Please do come along to this event for some drinks, political chat and a good warm up before the St Patrick’s Day weekend. Guest will be the Lord Mayor, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir Picture is by Brian John Spencer. David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs
In an interview with Barton Creeth, the SDLP council candidate for Balmoral, Justin Cartwright made the following statement which caused a bit of a brew ha ha when he said this about whether he was campaigning for Irish unity No I’m not. I’m an economic unionist. Increasing numbers of nationalist voters are moving away from this idea of a united Ireland. There’s a reason for that, because people aren’t economically illiterate. They look at the the economy of the Republic of Ireland and they …
Whilst Brian may regard them as “surely sensible” changes to the criteria for the next Chief Constable, and they may well be, as I mentioned in updates to a previous post, no sooner had the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, the Alliance Party’s David Ford, announced those changes than the NI First and deputy First Ministers promptly agreed to exercise their prerogative to call his decision into the dysfunctional NI Executive semi-detached polit-bureau [Where it will be put to the sword… – …
When I put out a call for who I should interview on this segment Jamie Bryson’s name came up. He is a controversial character and invokes very few muddled opinions as the interview went out live on Lisburn’s 98FM the twitter feed went into action with people tweeting praise and criticism in equal measure. I wanted to treat Bryson like I would treat any interviewee, give him the chance to give his viewpoint and then give a critique to it …
Nice work from Stephen Walker to get his hands on a confidential report based on focus groups across Northern Ireland. The leaker, no doubt, will be keeping his/her head down low (there’s a pun there if you dig not too deeply). It’s hardly the best way to communicate tough home truths to: one, do it in the public domain first; or two have a journalist do it through access to a leaked confidential document, rather than your own leader. Clearly …
Okay, I’m coming in late with this, but since its inspired so many off topic comments on other threads, it might be useful to focus on LucidTalk’s short form conference survey at the SDLP conference in a single thread. I’ll let pass the question of how wise it is to let a newspaper do polling that might be better done yourself. Or the fact that a field survey is probably more useful since a properly ‘clubbed’ political party ought to …
I remember being asked, rather pointedly by one leading Pol Corr why I even bothered turning up for the SDLP’s Newcastle conference which elected Margaret Ritchie as party leader. I was then told, in no uncertain terms, “they don’t matter any more” This is the wilderness pit that the likes of the SDLP and Ulster Unionists have been cast into by the media. Getting out of it won’t be quick or easy. For now the chosen tactic is to slowly …
Light relief came at the SDLP conference when party member Paul Hoban got up onto the platform to support the party’s two Haass talks representatives with a poetic – and eccentric – contribution: A missionary Yankee called Haass Was given a difficult task. Unite extremists […] to respect each’s past No deal, so plan B comes to pass. The people were angry Haass enforcer flew in The non-talking leaders launched into space “Stay up there ‘til you settle” he said …
Over half the motions at the SDLP policy-making annual conference were addressed on Friday afternoon and evening. Participation in debate was sporadic and the numbers of delegates in the hall were low compared to the number catching up in the hotel corridors and social areas. One observer recalled that not much more than 50 people were in the hall for Friday’s health debate, and a fifth of them were lobbyists! That was a large attendance compared with mid-morning on Saturday. …
This was Alasdair McDonnell’s third speech as SDLP leader. If you watched on TV the poor audio for the first ten minutes would have forced you to switch off but when the BBC managed to sort out its technical difficulties the quick reality was that the viewer was not missing much of anything anyway. I always thought I understood what the SDLP believed in, but watching McDonnell’s speech I came away confused as I was subjected to bland statements and mixed …
I had to do a bit of research during the week on the assembly and the people who work in it. On the side I thought it would be interesting to find out just how old the average MLA is and what party has the youngest assembly group. Let’s begin with the overall picture-I surveyed the ages of 106 of the 108 MLAs-I couldn’t find the date of birth for two of them but this will still give me a good sample. …
Catching up on a few emails, I realised that I’d neglected to post the second part of a post started in early September about the timeline for co-opting a replacement MLA (Conall McDevitt) and the sequencing of the process between the Speaker, EONI and the political party (SDLP in this case). While relatively mundane it does illustrate the various stages and worth putting into the public name to remind us of the process the next time an MLA needs to …
In today’s Irish News, John Manley has an in-depth interview with the SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell. I have in an earlier piece tendered my views on the party’s future prospects and this is the part of the interview that I want to focus on in this piece but the entire interview is worth a read. In his talk with McDonnell, Manley probed the SDLP leader about his electoral ambitions are for the party under his stewardship. Either it was a …
John mentioned, in passing, Alex Kane’s column in today’s Irish News. But, in reaching for his hyperbolical conclusion, he missed the more interesting part of the article. From Alex Kane in the Irish News. As far back as 1972 the Heath government introduced the concept of power-sharing, the ‘Irish dimension’ and the constitutional guarantee: and from that moment it seemed inevitable that any deal they would agree to (and hope that the Irish would underwrite with them) would be a deal …
Yesterday’s opposition day debate in the Commons on Dealing With The Past initiated by the DUP was attended by only just enough GB MPs – about 20-odd – to make up the quorum of 40. Have a browse in Hansard to get the full flavour if you’re feeling strong enough. Sinn Fein’s absence is a pity. In parliament a real debate is better than sermonising. If they were present there would be a lot more authentic flavour and less of the sound …
I’m guessing you all know the drill by now. Over the past few weeks I have been doing an analysis of all the political parties’ electoral performances at an assembly level since 1998. This week I am focusing on Sinn Fein. Next month will mark the tenth anniversary of the party becoming the largest force in Nationalist politics in the assembly. So this makes now an apt time to look at where Sinn Fein are growing and where they are still …
In an earlier post I cited the latest Lucid Talk poll which showed Stormont’s approval rating at an abysmal 9%. This low approval rating while perhaps overstated does mirror a sense of disillusionment among the wider general public about the direction that we are heading under this current assembly. We have falling turnout at elections, gridlock in Stormont and a stagnant economy. When you consider all this it is little wonder that we have an apathetic electorate. However, I would …
Tom Kelly asks, after the bloodless coup of south Belfast (which he attributes to speed and accommodation), the glaring gap in the SDLP’s defences is the European Parliament elections next year. Less than a year to go, and both Sinn Fein and the DUP have been getting their candidates settled in to their relatively new positions. Diane Dodds has been meeting small groups of farmers all over Northern Ireland and providing workshops for people on how to access support. For …
Last week I did an analysis of the decline in the SDLP’s electoral support since 1998. In the piece, I questioned whether the party had a future if it continued losing voters. A lot of these same problems affect the Ulster Unionist Party. This party which founded the Northern Ireland state had led every single government that the province had until 2007. Indeed, it is hard to the think that Ian Paisley was the first leader of our provincial administration who did …
In a time of crisis, you have to do small things well. Much of the SDLP’s decline (which has been slower and gentler than that of the UUP), was marked by doing some small things really badly. The leader, in this case, got his man in, again it has to be said. That’s not necessarily easy for party like the SDLP to pull off. There’s no politbureau, no central intelligence office which constantly grades candidates and has the heft to order …
