Parties – Page 24 – Slugger O'Toole

Projecting the Westminster votes onto the Assembly

Nicholas Whyte on May 10, 2015, 8:03 am

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I have crunched the numbers from Thursday’s election for each of the Northern Ireland constituencies, simply projecting the votes cast as if the election had instead been for 18 six-seat constituencies, and making a few other assumptions (competent but not perfect balancing of candidates, Unionists transfer to each other more than Nationalists, etc). The raw results are below, with links to each constituency page. I have colour-coded gains and losses, and also indicated in bold the four constituencies where there …

Battle for South Belfast: Tough old bull triumphs, the young ‘pretender’ falls

Mick Fealty on May 9, 2015, 9:18 pm

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Saving my usual series of where the parties stand analysis for next week, for now I want to do a short series of head dumps on the election. First, that tough (and very dirty) battle for South Belfast. There was a number of factors in this seat that made it hard to predict. When the DUP selected Junior Minister Jonathan Bell I thought it was a good choice. I still do. His problem in getting ahead of Alasdair McDonnell was …

The election exposed the faint breath of a desire for change within the sectarian camps.

Brian Walker on May 9, 2015, 4:38 pm

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All true democrats should thrilled to have it confirmed that politics is not dominated by the polls. Real people apparently can think for themselves. Locally LucidTalk’s amazingly hairy exercises with opinion panels fared better in the prediction stakes than the UK national pollsters, even though playing percentages is a whole lot easier than making firm predictions. Small shifts in turnout and opinion made all the difference. Looking at it from across the water, your campaign was generally beyond embarrassment. The …

Carál Ní Chuilín: “What is clear to me is that there has been an anti-GAA element throughout…”

Pete Baker on May 7, 2015, 8:17 pm

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Having had to apologise for “an error” in claiming that the “Electoral commission vetoed using last election figures” in defence of Sinn Féin’s sectarian leaflet campaign in North Belfast, the Northern Ireland Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, might have been better advised to be more cautious in her public utterances in future… Despite having reportedly announced, last Thursday, a full review of the new Casement Park Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) ground redevelopment plan, on Tuesday, …

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 …

“To interfere with the definition of marriage is not a simple or a trivial matter” – Archbishop Martin

Pete Baker on May 2, 2015, 11:57 pm

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Whilst some political parties are being pilloried in Northern Ireland, the chief super-naturalist head of the Catholic Church in Ireland [That’s North and South? – Ed], Archbishop Eamon Martin, has issued a statement [pdf file] of the church’s opposition to a proposed change to the Irish Constitution on same-sex marriage. From the RTÉ report [Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin] said: “Until now, Ireland has accepted that it is in the best interests of children and of society to promote …

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 …

Is it possible that Fianna Fail has turned another one of those invisible corners?

Mick Fealty on April 30, 2015, 3:06 pm

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So averting gaze from the mesmerising polling of the UK election, and to the unfixed electoral politics of the Republic, here’s a constructive question. Is Fianna Fail on the rise again? Mad, eh? Well, Jody Corcoran does not have a completely unblemished track record when it comes to predicting the future. Still, the 1400 at the party’s selection meeting in Kerry is larger than several parties’ national conferences, and 800 turned up in Sligo last week. Specifically Jody notes that… …

Casement Park STG Chair: “we were being attempted to be coerced, pressurised into signing off something that we were singularly uncomfortable with…”

Pete Baker on April 30, 2015, 2:46 pm

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The BBC reports on the latest wrinkle in the on-going saga of the controversial £70million redevelopment of Casement Park in west Belfast – stalled in December last year when Belfast High Court quashed the decision to grant planning approval for the redevelopment. At the start of April this year, the BBC obtained the minutes of the last meeting of the Casement Park Development Safety Technical Group (STG), in November 2014, under a Freedom of Information request. The STG is made up of representatives …

Dodd lays into the Tories for laying into the SNP’s mandate (and side-slaps the SNP)

Mick Fealty on April 27, 2015, 11:32 am

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Those who heard this morning’s #SluggerReport will have noted the major item was Nigel Dodds’ extraordinarily adept intervention in the Westminster debate this morning in the Guardian. It surely cannot be a coincidence that Jim Wells’ has been dispatched so quickly (hint: it was nothing to do with our toothless Ministerial code) in order to clear the air and political space for this… Listening to Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive pan-British rhetoric, you could have thought you were listening to one of …

What the manifestos of the Northern Ireland parties don’t say…

Brian Walker on April 23, 2015, 1:42 pm

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Practically everything of importance, as far as I can make out from the cloudy rhetoric. What unites them? Yes! Abolish air passenger duty! But save us from tough decisions. Blame the Brits or seek their help or possibly both at once. As befits the party’s expected numbers, the DUP’s manifesto is about positioning for after the election. It’s also a rehearsal for next year’s Assembly election that offers no hostages to fortune. Whatever the DUP professes about even handedness between …

UKIP appeals to disaffected lower middle class…

Mick Fealty on April 22, 2015, 2:53 pm

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I’m not sure this is such a surprise, but the British election study has looked at UKIP’s support in Britain and discovered that it doesn’t have such an appeal to the working class as many thought: “The idea that many Ukip voters are working class and that they therefore pose a threat to Labour’s support in the election has gained considerable currency ….But we find this is wrong; the working class basis of Ukip has been strongly overstated.The Party’s strongest …

“Today, I hold fast to all tenets of mistrust…”

Pete Baker on April 19, 2015, 9:37 pm

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The novelist Howard Jacobson on the virtues of art and literature over politics and politicians… It doesn’t follow from what I say that we should hand over the reins of political power to artists. They wouldn’t make a better job of it. But we would all make a better job of thinking about politics – indeed of thinking about anything – if we refused that daisy-chain of affiliation which the ideological hang around our necks, with the promise that we’ll …

Why have NI’s political parties failed to answer policy questions for #VoteMatch?

Mick Fealty on April 6, 2015, 6:03 pm

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Ahem, so there’s an election on. And everywhere in the United Kingdom there is a choice based on policy. You can play VoteMatch, a project run by Unlock Democracy to help you decide. I tested it on the North Poole and Mid Dorset constituency, and there the running result is a lead for the Greens, with UKIP coming a close second in a place where the Lib Dems held the seat in 2010 and according to the Ashcroft polls the Tories …

PEB Report: Alliance on money, DUP on NI, and the SDLP’s fresh faces

Mick Fealty on April 2, 2015, 3:25 pm

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I don’t propose doing a single and comprehensive rundown of all the party PEBs this election, but I will pick up on bunches of them as they go [flying] past. Alliance have had one out before the official campaign began, and it is just as slick in presentation as we have come to expect from them. Necessarily it focuses on their one seat they have to defend. Openness and transparency, and ending double jobbing and pushing out the work of …

Northern Ireland Water charges to rise…

Pete Baker on April 1, 2015, 12:44 am

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As the BBC reported on 27 March Northern Ireland Water is putting up charges to its 80,000 non-domestic customers from April – the first price rise in three years. The company said the increase would average out at 2.4%. The main factor “dictating this increase” is a £14m rise, or doubling, of its rates bill, following a revaluation carried out of all local businesses last year. In the previous two financial years, Northern Ireland Water cut its tariffs. Businesses and …

Latest Red C Poll shows a shift towards government parties (and away from SF)

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2015, 11:35 am

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Many of you will already have seen these results over the weekend… FG 27 (+3) (+6 since Dec), Lab 10 (+3) (+4 since Dec), FF 18 (=), SF 17 (-4) (-7 since Dec), Ind/Oth 28 (-2). [Ind 24, Grn 2, Ren 2], DK 13. — Richard Colwell (@REDCMD) March 28, 2015 The key change here is in the confirmation that the last Red C Poll (for Paddy Power) was indeed indicating a rising fortune for both Labour and Fine Gael. …

“Granted, that reality wears tinfoil but that’s an essential protective measure these days.”

Pete Baker on March 25, 2015, 8:07 pm

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[But the tinfoil works? Doesn’t it?! – Ed] That’s what they say… In the Spectator, Alex Massie takes a look at the state of Scottish politics in the aftermath of the referendum for Scottish independence – and the resulting ‘No’ vote. One of the most notable features of Alex Salmond’s account of the closing stages of last year’s referendum campaign is his hatred of the press and, indeed, the media more generally. Newspapers which run inconvenient stories are ‘anti-Scottish’ and journalists who …

A tentative answer to the question: “what does Fianna Fail stand for?”

Mick Fealty on March 24, 2015, 2:38 pm

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So miles away from the talk of pacts and sectarian games last Friday, East Galway Colm Keaveney, the former Irish Labour Party Chair who has been one of the few movers across to the Fianna Fail whip in the Dail, had an interesting grilling from NewsTalk’s Sean Moncrieff in Galway: It takes a while to get started but this section in particular caught caught my ear, not least because it has been one of the few lucid public attempts by …

Assembly’s ‘consent’ for National Crime Agency Order is a challenge to the Speaker

Pete Baker on March 23, 2015, 4:22 pm

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In a Parliamentary written answer last week (16 March), the Secretary of State gave an update on the progress of the Draft Order in Council which will extend the operation of the National Crime Agency to Northern Ireland. Here’s what Teresa Villiers said. The Northern Ireland Assembly recently agreed to the making of an Order which will enable the National Crime Agency (NCA) to be fully operational in Northern Ireland. That Order has been considered by Committees in both the …