One of the advantages of reaching middle age is that, provided one has a good memory, one can see lots of things happening again. I have never been interested in betting: partly a good Calvinist upbringing but also the fact that aged 9 or 10 on a Sunday School outing I put money into gaming machines in Barry’s in Portrush and noted (unsurprising with hindsight) that I got less out than I put in. I have just once since been …
It is the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. These days, however, the French seem to celebrate it as a victory rather than a defeat. So finally we can celebrate after five horrible years as the bastion of awfulness finally fell: oh yes and it was VE day as well. Excitement amongst unionists over the defeat of Naomi Long is tempered by the fact that she was hardly a terrorist cheerleader in chief. Rather much of the pleasure …
As a number of people have noted 5 years ago I did a blog in the aftermath of Rodney Connor’s defeat in Fermanagh South Tyrone. Many unionists (like myself) were disconsolate. Many unionists and nationalists regarded FST as lost to unionism forever. It had in Gildernew a relatively young MP who had just been re elected for the second time; a unionist pact had failed to defeat her and the greening of the west had almost completed, threatening to bring …
One of the critical points in this election for unionists was in March 2013. That was when Martin McGuinness stood down as MP and in the ensuing election Francie Molloy was elected. Nigel Lutton (whose father Frederick had been murdered by the IRA and Molloy connected with that murder in the House of Commons by the DUP’s David Simpson) stood as a united unionist candidate. That resulted in a modest increase in the unionist vote which Mike Nesbitt claimed as …
The BBC are reporting that Jim Wells has resigned as health minister following his remarks at the canvassing event in South Down and a further bizarre episode whilst canvassing in Rathfriland. Wells has issued a statement on the DUP website explaining the stress his wife’s illness has caused and explaining his resignation. TurgonThis author has not written a biography and will not be writing one.
The developing spat over foreign policy between Ed Miliband and the Tories is interesting. It is very rare for specific parts of foreign policy to be debated in a partisan fashion during an election unless they relate to macro longterm issues such as Europe etc. From the BBC reporting Miliband: “David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya was a country whose institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own,” he said. “The tragedy is that this …
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 …
Defence after a few days in the spotlight a couple of weeks ago has settled back to being one of the Cinderella subjects in the General Election campaign. It is maybe fairer to call it an orphan rather than a Cinderella subject: orphan because very few serious politicians pay it anything more than lip service during election campaigns. To continue the orphan analogy it does have an odd, mad uncle who is supportive but that often hurts not helps the …
Votes for the SNP in the general election would bind the SNP closer into the Union especially if Labour form the government. This was becoming even clearer from the analysis of the gap between Labour’s and the SNP’s austerity plans by Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. ( Times £) What is clear is that there is a really quite substantial difference between Labour and the Conservatives. We can put it in the order of £24 billion of spending a …
The date was the 9th of June 1983. The Police were top of the UK charts with “Every Breath You Take”, Pioneer 10 was passing the orbit of Neptune to become the first man-made object to leave the major planets of the Solar System, and Ken Maginnis of the UUP took the Westminster seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone from Owen Carron of Sinn Féin. Owen Carron had won the seat in a 1981 by-election following the death of Anti …
Last night’s announcement that Strangford MLA Jonathan Bell will be the DUP parliamentary candidate for South Belfast means that it is now looking likely that all of the “big five” parties in Northern Ireland will be running candidates in all constituencies in Belfast. Sinn Féin have been breathing down the necks of the DUP in North Belfast for some time. However, Sinn Féin’s selection of Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, the Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2013-14, has led some to wonder …
In his latest interventions on the future of the Union, Gordon Brown proposes wider devolution for Scotland than the Conservative-led UK government proposes but less power than the Conservatives recommend for English MPs to vote on English laws, which he seems to believe could be fatal for the future of the Union. Brown has drawn up battle lines to oppose the Hague plan produced yesterday. Brown casts himself as a lone voice in defence of the Union. He dismisses the …
CON 252, LAB 231, SNP 52, LD 41, UKIP 38, DUP 9, GRN 9, PC 8, SF 6, SDLP 2, Independent 1, Speaker 1 Required for majority: 322 (CON 70 short, LAB 91 short) The upcoming UK General Election has been called “the most unpredictable for almost a century”. There are several reasons for this; the rise of UKIP, the Greens, and the SNP, the collapse of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless seem to maintain highly localized popularity in areas where they have sitting MPs, and the fact that Labour and the Conservatives are going in to the election essentially on level pegging. …
It could be argued that Westminster Elections are now very much of secondary importance and interest in Northern Ireland, compared to Stormont elections. However, this is shaping up to be a very peculiar election for the UK as a whole, and there is a very real possibility that the DUP could play a major power-broking role in the next parliament. Besides, first-past-the-post elections in a multi-party system are gloriously silly, given the prospect that you could “win” some seats with …
As we approach the general election next May, Slugger will be hosting a series of articles looking at the chances of each of the main parties next year. Writing for us on the Conservatives is the former Deputy Chairman and pollster, Lord Ashcroft. Since I stepped down as the Conservatives’ Deputy Chairman in 2010 my role has been that of the pollster, not the strategist. I set out the lie of the land as objectively as I can; what the …
Every so often – but not very often – a major theme enters political debate which nobody noticed much at first but when attention is drawn to it, it becomes completely obvious. This topic is one such I’m posting here on how a referendum vote in favour of Scottish independence in September 2014 could greatly complicate the options for transitional UK government up to the general election in May 2015 and even more, the composition and form of the UK government thereafter. …
