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Originally Posted by
pete
Those numbers point to massive shift from middle to extremes.
That's not strictly true. Half of the UUP's drop seems to have shifted to the DUP and half of it seems to have shifted towards some sort of "normalization" in the extra seats for the Greens and the Alliance. The UUP's collapse can't be read as a massive shift to the extreme but a general lack of confidence in the party. It seems the so called Gold Coast is moving towards somewhat of a normalisation. You've also seen a collapse in the vote for complete radical anti-agreement fringe unionism, McCartney lost his only seat and his stupid multi-constituency plan totally failed.
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I can't see devolution working.
I can. In the last up and running assembley it worked quite well on bread and butter issues. After decomissioning and now a tacit agreement to sign up to policing the DUP have nearly run out of things to block power sharing. I think if they can't reach an agreement soon the next election will see power shift away from them again. People will vote for them now while there's still some negotiating to be done, just like SF's vote has increased while they whole the cards, but people are going to get very p'd off with bread and butter issues not being dealt with, hence you're already seeing a groth in vote for the Alliance and Greens.
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The governments are basically trying to bribe them with "funding".
I don't see any harm in that, I think the Northern parties have also played their cards well in that they've tried to get as good a financial deal as possible by dragging their feet.
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Even if they do get their act together this month its only a matter of time before it collapses again.
All parties want to wield the power, it's an attractive proposition. It's not in the DUP's interests to see the deadline missed. It'll give the Irish government a strong hand in implementing the GFA with the British government and that is not something that branch of Unionism is fond of. I really feel things will drift back to the UUP if it's let hang too long. Obviously there are some voters who would like that but at one time the UUP had the majority Unionist electorate behind them in trying to reach an agreement and implement devolution.
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You'd swear NI voters did not want to be governed locally & I see the logic in that...
I wouldn't say that. The UUP, SDLP, Alliance and Greens are heavy pro-devolution votes. I'd also say most Sinn Fein votes would be considered pro-devolution. The only party that hasn't given a clear message of heading into powerhsharing it the DUP. They still only represent a large minority.
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63% turnout its bad considering the history...
People are getting sick of the limbo dragging on while normal issues of everyday life and not governed effectively.
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Who are these parties? Can you be called a party if get 0.1% of the National Vote? The ProC who ever muct not even have more than 22 members & friends... :D
UKIP 0 1,229
PBP 0 774
Soc 0 0 473
WP 0 0 975
LP 0 0 123
MPH 0 221
ProC 0 22
You must know UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), Kilroy-Silk's former party. They're somewhere between the BNP and Tories. They favour a full widthdrawal of the UK from the EU but without the racist overtones of the BNP.
Is LP the Labour Party?:confused:
