Declan Kearney on reconciliation: a longer term project than #AE16

One of the benefits of an election campaign is that the political parties issue written statements reflecting where their thinking currently sits. What is revealing about the current crop is that there is still such a huge contrast in the language around peace and reconciliation from Sinn Féin and the two main unionist parties. Specifically, it is the absence of any desire for reconciliation in the messages of the DUP and UUP. This chimes with the comments made by President Michael D …

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SDLP’s manifesto hits opponents with actual social policy 48 hours before UTV Debate…

I’ll leave the rest of the manifesto details to others on the team, but it is worth noting that the SDLP’s launch was much crisper and clearer than normal. This time, by contrast with past documents, the clarity of just one or two points got serious media cut through. They clearly loved the Good Start proposal: an old IPPR policy brought in by New Labour as a softener for the introduction of university fees. £250 may not sound like much …

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David Cameron’s bid to go it alone could open up the debate on the UK’s future on the EU

NOW this is interesting. James Kirkup at the Telegraph broke the news last night that as well as having its manifesto writen by five old Etonians (and one former pupil of St Pauls, and I don’t mean the one in Beechmount!), the Tories will be going into the next election determined not go into coalition. Bold move by the Cameroons. Though as Mike from Political Betting notes, it is one that could swing both ways. It would certainly clear the …

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Alliance go back to college and work – what did their manifesto say about DEL?

stephen farry alliance

In the end, I never got round to reading the 150 page Alliance manifesto before the election. On Friday night, the five main parties informally ran d’Hondt to select their ministries – and announced the informal selections via the Executive’s twitter account, controversially some suggest – allowing them to spend the weekend making informed choices about suitable ministers from their elected MLAs. With nine ministries selected, Alliance had no option but take the remaining Department for Employment and Learning as …

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I don’t agree with [insert party name] … but that’s what politics is about

Still image grab from Peter Robinson talking before DUP's 2011 Assembly Election launch

Ignore my first utterance in the embedded video. The DUP had assembled their 44 Assembly candidates in Ormeau Baths Gallery to launch their election campaign. Their manifesto won’t appear for another fortnight. I asked Peter Robinson about how their performance in delivering their 2007 manifesto and the ongoing need to produce them. Ormeau Baths’ last exhibition just finished at the weekend. But there was no sign of “Expecting the Terror” at this morning’s launch. (The “Terror” in question was “HMS …

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Looking back at the DUP’s 2007 Manifesto

DUP Getting it Right logo

Stormont’s political structures don’t lend themselves to parties making too many promises in their election manifestos. And so reading through the DUP’s 2007 Assembly manifesto, could have been titled Playing it Safe rather than Getting it Right. This morning the DUP will launch their latest campaign manifesto in the run up to May’s Assembly elections, but I wanted to take a look back to see how their performance matched their promises in 2007. Unionism needs a strong DUP. The safeguards …

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TUV – a manifesto light on self promotion

Excluding the party group photograph in the TUV manifesto [pdf] the other photographs total seven TUV members (four images of Allister). This compares to nine images of SF members. A word count for the document gives the following: Jim Allister – 3 Paisley – 5 Martin McGuinness – 7 Robinson – 7 DUP – 23 Sinn Féin – 52 TUV – 56 Blank

It’s just not fair!

ARE the Ulster Unionists the new MOPEs? Their new leaflet comes across as very ‘them vs us’, buying into that whole zero-sum ‘if they’re getting something, we must be losing it’ mindset that plagues local politics.There’s no attempt in this unadulterated whingefest to appeal to non-unionists, two mentions of ‘Roman Catholics’ (none of ‘Protestants’) and symbolically jingoistic – so it should work a treat… unless nationalist transfers were being sought. Perhaps the UUP’s biggest problem here is convincing people that …

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