tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35581522009-06-19T10:45:16.597+01:00Back up to sluggerotoole.com (when we can't ride the surge) - Notes on Northern Ireland politics and cultureMickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.comBlogger1135125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-69319392099896973712009-06-18T14:38:00.003+01:002009-06-18T14:43:34.172+01:00

Whilst Slugger is down (I know, I know... we're moving serves in the next few days)... The Judge makes it clear there are protections for journalists, but these are qualified protections... Although the Recorder concludes[33] I have therefore at this point reached conclusions as follows: (a) That the concept of confidentiality for journalists protecting their sources is recognised in law, and

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-949129549034652202009-06-08T11:27:00.000+01:002009-06-08T11:28:08.470+01:00

Northern Ireland European Count

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-11733350545720416322009-06-06T09:00:00.001+01:002009-06-06T01:59:53.903+01:00

Right, we are going to be following the southern count today, with a live blog of our own. If you want the genuine southern article, Suzy and co have already moved in... It starts about 9, but we don't expect the action to start until 11am... Follow Sean O'Rourke and Rachel English on RTE radio from 11am until 4pm. Catch the TV coverage from 1-2 and 4-6 in the pm at RTE Live...Local Elections in

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-12153753347931037272009-06-06T00:38:00.003+01:002009-06-06T00:52:51.143+01:00

(Mark here - think my blogger account gives a different display name)Some limited and not particularly good raw polling data I got my hands on, 10ish boxes per area that probably benefit the UUP/Greens/Alliance.Massive pinch of salt time but here you go, make of it what you will:North DownUUP - mid 20%DUP/TUV/APNI - all around 20%Greens - mid teensSDLP - 4%ishSF - 2%ishSouth DownSDLP/SF - high

Mark McGregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148900106770171371noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-69504396218399872142009-06-05T18:49:00.002+01:002009-06-05T18:51:07.426+01:00

They've kept their counsel on the likely result the whole way through campaign, but it looks like McGuinness's post Massereene statement on dissident Republican paramilitaries bought him a huge chunk of the Nationalist electorate... Nationalist gamechanging moment number 1. The SDLP on the other hand are back on a familiar knife edge: if the numbers from verification move slightly in their favour

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-62873884678812420332009-06-05T11:13:00.003+01:002009-06-05T11:30:42.891+01:00

In case Slugger goes belly up, here's a facsimile of the gossip thread intro:This is a kind of open thread… I’d advise people to take what passes below as rumour until proven… but it’s a opportunity to share whispers gossip and general chat about how things are going inside in the verification process… I’ll start with one that should be taken with some salt… Allister is said to be polling well in

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-65292203825970521712009-06-04T16:35:00.000+01:002009-06-04T16:37:38.952+01:00

Starter for one: South Belfast: 176 at Donegall Road in a ward of 2,500 registered voters.

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-57848059960336715992009-06-04T16:34:00.003+01:002009-06-04T16:36:37.601+01:00

The big question is how well will Jim Allister do... Well enough in the heartland, but he's up against big machines... Hardly surprising Holywood was a last resort for votes, but a few posters about the place may just get him another small margin...

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-40410966136003523422009-06-03T11:55:00.001+01:002009-06-03T11:57:46.392+01:00

We're expecting a big surge of traffic on the count day of the European election... On that day we'll be double posting all information to this place and Slugger main..

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-26336877402528070342007-11-13T13:38:00.000Z2007-11-13T13:39:57.672Z

I'm having to do an upgrade on the site to try and get rid of a syntax error. Please bear with us whilst we try to get us back to Slugger basecamp again.

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-3304547913659522722007-03-08T14:46:00.000Z2007-03-08T14:47:37.746Z

Naomi Long 5583Peter Robinson 5635Wallace Browne 3185Sir Reg Empey 4139Robin Newton 2335Dawn Purvis 3045Michael Copeland 1557Jim Rodgers 820Turnout: 29,873Electorate: 49,757Turnout2003 figures here

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162411512036318732006-11-01T19:36:00.000Z2006-11-01T20:21:24.416Z

Prior to the meeting with the Prime Minister Chancellor Gordon Brown it had been said he would be in listening mode, that this was only the first step in bidding for a "peace dividend". After all, what do you give an economy already overly dependent on public funds? More public funds? Maybe not. £50billion may be the headline but, looking closer, Brown stated"I also said today that we would

Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07347937275685488624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162388251456217272006-11-01T13:21:00.000Z2006-11-01T17:23:02.576Z

Whatever the intended target of the explosives noted in the earlier report, the campaign against furniture stores, et al, continues.. Secretary of State for Wales etc, Peter Hain has pointed the finger of blame at one of the micro-organisations and promises, "We will hunt them down..." just as police reveal they are questioning a 39 year old man, arrested this morning, in connection with previous

Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07347937275685488624noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162385653538647392006-11-01T12:47:00.000Z2006-11-01T12:54:13.636Z

It's now about week since we lost touch with old Slugger. Since then we've had to rescue it from the clutches of a particularly nasty server. It's now with the new hosts, and mostly intelligible. He still has all his old memory. But some parts of the code have been mangled, and would mean asking people scroll down to get to the heart of the blog. I'm still working on it (in a bumblingly, non

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162376751308507452006-11-01T10:18:00.000Z2006-11-01T11:25:45.046Z

Interesting that the media seems to be shifting onto Sinn Fein again over policing. Owen Bowcott in the Guardian interviews Des Rae, former chair of the Policing Board:I have written to all the political parties to say we are available to brief them on the workings of the board."The policing problem is easy: it's important that every part of this community is policed and it's important we draw

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162330871104376412006-10-31T20:31:00.000Z2006-10-31T21:49:19.516Z

[I'll try to tidy this up when we get back to Kansas, but in the meantime] With the DUP's Peter Robinson focussing attention on the more immediate deadline, and the likelihood of slippage, his fellow MP Nigel Dodds has taken the opportunity to reassure any potential dissent within the party, and rattle Sinn Féin's cage, by pointing to the less securely tied down timeframe for devolving policing

Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07347937275685488624noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162316433304530162006-10-31T17:32:00.000Z2006-10-31T17:44:48.620Z

I've no idea whether he has used this phrase before, but Barry White's reference to the necessary Sinn Fein/DUP agreement to work in office together as a Dual Monarchy reflects some privately held fears amongst liberals, on both sides, that their supposedly mutually exclusive agendas will lead to a de facto repartition of Northern Ireland (cue: Green Flag). A long way from that Shared Future some

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162315724973988342006-10-31T16:04:00.000Z2006-10-31T17:28:45.020Z

For all the talk of heated exchanges in the DUP's big consultation Peter Robinson sounded incredibly relaxed on Inside Politics on Saturday. He noted, rather laconically, that Sinn Fein's arrangements for consulting their party make it likely that the government's deadlines will slip by. He repeated his belief that Sinn Fein should ask for more time, if they need it. Deadlines, he argued were not

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162310114846671792006-10-31T15:16:00.000Z2006-10-31T15:56:26.433Z

Farrel Corcoran was involved with TG4, or TnaG as it was on the day it launched ten years ago. In a debate around language that has often become distracted on politics and an often disabling obsession with tokenism, TG4, he believes is a perfect example of how utility has succeeded when given its head:It was never going to be easy, not just because of severe resource limitations but because of

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162299701894577982006-10-31T13:00:00.000Z2006-10-31T13:01:41.950Z

I can't believe he did that. Hat tip Piaras!

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162068771580736032006-10-28T21:47:00.000+01:002006-10-29T22:54:00.650Z

It's undoubtedly good news that any potentially lethal explosive device is seized before it reaches its intended target... but I'd be more enthusiastic about it if the reports also detailed a number of arrests.

Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07347937275685488624noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162051886903436032006-10-28T17:04:00.000+01:002006-10-28T17:11:26.946+01:00

It started as a bit of prematch banter, but Huw Richards thinks there may be something in the idea that in rugby the Magners (Celtic) League is spectacularly outgunning the Guinness Premiership in England. Northampton play Scottish Borders today, while Cardiff entertain Leicester at the Millennium Stadium tomorrow. These contests between members of England's Guinness Premiership and the Magner's

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1162050403925644452006-10-28T16:43:00.000+01:002006-10-28T16:46:43.976+01:00

Ian Parsley argues that one way Alliance could prove its cross community credentials by allowing its MLAs to register "a designation of identity" - as Unionist or Nationalist, as they see fit. He argues that:Under the current arrangements, if three Alliance MLAs designated "Nationalist" and the rest "Unionist", the party would actually hold the balance of power "in both designations". That would

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1161982550472655662006-10-27T21:13:00.000+01:002006-10-27T21:55:50.520+01:00

I'm reading an excellent book by FT columnist called The Truth About Markets : Why Some Countries are Rich and Others Remain Poor. It suggests that the basis of the world's (extremely limited) economic prosperity has deep roots in history, culture and geography. But it was this passage that jumped out at me after reading one of the comments on the Trimble thread:The correlation between religion

Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172035156183790535noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558152.post-1161977499184313202006-10-27T19:47:00.000+01:002006-10-27T20:58:13.716+01:00

A very strange tale in today's Irish News[subs req] and not carried anywhere else to my knowledge [not even the Sinn Féin website? - Ed], but we have the photographic evidence.. which I'll come to in a minute. According to the report, seven packages of a suspicious white powder weighing approximately 6 kilos were "given in anonymously at the offices of Sinn Féin in Dungannon on Monday".What did

Petehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07347937275685488624noreply@blogger.com34