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Great post, thanks. The DUP are such an awful party on every level. Is there any prospect of them losing support moving forward? How do young unionists generally fall in their party support? I can't imagine the DUP's hardcore social conservatism goes down too well with the under 35s?
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Feb 27, 2017 12:22
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thats a really informative post , one thing i am curious about is why the DUP supported leave during the EU referendum? what even was the state of euroscepticism in Northern Ireland prior to the referendum?
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Feb 27, 2017 13:06
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Blut posted:The DUP are such an awful party on every level. Is there any prospect of them losing support moving forward? How do young unionists generally fall in their party support? I can't imagine the DUP's hardcore social conservatism goes down too well with the under 35s? Demographically the DUP tends to have younger voters than than the UUP, their initial positioning as a working class party for working class protestants was set in contrast to the UUPs heritage as the party of the establishment dominated by middle class professionals - the broad class-unity the UUP had carefully fostered in its early years had started to come apart slowly from the mid-70s and the DUP has targeted the much discussed alienated protestant working class youth who felt little of the peace dividend trickle down. It was Peter Robinson's leadership that redirected the party to make it more palatable to the middle class professionals who traditionally voted UUP (arguably too much for some and working class discontent with perceived DUP corruption is frequently brought up). Its still kind on untested how much social issues will motivate a shift; the UUP itself is not very keen on same sex marriage and still has a decided musty air to it not making it very attractive to younger more socially liberal Unionists, Alliance's vote share has been gradually increasingly but the fact they are explicitly not Unionist and seen as quite middle class seems to hold back any huge gains and the last attempt to establish a socially liberal Unionist party collapsed in farce due to ego clashes. There is a bit of a shift in presentation though between generations of DUP politicians, you have old hands like Gregory Campbell who is possibly the worst politician in the UK and specialises in publically belittling and insulting his opponents with blood and thunder no surrender - and then you have Gavin Robinson who has attended pride rallies, met same sex marriage campaigners and even said a sentence in Irish once (he remains opposed to same sex marriage but trys to cast his opposition in softer language structured around personal religious conviction). Though they may not shift their stance on social issues there is at least an attempt to make the party more palatable to a new generation of voters. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Feb 27, 2017 |
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Feb 27, 2017 19:32
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Comrade Cheggorsky posted:thats a really informative post , one thing i am curious about is why the DUP supported leave during the EU referendum? what even was the state of euroscepticism in Northern Ireland prior to the referendum? The DUP has always been eurosceptic of the "ARE SOVEREIGNTY" variety going back to the 1975 EEC referendum where they campaigned for a no vote, with Paisley warning it was a back door to a "Roman catholic superstate". They have been markedly consistent in their stance so it wasn't much of a surprise that they backed Leave, they where doing UKIPs schtick before UKIP existed. It was a bit surprising how many voters they managed to carry with them, general polling before the vote had a much larger Remain majority but the DUP managed to get out the Unionist vote in their favour - though it was still split for Remain and the overwhelming Nationalist support for Remain tipped the scales.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:12
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Thought I'd share some of what's come through the letterbox. The best is the TUV's appropriation of one of Unca Donald's three word soundbites:  Surprised they had the restraint not to use "lock her up" re: Big Dodgy Arlene. Love that cover image. Very Hallowe'en school disco.
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Feb 28, 2017 14:56
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crispix posted:
I've been speaking to family and pretty much everyone would be on board with this, even the ones that think McGuinness acted irresponsibly My nuance on law is not exactly brilliant but I'm struggling to see how this isn't an embezzlement case.
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Feb 28, 2017 15:00
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Someone did a poll https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexKane221b/status/836491439139876865 Not much movement, minimal dips for the DUP with SF in striking distance percentage wise in terms of first percentage votes - though worth noting the way the constituencies fall and the concentration of nationalist votes means its unlikely theyll close the gap in seats. How second preferences play out will be the interesting factor, if the DUP becomes transfer toxic for some unionist voters they could lose a few seats but that seems optimistic
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Feb 28, 2017 16:54
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kustomkarkommando posted:Demographically the DUP tends to have younger voters than than the UUP [/snip] Ah, interesting. That does sound like (tentative) progress at least, thats good to hear. Thanks. The TUV Halloween poster is hilarious. A nice original slogan too.
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Feb 28, 2017 18:46
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kustomkarkommando posted:Someone did a poll I'm not terribly surprised by this. The DUP go to amazing lengths to hold onto their voters by pulling strings for them to sort out their problems at the local level, with housing and benefit claims and the like. I have even heard of them getting involved in workplace disputes and leaning on schools to give kids places. They do an incredible amount of that kind of work in towns like mine and the people they have helped don't give a poo poo/don't know that the party's policies/complacency at the assembly level are often to blame for creating or contributing to the problems they've had in the first place.
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Feb 28, 2017 19:12
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I can't find this rumor going around online anywhere, so can please can someone confirm or deny this. One of the first whistle blowers for the heating scam was a Catholic farmer who saw all his Protestant farmers around him get the go ahead and get money from it. But when he applied for the same thing, he was denied for no reason at all. So he whistleblew as it looked like aur ole friend bigotry was to blame. And no one could tell him still why he was denied it. I heard this when I was back home in Tyrone, but from 'men in the pub' type sources. Anyone know if this is true or not?
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Feb 28, 2017 20:42
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Well the first whistleblower we know about who raised concerns in 2013 was a woman who ran a business selling energy efficiency improvements to businesses, the only other ones I've heard mentioned are from within the civil service who revealed the extent of the overspend when the scheme came under investigation. Michelle O'Neill got a bit pressured recently when it was revealed that she was promoting the scheme to farmers right up until it was closed as part of her role as Minister for Agriculture as well. There was the whole community hall/liofa controversy recently which may have got tied into it by some people - the DUP minister for communities stealthy announced that a £50,000 bursary scheme to enable students to attend a gaeltacht summer school was to be axed for 2017 due to budget constraints, shortly afterwards it was revealed a scheme to give grants to community halls had overspent from a projected half a million to 1.9 million and a list of recipients included a large number of Orange lodges and bands. That story kind of broke at roughly the same time as the RHI scandal was reaching full steam
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Feb 28, 2017 21:35
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Blut posted:In general working life is much, much better for most people in Ireland than it would be in the US. At least in Ireland your boss can't fire you for no reason, you get your 29 days a year of leave at a minimum, Honestly I would kill to be living in Ireland and plan to make that happen ASAP, Dublin housing crisis notwithstanding.
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Mar 1, 2017 02:38
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I would categorise Ireland as being a low tax and low public services compared to the rest of the EU-15 but it has good protections built into it. We're quite big on free-market economics also and public bus services needing to generate rhythmic profits despite being given a fraction of subsidies given to other transport services.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:19
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Haha that's loving nuts, I work a white-collar job in the US and get 2 weeks, which is pretty standard. I work in an Irish office and we have a US equivalent, both of us do the same thing, but for each own's region. Stuff that barely gets us an official warning here in Ireland, is out the door fired call security in the US. We hear horror stories from the US office, we are not the best place in the world but holy poo poo its better.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:58
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Bedshaped posted:I would categorise Ireland as being a low tax and low public services compared to the rest of the EU-15 but it has good protections built into it. Ireland swallowed the neo-liberal pill in a big way during the late 90s. The spin and circumstances surrounding public bus services are because the government desperately wants to privatise Dublin bus, so all those fat profits can go to them and their mates. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who have very little representation in the city see Dublin as a big monopoly board to be divvied up and packaged off to multinationals and other interests. The culture of the city of Dublin is being ruined in favour of manipulating the property market and maximising profits.
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Mar 1, 2017 13:27
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Who does Dublin vote for?
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Mar 1, 2017 13:31
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Kurtofan posted:Who does Dublin vote for? Depends what side of the liffey you're on and how far from it you are. It's a very mixed bag of far left fringe all the way to neo liberal conservative.
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Mar 1, 2017 13:39
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Southpaugh posted:Ireland swallowed the neo-liberal pill in a big way during the late 90s. The spin and circumstances surrounding public bus services are because the government desperately wants to privatise Dublin bus, so all those fat profits can go to them and their mates. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who have very little representation in the city see Dublin as a big monopoly board to be divvied up and packaged off to multinationals and other interests. The culture of the city of Dublin is being ruined in favour of manipulating the property market and maximising profits. FG&FF combined have 20 of the 44 Dublin TDs. I'd hardly call that "very little representation in the city".
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Mar 1, 2017 14:27
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Between the two of them, they have less than half the representation in the city, and they change seats regularly, Dublin is hardly a FF/FG heartland.
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Mar 1, 2017 15:28
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Haha that's loving nuts, I work a white-collar job in the US and get 2 weeks, which is pretty standard. Yeah, thats one of the reasons I think most people other than the poster I quoted would agree the US is far more "rat race-y" than Ireland (or most of the rest of Europe). 10 days a year of leave (which not all people even get) is horrific. I honestly don't know how anyone could live any sort of life on that - how do you go on holidays / visit family / go to weddings etc? 30ish days of leave , with more days for seniority often accruing, is pretty standard in Europe. For anyone with middle class levels of disposable income that allows for the use of days days here and there for family events or weddings, 2 or 3 long-weekend city breaks a year, plus one big 2 or 3 week long long-haul holiday a year. Southpaugh posted:Between the two of them, they have less than half the representation in the city, and they change seats regularly, Dublin is hardly a FF/FG heartland. This is the lowest proportion of seats the two have held in Dublin. And even at this, they still far, far outstrip any other parties in the capital. SF are the next nearest party with only 7 TDs, currently. As such, its pretty disingenuous to claim " Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who have very little representation in Dublin" or "Dublin is hardly a FF/FG heartland." FF especially have always done well in Dublin. In 2002 they had 21 TDs elected from Dublin alone - a huge plurality of the vote. Dublin people are just as guilty as their rural brethren in voting for the axis of evil.
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Mar 2, 2017 13:59
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Dublin North-East and North-West used to be good for two FF seats each, remember Haughey country And FF only stopped topping the polls in Dublin Central post-Bertie There are deffo historically FF seats in Dublin they want back
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Mar 2, 2017 14:28
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Yes, fine both parties have always had a presence in Dublin. I wasn't being "disingenuous" I was being *wrong*. My point broadly being, that if the people have an alternative to bullshit civil war politics they will vote for it, and in my opinion, more so in Dublin than in other parts of the country. Southpaugh fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 15:03
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https://mobile.twitter.com/newbelfast/status/837212961148129280 Sinn Fein remains committed to spicy memes
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Mar 2, 2017 16:45
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kustomkarkommando posted:Sinn Fein remains committed to spicy memes From what I have seen their meme game/online outreach is strong indeed.
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Mar 2, 2017 17:04
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Gerry Adams' twitter is really popular with young people in the south, anyway. e: https://twitter.com/GerryAdamsSF/status/414111768638922752 https://twitter.com/GerryAdamsSF/status/416635881626537984 Ducky ar lá 
breadshaped fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 18:38
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 lol
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Mar 2, 2017 20:34
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lol Eamonn McCann beside farage
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Mar 3, 2017 09:45
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Anecdotal stuff seems to suggest a good (for NI) turnout, might cross over into the low 60%s - which would be a ten year high. Seems like nationalist turnout may have improved as well as middle class turnout
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Mar 3, 2017 11:12
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https://mobile.twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/837613057870290946 https://mobile.twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/837614035952676864
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Mar 3, 2017 11:48
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Southpaugh posted:lol Eamonn McCann beside farage
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Mar 3, 2017 11:58
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jBrereton posted:How much of a threat is PBPA to SF, especially after the number of representatives has gone down? Will McCann even keep his job? McCann is an outside bet and chatter already is that its not looking good for him, the results in West Belfast are the ones that spooked SF as if that kind of bleed moved to other seats they would seriously suffer - they have seriously been targeting PBP in Belfast West quite aggressively. Initial indications seems to show a ~10% turnout increase across the board which could even nudge the turnout above 2003 levels to be the second highest turnout since 98
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Mar 3, 2017 13:07
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In terms of the other handy answer for Pointless' "name any party with representation in the UK", how's TUV looking?
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Mar 3, 2017 13:11
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Turnout is at 64.78%, highest since 98
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Mar 3, 2017 14:02
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Well SF topped the poll in Belfast West and sounds like PBP will be slugging it out with the SDLP for a seat so mission accomplished for them I guess
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Mar 3, 2017 14:49
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What's driving the high turnout? Brexit and heating oil scandals?
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Mar 3, 2017 14:49
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Bedshaped posted:What's driving the high turnout? Brexit and heating oil scandals? Yah. And electioneering from both SF and the DUP positioning this as the most decisive election in years, SF are pushing the vote as a confrontation against the DUP after years of dissatisfaction and the DUP are gunning all out to stop SF and save the Union :cryingfleg:
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Mar 3, 2017 14:52
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Yeah McCanns a goner https://mobile.twitter.com/britainelects/status/837667199624044544
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Mar 3, 2017 15:28
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rip
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Mar 3, 2017 15:41
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Poor Eamonn, too beautiful for this world.
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Mar 3, 2017 16:43
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Alex Attwood has been knocked out in Belfast West. The SDLP has held a seat there since 1973. PBP looks secure for the last seat
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Mar 3, 2017 17:01
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