his own presumably) who relies on canvass returns ringing in my ears, I would say the Alliance party …

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FST’s ‘shotgun marriage’ may not cut it for Unionist electorate…

Last week Ben Lowry was asking whether those behind the Unionist unity campaign had taken account of its natural response: nationalist unity? The publication of the High Court’s judgement against Fermanagh District Council won’t help the unity candidate down there. Toals already have the incumbent Michelle Gildernew fractionally ahead of the council’s former CEO Rodney Connor, even though, theoretically, the numbers should add up to slight unionist majority. As I argued back in January, some of form of unionist unity …

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Elections now mean power sharing within parties

The one sure outcome of this election is the end of a system that produced the phenomenon of the Swish family Robinson. By that I mean not the personal dramas, (although there’s a connection of course), but the accumulation of personal influence and the development of politics as a small family business, all of it apparently within the rules but now about  to be greatly reduced.  Mr Robinson himself will be less affected than his colleagues.  He’s bidding to retain his …

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Election 2010: Smarter GB electorate playing with the political classes?

Alex Kane reckons that the Tories will still make it across the line in this election. My own view is that the forces at work are more complex than at any time in my memory (and I can go back to about 1970), not least because of the complex tools available via the net (take a bow Electoral Calculus). I suspect the humble two party swingometer is functionally dead from here on in. Regardless of the outcome of this election. …

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Sunday polls: Conservatives nose ahead in a volatile race

Still not brilliant news in Sunday’s polls for the Tories, but I would rather be in their shoes than Labour’s today: no momentum and the campaign (substance vs, erm, ‘the damned Tories’) is slowly disintegrating. Things are still holding up pretty well for the Lib Dems. And after last week’s wobble (as Clegg came into the frame) Cameron’s ratings seem to be heading north again. If I were a Labour hack, one thing (amongst many) to worry about is not the polls …

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Cameron was clumsy but accurate…

David Cameron has touched off something of a bush fire in his interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC2 in speaking of the dependency culture in Northern Ireland. He compared the amount of state support to that of some of the Communist Eastern bloc countries. The potential PM was clumsy in his exposition despite the accuracy of what he was actually saying. My suggestion that there was ‘a whiff’ of the infamous Harold Wilson “spongers” sobriquet about Mr Cameron’s observation, sent …

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Hague will step in for Cameron in Belfast on Monday

Apparently David Cameron’s schedule got set back because of the Icelandic ash cloud. So whilst yesterday, according Eamonn (who is on fire just now on Twitter) the Conservatives were planning to send their big howitzer in on Monday, they are now sending William Hague instead… And nothing, they say, to do with last night’s remarks on Newnight… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media …

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