Who would be in the poor UUP? Alex Kane noted in the Belfast Telegraph on Wednesday, it is the gift to journalists that just keeps on giving, regardless of who is in charge. And the new leader does not have his troubles to seek: The problem is that there is no sign of the better policies, better organisation, or the better communications. Indeed, an opinion poll in the Belfast Telegraph last week put the UUP – at 11% – on …
If you thought the controversy around NI Water and the then NI Regional Development Minister, Conor Murphy, MP, MLA, had gone away, think again. The BBC reports that an industrial tribunal has found that Alan Lennon, a Protestant overlooked for the post of chairman of NI Water in March 2011, was discriminated against on religious grounds. From the BBC report In March 2011, Mr Murphy appointed a Catholic as chairman, Sean Hogan, ahead of four others shortlisted after interview, all …
BBC NI political editor Mark Devenport notes some lines of interest from former Sinn Féin MLA, Billy Leonard’s memoir, “Towards a United Ireland – an uncompleted journey”. From Mark Devenport’s blog The memoir is revealing on the discussions within Sinn Fein at the time of the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney and, as he told me on Inside Politics, Mr Leonard believes the IRA’s tentacles still run through the party. He writes that “when the IRA …
The detailed results of the Belfast Telegraph poll into current Assembly voting intentions were published at the weekend www.lucidtalk.co.uk We can be sure that the parties will be poring over them. They will translate the changes in percentage support into votes, and then project that into individual Assembly constituencies, and also look for lessons for their next Westminster and European campaigns. Here’s what they will find: • The UUP appears to have lost over 14,700 voters since the last Assembly …
The Northern Ireland Environment Minister, the SDLP’s Alex Attwood, may have a shortlist of potential National Parks – the Mournes, the Causeway Coast and Antrim Glens, and the Fermanagh Lakelands – but he doesn’t have the required legislation in place. As the BBC report notes The minister said he hopes to designate two of the three as National Parks. “Northern Ireland is the only part of these islands that does not have National Parks,” he said. “It is time to grasp …
This morning the Conservatives launched in Northern Ireland [what, again? – Ed] Yes, they’re NI Conservatives now rather than Conservatives NI. Now, where was I? Oh yes. There were a few names there, many of them former (unelected) supporters of the UCU-NF. Yesterday however it was the DUP rather than the local Tories who caught the attention of Conservative Home when four of their number voted with Conservatives on a vote of no confidence (and against Labour and the Lib …
The BBC report on the news that the National Trust are seeking leave for a judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission for a 18-hole golf course, hotel and golf lodges complex at Runkerry, close to the Unesco World Heritage Centre Giants’ Causeway and Causeway Coast, begins thus Stormont ministers have reacted angrily to a legal challenge by the National Trust over the decision to grant planning permission for a £100m golf resort on Northern Ireland’s north coast. That’s according to an …
Bel Tel figures from the LucidTalk poll are well worth extracting from Liam Clarke’s article (finally coming online this morning from yesterday). The first thing to note is the absence of any significant deviation from the election results, which in my experience of NI polls is first. Mind you, this is a more than respectable sample and not the 500 or 600 polls we have had before which suffer from massive distortional error rates. In truth though, there’s not much …
In the Irish Times, Paddy Woodworth notes an all-too-familiar tale of political chutzpah in Europe [Nevermind closer to home! – Ed]. This time it’s the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and his spin on that ‘magic bullet’. From the Irish Times report The total reversal of his oft-stated conviction that no EU money was needed by the Spanish banks became the vindication of his strategic abilities. Flying in the face of well-documented alternative accounts of events, he insisted that it was …
In response to the anarchy in Londonderry, and elsewhere, the PSNI have launched a Facebook campaign… Police are urging young people from all communities to help drive the figures down even further with help from social media. “The Facebook campaign is one tactic designed specifically to reach out to those over 16 who may have information,” said Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris. “These groups are self-serving, self-named, accountable to no one, elected by no one and they are carrying out …
Following on from the Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education (NICCE) belated publication of its Post-Primary Review Strategic Regional Report, individual dioceses are bringing forward their suggestions. The first one out of the blocks appears to concern Catholic maintained schools in Londonderry. The Derry Diocese Administrator, Monsignor Eamon Martin, has published “Together Towards Tomorrow – a discussion paper re Post-Primary Education in the Derry City Area”. [Direct link to 9mb pdf file here]. This Discussion Paper explains the opportunities offered in a ‘partnership’ …
So before the actual result of the Referendum on the Fiscal Treaty is announced, here’s a run down of how I think each of the parties have fared. It’s less a beauty line up, and more an attempt to grade them in terms of how they have managed to improve their positioning as a result. Finally, you’ll be relieved to hear, that I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. In fact, I’d welcome your own grading of the parties performances with …
With the announcement on Girdwood [and any other business? – Ed] as a stark example of the semi-detached polit-bureau back in action, Ed Curran looks ahead The mark of the Stormont Executive has been its ability to take longer than could be imagined to arrive at decisions on many important issues. No agreed legislation means little, or nothing, to debate in the Assembly chamber. MLAs have been hard-pressed to stretch out debates in plenary sessions in recent months. For much of the …
So once again, Sinn Fein is sitting pretty in the polls. The Irish Times poll puts them on an unprecedented high, of 24%. Labour are down to 10%, which is roughly their lowest margin in the period between 2002 and the onset of the recession in the summer of 2008. The hard core of the Labour vote remains with them, but the protest vote (which contains a sizeable chunk of former Fianna Fail voters) they gained in the last general …
It’s been a while since I posted a random song… But here you go. Enjoy! Pete Baker
Worth noting the result of the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll of voting intentions in Ireland’s European fiscal treaty referendum on Thursday. From the Irish Times report Asked how they were likely to vote on the treaty, 39 per cent of voters said Yes, 30 per cent said No, 22 per cent said they did not know, and 9 per cent said they would not be voting. When the 31 per cent of undecided and non-voters are excluded, support for the Yes side …
Martin McGuinness’ keynote speech to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis is up on the party website. It’s worth quoting at length, because at risk of invoking a trite pun it is worth noting at least as much for its reference to Tone (Wolf Theobald) and its generally emollient tone. Partition created two conservative states on our island. The rights and entitlements of ordinary citizens were secondary to the needs of the political class in both states. That is why every …
The eurozone crisis rumbles on, its democratic deficit intact, and Ireland’s Fiscal Treaty referendum approaches. Time, then, for historian Michael Wood to go looking for some historical references… The British historian Gildas (c 500-570) in his diatribe against contemporary rulers in the early 500s, looking back over the story of the Fall of Roman Britain, lists the military failures, but behind them he speaks bitterly of a loss of nerve and direction, a failure of “group feeling”. Gildas talks about …
In light of Mick’s post, and now Brian’s follow-up, it’s worth noting an Irish News report today of Ballymoney Councillor Anita Cavlan’s resignation from Sinn Féin “over concerns it is failing prisoners”. From the Irish News report The Ballymoney councillor said she believed Sinn Féin had “lost direction” and “should be doing more to represent the prisoners”. “Sinn Féin in my opinion has been slowly sedated and now has been rendered unconscious by the intoxication of an illusionary power to govern,” she said. According …
So the Joey Barton of Ulster politics has been shown a permanent Red Card by Captain Nesbitt, and David McNarry makes his way to the dressing room where (to mix my sporting metaphors for those of you who remember Mike Yarwood or Ed Waring) he’ll take an early bath. It’s ironic, that this most ill-disciplined of team players finally got pinged for following the leader’s orders for once. Though it is undoubtedly for the insubordination of going to the media …
