Nolan

The Nolan/Prime Time survey should be a wake up call for Nationalists

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If you missed it last night both Patricia MacBride and Chris Donnelly featured on the joint RTE/BBC broadcast looking at issues such as a United Ireland, abortion rights and same-sex marriage. United Ireland To start with Irish unity and just who wants it, the survey found support for devolution strong on both sides of the border. For republicanism, it highlights the need to make devolution work and ensure that this place functions, before you contemplate any new ventures with a United Ireland. …

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Ó Donnghaile takes on the biggest show in the country

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Sinn Fein Councillor,Niall Ó Donnghaile appeared on the Nolan TV Show last week to talk about Gregory Campbell’s “Curry my yogurt” quote in the Assembly earlier that week. However,  Ó Donnghaile has taken offence about how Nolan dealt with the issue as he kept repeating the remarks in an attempt to get Niall to laugh.  Ó Donnghaile  has said in a statement released yesterday offensive remarks were repeated ad nauseam in order to get a cheap laugh…The disrespect shown to …

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Stormont’s falling turnout is the reason it is losing touch with wider public opinion

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This is David McCann arguing that the current malaise in Northern Irish politics has its roots in the fact that no less than 160,000 people stopped voting after 1998. From  June 1998 to March 2011 electoral turnout dropped from 70% to 54.5%. Whilst the UUP and the SDLP lost a staggering 84,000 votes each, SF only picked up 35,000 and the DUP 52,000. McCann’s thesis is that this disengagement is a prime cause of the subsequent drift of Stormont politics from the concerns of …

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Do Unionist councils need to learn the ‘trick’ of using nationalist mayors as a majoritarian cover?

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Watching Nolan on Wednesday night was a fascinating experience (of which more later). A couple of our regular bloggers were in the audience. Of all the moments, this from Chris probably took the lion’s share of positive comment on Twitter: He makes an important point, when he recounts the number of unionist councils which refuse to rotate the chair in council. Simply put, it is an open goal waiting to scored anytime power sharing comes up. What unionists miss, and …

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McNarry: “the party will close ranks and anybody who wants to be a hypocrite will get their photograph taken”

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Tom Eliott wielding scissors at the opening of David McNarry's Saintfield Advice Centre Opening

It’s the story that keeps on giving. And that looks to be David McNarry’s intention. Now free of having to notify the UUP press office about media interviews and statements – something that Tom Elliott has adhered to as Party Leader – David McNarry is everywhere. This morning’s News Letter. The Belfast Telegraph. Though nothing fully authored by him in the Irish News. [Ed: Maybe he’s saving that as a treat for Thursday?] In recent days he has appeared on …

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Seeking asylum is not a crime. The human face of detention.

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There has been much, often ill-informed, comment on the airwaves over the last couple of days on the proposed immigration (temporary) detention centre planned by the UK Borders Agency in Larne. Much has come from local residents that foreign nationals being held in secure detention might escape, might take people’s jobs, might lower property values … who knows, they might even start barbecuing swans given half the chance. Of course, the quality of the discourse was hardly helped by the BNP …

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