The DUP refusing to let Sinn Fein have First Minister means a December Assembly Election. Will the numbers change in a fresh Election?
What parties seats are vulnerable or who might make gains in any constituencies ??
Looks like a huge surge for Sinn Fein, mostly at the expense of the SDLP. DUP vote holding up at the expense of the UUP. Alliance party making gains, but not as much as they might have hoped for.
Seeing a few councils where Sinn Fein had close to two quotas, but only fielded one candidate.
Yeah I'm following David McCann on twitter SF and AP the big winners and UUP and stoops the big losers.
Conor McAuley on RTE.
SF looking like biggest party in local government.
DUP vote down but remains to be seen how many seats they'll hold onto.
SDLP down
Alliance up
UUP down
That's mad. I'd imagine there must be a few election anoraks amongst that cohort who are raging that they're missing out.
Early yet but tweeters seem to think turnout is up from previous elections
Any news or early indications as to how counts are going?
There never is huge coverage of local elections outside their locality.
Live in London and not a peep about it over here.
I think not many people care about the election in NI.
It is hardly making any headlines, and the build up to it was very very low key.
Hard to get news. Radio Ulster doesn't start until 10am, anyone hear what the turnout was?
EDIT: Actually, BBCNI journalists are on strike today.
After spending weeks lundying Doug Beattie and the UUP about 'subjeeegation', wee seimi b went out today and voted for....the UUP. Priceless.
Hope the dup take a kicking.
Probably won't be interest until results start to roll in. It's a different country up there as this story shows.
Surprised there hasn't been at least some bump of interest since polls opened today: has anyone been following them? I can't imagine there's much of a rush to the polling booths, but hard not to think this will be yet another instructive election in light of the WF.
These figures measure support for the various parties, but they tell us nothing about where that support has come from. E.g. SF are projected to be on 29% or 31% - split the difference and call it 30%. That's 7% more than they got at the last local elections in 2019. Which means (ignoring first time voters, and voters who have died or emigrated since 2019) 7% of voters who voted for a different party last time will vote for SF this time. But who did that 7% vote for last time? Neither poll asked that question, so we have no data on it; we can only draw speculative inferences.
And in fact the true figure is like to be more than 7%, since there will probably be some voters who voted SF last time but who, for whatever reason, will vote for another party this time.
You can research where voters are coming from or going to (by asking interview subjects "Who did you vote for last time? Who will you vote for this time?") and you can map the flows of voter between different parties. That gives you much more information than simply measuring current levels of support for each party. If they have the money to do so, political parties themselves will often commission research of this kind (but they tend not to publish the results).
But these figures don't do that. Nor will the election results do that.
I did say I 'think' and 'it's likely'.
It could also be as you say.
These are the numbers Donaghy used for his projection.
SF 31%
DUP 24%
AP 15%
UUP 10%
SDLP 7%
TUV 6%
These are the latest Lucid Talk polling numbers,
Sinn Fein: 29% - -2
DUP: 25% - =
Alliance: 13% - -2
UUP: 11% - -1
SDLP: 7% - =
TUV: 7% - =
I thnk it's going to take an election to give us the true picture.
I would have thought, that the Alliance would be showing better, especially at local level. I would also have expected a rising TUV vote
That doesn't mean that UUP votes are flowing straight from UUP to TUV. It's equally consistent with DUP gains from UUP being offset by losses to TUV. (Or of course it could be a combination of both phenomena._
Beattie putting "clear water between the UUP and the DUP" doesn't mean that UUP won't lose votes to DUP. If anything, it makes it likely that they will. The tactic makes a clear distinction between UUP and DUP and implicitly invites voters to choose which they prefer. Foreseeably, some will prefer the DUP.
The point of this tactic would not be to stem a flow of votes from UUP to DUP, but rather to stem the flow of votes from UUP to Alliance, by appealing to voters who are open to voting Unionist but want a party that clearly clearly distances itself from the rather repellent DUP/TUV brand of unionism.
I think Beattie has put clear water between the UUP and DUP.
Most likely the Alliance are picking up the frustrated with Unionism vote and the TUV are picking up the frustrated with Westminster/Dublin/EU/US and anything that has a pulse vote.
The UUP loss almost equals the TUV and Alliance gains combined.
I would think it is UUP to DUP, and DUP to the TUV.
The one seat gain by DUP is a net gain. The UUP also lose out to the Alliance. I doubt that there were many who would move from UUP to TUV, but one never knows.
UUP to DUP?
The DUP are projected to gain one seat. Clearly there is no move in the UUP to the DUP.
The UUP's seats seem to be splitting to the Alliance and TUV.
Those figures show a move towards the more extreme party - SDLP to SF, UUP to DUP, but a move of some from the UUP to Alliance.
Not good for NI - more extreme sectarianism - which is a major threat to the future of NI.
A more belligerent but smaller unionism — total unionist seats fall from 206 to to 187
Not sure it is a strong enough show for the DUP to continue their belligerence. The TUV have a long way to go to be in any way relevant.
That shows a more towards more beligerent unionism. Not good for NI!
Peter Donaghy's seat predictions for the Local Elections.
Probably "true" in so far as that exact wording wasn't used.
Donaldson has claimed in a sky interview Biden didn't ask him to return the DUP to power sharing which has to be an absolute fvcking lie
and later left sitting with a cold latte
SKY News described the event as follows "Apparently ignored by Mr Biden, he at one point resorted to sipping from what looked like an empty tea cup."
The footage of Sunak and Biden drinking coffee has to be one of the most awkward meetings of two supposedly friendly leaders ever seen.
I find it incredible that Sunak showed himself to be completely powerless in NI, just meeting Biden at the bottom of the steps on Air Force One, in the pouring rain, and later left sitting with a cold latte waiting to talk to him at a small café table - with not even a croissant.
He could not do more for fear of upsetting the DUP, or SF, or the Irish Gov.
What a shocking display of powerlessness, and a massive missed opportunity of displaying the 'special relationship' often quoted by UK Gov sources.
Biden bathed in spring sunshine on his visit to see Michael D. What a contrast.
That's a rhetorical question, presumably. Famously, the DUP will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
