I’d like to extend my best wishes to all who read this blog for the new year. I trust everyone had a great Christmas and thanks for bearing with me during my recent quiet spell.
Back to business. Rather than going over the events of 2014 I’m going to take a look at the recently issued OFMDFM 2013 Labour Force Survey Report. This gives us an opportunity to take a look at the demographic changes that have occurred since 1990 and also includes information that is more up to date than the 2011 Census. The report in it’s entirety is available here.
2014 was a relatively quiet year demographically.The Euro and Local elections threw up few surprises on a low turnout. 2015 may, perhaps, be more interesting with the May Westminster election and the 2016 Assembly election 12 months hence.
Regarding my analysis of the report below, there are two important notes to be aware of:
- The definition of “Working age” changed in 2010 to include females between 59 and 64. (everyone else is defined as 16 to 64)
- Those respondents defining themselves as neither Catholic nor Protestant are excluded from the figures. It is my belief that the majority of those defining themselves as “Other” are, in fact from a Catholic background due to the fact that they are predominantly a younger demographic and therefore more likely to come from a Catholic upbringing which is less likely to define itself as such. It should be noted that Catholics were in a majority at every age below 42 in 2013 according to the 2011 Census.
As regular readers here may be aware, the demographic and electoral trend seems to have stalled somewhat in recent years with the Catholic/ Nationalist vote settling at around the 44% mark while the Unionist percentage continues to decline steadily and is currently around the 50% mark. I am firmly of the view that the potential nationalist electorate is under-represented across the North. I believe that this is due to a number of factors:
- Political apathy by the electorate
- Under registration of voters
- Poor candidate selection and lack of application in what are viewed as “Unionist” areas by Nationalist parties
- Lack of strategic vision. eg: Economic, Social, Political.
- Fragmentation of the vote due to a refusal on the part of the electorate to be defined as “one” or”t’other”. (A good thing in my view)
Here are some figure from the report:
I think the figures are pretty stark here. Between 1992 and 2013:
- Protestant working age economic participation declined by 4% while Catholic participation rose by 5%. A 9% swing. That is pretty dramatic in a 21 year period. Is it down to fair employment legislation or, perhaps, an ageing protestant workforce?
- Protestant unemployment rates declined from 9% to 6%. Great news. Catholic Unemployment rates declined from 18% to 9%. Halved. Of course the real story is that the gap was so large in the first place and is narrowing so quickly.
From the Report “Between 1990 and 2013, the proportion of the population aged 16 and over who reported
as Protestant decreased by eight percentage points from 56% to 48%, while the proportion
who reported as Catholic increased by three percentage points from 38% to 41%. Over
this period, the proportion of the population reported as ‘other/non-determined’ has almost
doubled (from 6% to 11%)”
From the report, between 1990 and 2013 the number of Protestants increased by 37,000, or 6%, to 680,000, while the number of Catholics increased by 148,000, or 34%, to 588,000 over the same period. The number of people aged 16 and over classified as ‘other/non-determined’ has more than doubled from 63,000 to 161,000 over this period.
By way of providing context to the figures obtained in the LFS sample, according to the
2011 Census there were 618,000 Protestants aged 16 and over in Northern Ireland,
compared to 567,000 Catholics, and 247,000 who would be considered ‘other/non determined’.
Thus, in 2011, 43% of those aged 16 and over were Protestant, 40% were
Catholic and 17% were ‘other/non-determined’.
Interesting? Perhaps we should look at the age profiles next?
Again, from the report: There were 166,000 Protestants aged 60 and over in 1990 and this had increased to 213,000 by 2013. The number of Catholics in this age group increased from 76,000 to 117,000 over the same period. The 11,000 aged 60 and over classified as ‘other/nondetermined’ in 1990 had more than doubled to 28,000 by 2013.
To provide context to the figures obtained in the LFS sample, Census figures from 2011
show that among those aged 60 and over, 55% (198,000) were Protestant, 33% (118,000) were Catholic, and 12% (42,000) would be considered ‘other/non-determined’.
And so what of the future?
Lets take a look at the 16 to 24 age cohort:
In Summary: Between 1990 and 2013, the number of Protestants in this age group has decreased by 25,000 (22%) to 91,000. The number of Catholics has also decreased over this period, albeit to a lesser extent, from 105,000 to 99,000 (6%). These decreases have been somewhat offset by an increase among those classified as ‘other/non-determined’; from16,000 in 1990 to 28,000 in 2013.
According to the 2011 Census, 36% of those aged 16 to 24 were Protestant (82,000), 44%were Catholic (100,000) and 20% were ‘other/non-determined’ (45,000)
I hope my fellow number crunchers have something to get their teeth into there. I certainly found it fascinating.
In the release of state papers over the last few days it was noted that in 1986, Maggie Thatcher was informed that nationalists in Ireland had a strategy of waiting, that time was on their side. There is undoubtedly a truth in that.
Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhuit!
benmadigan said:
nice to see you posting again. all best wishes for the new year – let’s hope it’s a good one for everyone.
the info is interesting . Will think about it once new year’s eve and day are over!!!
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Enda said:
Last year they said the proportion of Catholics in 2012 had increased to 593,000 (42%). This year they say it was 588,000 (41%) in 2013?
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bangordub said:
Enda, the difference is the increase in the non-aligned
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Enda said:
The non aligned did not increase. In actual fact the non aligned decreased by 1000.
When comparing figures to the LFS 2012 figures for population over the age of 16, Protestants increased by 18,000 from 662,000 to 680,000; Catholics decreased by 5,000 from 593,000 to 588,000; Others decreased by 1,000 from 162,000 to 161,000.
Something not right. I’ll prepare a blog.
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bangordub said:
I see your point Enda,
I’ll also take a closer look,
Thanks,
BD
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Enda said:
I noticed this last year when there was a 2% swing in demographics in one year. I initially thought they were comparing the 2012 LFS figures with the 2011 census. But a 1% swing the other way in the 2013 report shows that the results are very volatile.
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bangordub said:
Enda,
Here are the actual figures and percentages:
Protestant Catholic Other Total
1990 643,000 440,000 63,000 1,146,000
2012 662,000 593,000 162,000 1,417,000
2013 680,000 588,000 161,000 1,429,000
1990 56% 38% 5%
2012 47% 42% 11%
2013 48% 41% 11%
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Enda said:
Here’s my take on the LFS.
http://www.endgameinulster.blogspot.ie/2015/01/labour-force-survey-2013.html?m=1
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bangordub said:
Excellent stuff Enda!
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Political Tourist said:
Best wishes to all for 2015.
Hopefully the stats will pan out for the good guys in about 50 years time.
Well you did say it was a waiting game….
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Feckitt said:
Hello BD, I remember in previous posts either you or horseman even brought up stats on newspaper readership which can be loosely designated to one community or another. Would you have any interest on a thread on sports attendance. Yesterday in the McKenna Cup (a pre-season warm up competition) 8500 turned out to see Armagh v Tyrone. That was more than the entire Irish League soccer programme combined. The increasing popularity of GAA and the never ending decline of local soccer surely might partly be explained by demographic trends?
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bangordub said:
Hi Feckitt,
Yes I’m certainly interested in both topics.
Of course the Irish News is now the established biggest seller here although the continuing move to online, as opposed to print, journalism does make it more difficult to rely on traditional circulation figures.
As for the Sports? Yes I agree with your points although you’d never guess it from the MSM broadcast coverage. I think Apres Match summed up the BBC approach beautifully back in 2006:
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Political Tourist said:
8500 turning up for GAA match at the Athletic Grounds in January shoes a tremendous interest in Gaelic Games.
Like for like wouldn’t be an Irish League game, it would be 60 loyalist flute bands having a parade in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere on a Friday night.
Irish League soccer died years ago.
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Dick said:
Actually Irish League Football didn’t dye years ago and is experiencing a modest but significant upturn in attendances and interest.
There our a hole rake of reasons for this.
There was 8000 at the Boxing Day games between the Blues and the Glens. The Crues showing Cliftonville how to play football had 3000 at it. Ballymena sheepshaggers versus Coleraine 2500. Crues v Lifield near a sellout at 2700 Seaview don’t hold many more. I hear the atmosphere was class.
Skysports it ain’t. But the quality is good, the commitment is good, the crack is ninety and it is engrained in a lot of NI communities. A good 6-8 clubs have a large dormant support who will come out for a big game and this is currently filtering throwgh to lower-key matches to some extent. Incidentally Glentoran forever, we’ll follow the Glens…NI league football is hear to stay
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Feckitt said:
Where did you get the stats from? I always thought that attendance figures at these games was the most closely guarded secret in Irish sport.
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Dick said:
why wood attendances be closely guarded? They’ve been openly reported and tracked since 2008, and recorded moar informally since before this time. Attendances I think have increased every year except for one since they centralised counting in 2008
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Political Tourist said:
For an island that has 6 million people living on it an 8500 crowd isn’t that great for two major soccer clubs in the second biggest city.
Compare Hearts v Hibs last Saturday, 17500 at a lower division game.
A 60 loyalist flute band parade could probably get 5000 people out between band members and onlookers.
Northern and for that matter Southern soccer is a sideshow which died years ago.
Btw, i believe the last Linfield v Belfast Celtic in 1948 attracted a crowd of 25,000.
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boondock said:
4 months to go to the big election. When should we expect some blogs on the constituencies. Some recent articles in slugger and Politics.ie although the Politics,ie pages had the usual 95% playground comments. We also have the vote uk site but it hasnt seen much action recently.
http://www.politics.ie/forum/northern-ireland/233429-northern-ireland-elections.html
sluggerotoole.com/2015/01/02/how-the-ni-political-landscape-has-changed-since-2010/
http://vote-2012.proboards.com/board/51/northern-ireland
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Dick said:
Yir all-Ireland perspective skews the figures. The Irish league is for Northern Ireland only with a total popelation of 1.8million which makes the attendance of 8000 more better. If it were an all Areland lague then your angle of comparing it to all-Arland popelation wood be more accurate but its not.
Windsor Park has only 2 stands at the minute while it gets rebuilt so 8000 was the max. The Oval has had health and safety put a 5300 limited for us v Bloos games. 8000+ for part time players would stand well against most other part time lagues.
Heart v Hibs is a full time professional game. NI leage is only part time semi professional so not a great likeness
On boxin day the Irish legue had total 2000 more spectatoes than what had the total lower 2 divisions in Scotland at all games.
By the way Scotlan is the 4th or 5th most attendande football going population in Europe. They don’t have much other competition from othe sports like what we do in NI.
Near all Irish league clubs have several underage sides, girls teams, some have a womens team, a thriving social club. Attendances have increased every year snce 2008 barone. It is a side show to the armchair sitting sky sports ‘fan’ who don’t kow anything aboot football. They haven’t a clue but think they know it al.
1948- a different era. Countries the west world over had less to do and working folk went to football. Its all different now, much more to do not least sky sports and the great young players get hoovered up by GB clubs by age 16 not like before when they plaid Irish lague first. BUt NI has a great wee functioning semi-pro legue wich has carved out its position and wich is on the up, and is not dying this is not true. More and more our giving it a chance but we’ll never reech some ‘football fans’ or so they like to think.
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Dick said:
That comment of mine wa s a reply to political tourist not boonwock
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Simon said:
Dick,
what would you think of an all island ‘super’ league (or perhaps an expansion of the Setanta cup) to bolster attendances and football here. I was thinking about this recently and was thinking it would be a boon to both associations, increasing attendances, competition and coffers. Trouble with the nasty elements of support would be the only drawback I could see. I would imagine Linfield would be the ones with most to gain.
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Dick said:
Woodn’t be for an all-Irleand lague for a few reasons Simon, mainly the IL is part time semi pro, the LOI is sort of full time, at leest the biggar clubs. The IL works as its part time with the lesser costs. TheLOI kind of struggles with the biggar costs of having more full time players but only with a certain natural ceiling amount of money coming in. LOI clubs have struggled they do well for a time, before the big cash costs they pay out catchs up with them. IL clubs trying to upgrade to fullertime status would be a disaster; they are only in the last 5 years learning the idea of breakin even, and they can only do this with tight grip on part time wages. Probably only Linfield could manage full time in NI. And they need to be fullertime to have a chance in LOI.
Ther simply isn’t the money or interest to sustain a good full time all-Iarland lague, not with the competition from GAA and rugby.
And all-Aireland part time lague don’t work either as transport costs to go around the island too high for a pertime club, it takes too long too travel the distance when partimers have work the next day not to mention the away fans who are essential for the smaller clubs. Glens took 450 to Warrenpoint on saturady they wouldn’t do that to Bray or Athlone town. But that 4 grand coming in keeps Wrrenpoint going.
This was shown with the setanta cup which proved a failure. All clubs in the end started to field 2nd strings and attenences were poor. It only worked for a while as Setanta paid too much prize money it was a false position and then look what happened to Setanta TV in the end. Clubs came t see it as a burden. Certainly if I had choice between 3 points on a saturady or a setanta cup win id take the 3 points.
I also like the culture of Irish league way of life. It just works in its own way , its taken some time to recover, the division sizes are right, promotion and relegation is now right, the split in the top diviosn is right, the underage sizes are right in many ways not rocket sceance and I just don’t want that messed with.
I actualy think Derrry City would be better off in NI lague, though it will unlikely never happen. How mant times have they been down the rood of bakruptancy and 5 years after going to wall here wee are agin. They have money probs about every 4 years and its always just after a period of on-field success which they have over-stretched to get. They are classic case of caught between 2 stalls. Wanting to compete at LOI level means extra wage costs together with extra travel costs. Yet if they had more part time players theres less costs but less impact on the pitch less crowds etc at LOI level. A natural answer woold be NI Lague, some Derry folk think so too like Liam Coyle- a strong solvent pertime club in a partime more local league for a club stuck in the corner of Iareland.
Geography areas, costs , the local footballing culture and competition from other sports means a part ime NI lague works well, anything else is madness likely to end in clubs going to wall.
As u mite c its a passion of mine lol
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Chunks said:
The big and unmentioned factor for the nationalist vote stalling is that most constituencies are safe seats. Take assembly elections, you can predict each parties’ share of 5 of the 6 seats available in each constituency with a high degree of accuracy.
Or imagine if you live on the Falls Road. Would your one vote in any of the recent elections have made any difference to the MP or the MLAs elected?
It will be interesting to see if the few marginal seats like Fermanagh South Tyrone or Belfast North generate a higher turnout in the next general election.
I suspect that when redrawing constituency boundaries the Electoral Commission for Northern Ireland goes out of its way to maintain the status quo. Not in any type of grand conspiracy to keep nationalist down but to avoid the hassle of dealing with the fallout created by upsetting a constituency’s electoral balance.
Could you imagine the DUP’s reaction if North Belfast was redrawn to include a bit of nationalist west Belfast! On the other hand, if North Belfast had a piece of loyalist east Belfast added it would not be remarkable as it would be unionists voters added to a unionist seat. Sinn Féin might complain, they might even release a statement denouncing gerrymandering, but I doubt anyone would notice.
Prediction time. I have a felling, that I’m sure many will disagree with, that there is a latent pent up nationalist vote. There will come an election soon when the nationalist vote will grow 2-3%. So that after the event, if you drew a graph, the nationalist vote plateau years will look like a minor statistical variation below the trend line.
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Political Tourist said:
Fair play to you Dick for defending local soccer.
Been there seen it done it bought the t-shirt starting with seeing George Best play at Windsor Park in the late 1960s v Scotland.
Although doubt too many have watched soccer in Ballymena Showgrounds on a Saturday afternoon followed by Gaelic in Pairc Esler on a Saturday night.
Throw in more Gaelic football on a Sunday and watching Longford FC play Derry City on the Monday night.
Why is the upgrade to Windsor only leaving the ground with an 18,500 capacity?
And Casement 38,000?
Local soccer just like most of the local infrastructure looks like it has been shafted by Westminister for decades when it came to money.
A region with a population of 1.8 million could do with more than a football stadium the size of Kilmarnock FC.
From a distance it looks as though the local football fans and the people of Belfast have been shafted by Westminster.
Or maybe the direct rule ministers saw the winds of change regarding population changes.
18,500 in 2015 sure is a long way from nearly 60,000 in the 1950s.
Be interesting to see what stadium attracts the big music concerts.
One Direction at Casement???
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Dick said:
GAA has many more fans who go to matches than football fans, simples really. And that causes the difference in ground capacity. I didn’t say NI football was more liked than GAA but it still liked by enough people to carry on a good part time lague which adds to cummnities.
But NI might have more football fans than GAA, they just dontgo to games they watch from the armchair or go to an EPL or SPL gme couple times a year. And of couse thers plenty people who like both sports.
Take Eion Bradley at Glenavon, brilliant footballer who is loving the lague and getting a few quid for it
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Chunks said:
The big and unmentioned factor for the nationalist vote stalling is that most constituencies are safe seats. Take assembly elections, you can predict each parties’ share of 5 of the 6 seats available in each constituency with a high degree of accuracy.
Or imagine if you live on the Falls Road. Would your one vote in any of the recent elections have made any difference to the MP or the MLAs elected?
It will be interesting to see if the few marginal seats like Fermanagh South Tyrone or Belfast North generate a higher turnout in the next general election.
I suspect that when redrawing constituency boundaries the Electoral Commission for Northern Ireland goes out of its way to maintain the status quo. Not in any type of grand conspiracy to keep nationalist down but to avoid the hassle of dealing with the fallout created by upsetting a constituency’s electoral balance.
Could you imagine the DUP’s reaction if North Belfast was redrawn to include a bit of nationalist west Belfast! On the other hand, if North Belfast had a piece of loyalist east Belfast added it would not be remarkable as it would be unionists voters added to a unionist seat. Sinn Féin might complain, they might even release a statement denouncing gerrymandering, but I doubt anyone would notice.
Prediction time. I have a felling, that I’m sure many will disagree with, that there is a latent pent up nationalist vote. There will come an election soon when the nationalist vote will grow 2-3%. So that after the event, if you drew a graph, the nationalist vote plateau years will look like a minor statistical variation below the trend line.
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Charlie said:
There’s not much danger of that happening now anyway as both BE and BW and East Antrim are among the smallest seats already; it is they who need wards transferred into them.
I take your wider point about a ‘latent vote’. We all know it’s there but declining turnout is masking it. A border poll would of course unlock it, but I’m less clear on what needs to be done to unlock it before that point.
Fermanagh & South Tyrone remains a mystery for me. The demographic profile of the area nowadays mean it shouldn’t be anywhere near as close and yet it is. There is clearly a bit of a community mismatch going on in terms of turnout down there. I think the ‘all hands to the pump’ attitude of unionists and increasing nationalist apathy is making that seat remain competitive for longer than it should be. One election, maybe 2015, all of a sudden the masking effect will be removed and the unionist share will drop to about 42/43% before the message gets through that it is no longer a marginal seat. Conversely UB is often talked of as being as safe as Strangford for unionists but again one election soon the unionist vote will begin to barely keep it’s head above 50% before dropping below.
The genuine marginals at assembly level (approximate quota boundaries) appear to be most obvious in Upper Bann, South Down and Strangford among others. South Down in particular I think will make the biggest switch first. With all of the increased unionist vote in South Down last year, the unionist share if anything dropped here. Westminster is hard to judge due to the high levels of tactical voting for Ritchie but a comparison will still tell us a lot. A unionist vote below 18/19% probably represents 26/27% at assembly level. Likewise a nationalist vote above 11% and certainly above 12% at westminster will translate into a gain.
It’s probably worth a blog to say any boundary review will proceed. The reduced constituencies will probably be dead for a while. Therefore the boundary reviewers will have to work with the existing 18. Strangford has fallen to 11, 000 electors below South Down despite having had three wards transferred from South Down in 2007. Even one or two wards moved to slightly even things up will probably lead to two SDLP gains. In Strangford any addtion of a ward anything other than overwhlemingly unionist (Crossgar and/or Drumaness) would certainly give the SDLP the handful of votes they need to make a breakthrough. Similarly, the loss of Drumaness and Crossgar would likely be above the unionist share of the constituency as a whole and would put the 2nd unionist seat too far out of reach.
Foyle is also now bigger than it’s neighbours, but it’s eastern fringes would be more unionist than Foyle as a whole meaning any loss of Eglinton, Holly mount or Newbuildings would likely put more pressure on the remaining unionist quota, whose votes would be concentrated in just the waterside and the fountain estate. Yet the constituencies neighbouring it like EL or WT would benefit from gaining Eglinton an Hollymount respectively.
The real question however will come from the two neighbouring constituencies of UB and N&A which between them have almost 160,000 electors. Those electors need to be redistributed somewhere and I’m not sure how easy that is. Ultimately it means transferring from centrally located constituencies to peripheral ones like WT, EA, ND and ST as well as the small Belfast seats.
This seems like too much for a boundary commissioner to take on. I suspect another fudge. Perhaps Derryaghy South being put back into West Belfast would be a start. While these residents argued not to be placed in a SF seat (how was that ever allowed?) their presence would likely be welcomed by unionist politicians as it would arguably be enough to put the unionist assembly seat of West Belfast within reach.
It’s hard to imagine FST taking too many N&A or UB wards given that they are all in county Armagh but perhaps that will get overlooked. Otherwise, everything needs to move ‘clockwise’ i.e. Lagan Valley is fed first and it in turn feeds Strangford, ND and the Belfast seats. Hard to imagine any west or south Belfast wards swapping so ST and ND would have to change radically with some Hollywood wards shifted to East Belfast and South Belfast some more Castlereagh areas. Again, unlikely in my opinion.
The whole thing is a bit of a mess. However the chief beneficiaries are unionists getting elected on quotas of around 4000 in east constituencies as opposed to nationalists requiring ~6000 votes elsewhere . The sooner this is remedied the better.
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Faha said:
Your analysis is interesting. As it stands now the legislation passed in Westminster by the Conservative-LD coalition instituted a boundary review in 2011. When the Conservatives failed to support the House of Lords reform the LD’s postponed the boundary review to 2018. It will still take place in 2018 and Westminster will be reduced to 600 MP’s and NI will be down to 16 seats. There will not be 18 seats with the current legislation under the 2018 review. However, this may change with the May 2015 Westminster election. If Labour wins an absolute majority they would probably repeal the legislation, as the preliminary boundary proposals would have transferred an estimated 35 Labour seats to the Conservatives. if there is a Labour minority government with a LD coalition it will depend on what the LD’s will demand in concessions. We will find out in May what the fate of the boundary review will be in 2018.
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Chunks said:
You are right about the constituencies being a mess but it’s just not on the political radar. Root and branch reform is desirable but realistically we are going to continue with incremental changes. I wonder do the DUP and SF prefer the predictable status quo over running the risk of a potential loss that changes to the constituencies might bring?
More generally, we are used to facile political analysis that focuses on micro details and looks a day ahead. But the story of the North is a tale of macro trends told over the span of decades. By identifying the documented demographic, social and economic trends and follow them forward say 25 years it is clear that we will be living in an fundamentally different society.
If the voting trends continue and assuming the existing boundaries stay much the same each election we will continue the drip of small nationalist gains. Cumulatively small victories will pile up and one day we are going to have a nominally nationalist political majority.
Whether votes for SF and the SDLP will equal a vote for a UI in a referendum some date in the future is the big unknown. Personally, I’d not be so sure. The NI Life and TImes survey has never shown big support for a UI. Plenty of people dismiss the NILT survey because they know it has a “Unionist bias”. This is the same logic applied by supporters of Scottish independence when they were confronted by bad poll numbers. But, in the end those “unionist biases” polls were vindicated.
Even if the NILT survey is correct about no UI, the future will not have much comfort for unionists. Their wee country is going to have a permanent SF first minister, eventually an Irish language act, previously secure Protestant areas will become mixed and more traditional parading routes will become contentious. Protestant graduate flight to England will continue and Catholics will end up dominating the upper echelons of the civil service and local government.
What an interesting time we are going to live through…
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Political Tourist said:
Thing is, if sports stadiums are the 21st Century versions of cathedrals, were exactly does that put an 18,500 capacity Windsor Park?
1955-2015
60000 to 18500
If Windsor Park is a reflection of the unionist/loyalist working class football fan then in the space of 60 years they have truly sold a pup by the powers that be.
No wonder flute band parades get bigger crowds than a soccer match.
And it costs nothing to watch a parade last time i looked.
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Gareth Blood said:
Thanks Dick – its great to see the revival in local Irish League. Atmosphere has been great lately and very exciting rivalry this year in particalar.
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Dick said:
Indeed it is Gareth its graet to see 4 clubs at the top all so close and beating each other.
Have to say I love an away trip too. Great wee day out.
From my point of view its exciting to see the Glens on a run of form and climbing the table but the best pairt of this s that we are now bringing through young plaers and only paying wages we can afford. A coupe of times this year we have needed a forward or a full back and were keeping an eye on players but we didn’t have the money so we didn’t offer a contract and had to do without, make do. At last the balance sheet is being seen as something othir than to have a game of x’s and o’ssies on. I’d rather have a club in 5th spot, solvent and playin local youngsters than a club in second and in the red. Think everyone now knows this in the lague, except possibly in mid-Ulster.
BTW one of the clubs who have known this for years, Cliftonville, I see are starting to pay higher wages to keep the success going. they can more than afford it for now, but its funny how on-field success is addictive and the previous rules change. All fine if they balance the books which Im sure they r more than doing but a few costlier contracts can catch up on you an drain the income.
The Crues are an excellent run club too and have at least 2 young players who could play cross the water.
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Gareth Blood said:
Political Tourist, the capacity at Windsor is being increased currently ( as at Ravenhill). And the Irish FA decided to spread the money around several clubs not spend it all at Windsor, which is I think very sensible, and you can see the payoffs in what Dick is talking about.
If Stormont had awarded Irish FA even more money then it might have built a bigger stadium at Windsor, but you actually don’t want to have too big a stadium you can’t fill. If the 18,000 seats are all sold for NI games then it has room for further expansion later on. I personally think the new stadium is a reasonable size for now and should draw in more fans, as the early signs are Ravenhill has done (Ravenhill is also capable of further expansion, but again you definitely don’t want to over expand).
The lower numbers from the middle of last century are a lot down to the health and safety rules – and can be seen across many stadia in fact. If you compare with Hampden Park (in Scotland) it had a record attendance of 150,000 in the middle of last century, but the capacity is now 50,000.
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Political Tourist said:
I ain’t as such having a dig at local Northern soccer as such, okay i think it’s up there with spend a week lpoking at the Giants Causeway, i’m having a dig at British ministers that shafted the locals during the 80s and 90s.
If ever a group of people were sold a (pup) by the establishment it must be the unionist/loyalist working class.
A national stadium the size of Kilmarnock FC, 40 years too late.
No wonder the young people that go over the water to Uni or work never come back.
If local sport tells us anything then the stats are moving towards a non unionist majority and Glentoran will be playing in the All Ireland club final…….at Croke Park.
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Nigel said:
So you are just having a general dig?
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Dick said:
Well if ure a football fan you could watch any game of football and be entertained , I can happily watch amateur league football on the playin fields or go to an EPL match if I ever get the chance, but I wood say thir is a lot of good quality and commitment in NI lague football.
I don’t really think the UK government ‘shafted’ NI football or sport the troubles were on they were pourin money into ths place and any time a shiny new building was put up the IRA soon blew it down, sport was well down the pecking order. The gov gave us the Maze site as soon as the troubles were over they wanted that to work (though such a big ground away out of town far from ideal for NI football).
The IFA were given the same amount of money as the GAA the IFA have just chosed to fund a lot of projects a lot more a bit more rather than put it most in to a flagship project and I prefer it. The IFA aren’t just for the loyalist working class it is a cross communety body the only sporting body who has to work at the sharp end of the communety divide so on sport I don’t believe the loyalist working class were at all shafted as the IFA is not just for loyalists alown.
Your last sentenc it sounds like ur enjoying rubbing peoples noses init but I don’t rally agree.
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Gareth Blood said:
Good comments Dick, I agree with them. In particular I think we should really be pleased to see the growth in the attendances in NI football, and I agree with the Irish FA’s approach of trying to improve a number of the local teams facilities, not just Windsor.
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frank7778 said:
Sad to read people sticking their nose up at local soccer and trying to link it to politics.
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bangordub said:
If I may, seeing as the topic has strayed onto local soccer, have you any views on moving to a summer league? It seems to have worked very well for the FAI?
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Gareth Blood said:
Personally I like the winter competition. Not sure about moving to summer-its not on the agenda anyway. What I think was good is that the Irish FA has recently moved to greater flexibility about the day of the week its played on – with some experiments such as Friday nights which seems to work well.
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Dick said:
I wood say there are pros and cons with it bangordub but and because of the pros wood have a wee bit of an open mind on it but overall I think I prefer the usual winter season.
The pros –
when I go to preseason games or euro matches or early season games it is so pleasant going in ur shirt sleeves.
It wood benefit our clubs who play in euro competition. Big money in euro competition these days evin if only a prelim qualigier, club can be given 70 grand by UEFA. And yet when Glens last plaid in Europe we had only had 1 preseason friendly where the LOI clubs are fit and raring to go as its mid season. NI clubs now getting thru the 1st prelim rounds which shows we are improving.
Less games called off cos of bad weather
The big cons-
Money not earned from festive derbies; often tehese are games howle families will go to and might be the only game they go to. Its an engrained part of NI football and for many people an engrained part of Xmas. I wood sorely miss it boxing day wood be grim and these are big paydays and the big crowds in usually tense all to play for games is a massive advert which draws in sponsors
Theres something about football season running from sept-may which is so engrained it is just part of football. I like the EPL and Irish lague games running together just a wee way of life. What the blazes else wood someone like me do on a grim saterday thru the dark winter that thought alone makes me definitely say no. I’d be roped into domestic stuff no way. I can find plenty things to do on warm summer Saterdays but autumn and winter saterdays ir for me and the Oval. I couldn’t hack the winter without the Irish lague you’ve made me realise how I’d b half a person withoot it!
Askin part time players to play the howl way thru the school holidasy is very hard for them they need a long holiday with the kids. Part time payers with full time lives. W e already have situation were clubs have a European game and 2-3 players are away on a holiday booked 6 months previous.
Like Gareth says we now have the chance to change ko times and days. However as an ‘up yours ‘ to sky sports pulling ko times all over the place part of our charm is keepin games to the traditional 3pm saterday throwback
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bangordub said:
The big plus factors seem to be that you are not competing for punters with the EPL and it is a more pleasant experience weatherwise, I agree with you regarding the 3pm kickoff on a saturday. Regarding Gareth’s points above, I think Sunday kickoffs caused a bit of trouble over the past year? Interesting given that the GAA generally plays matches on a Sunday and there are many players who play more than one code
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Dick said:
I wood say that if the IL were in dire straits then we wood have to probably give it a try but the IL is modestly turning it self around so I think we r going the right direction with simpler changes rather than a massive one like summer football.
Another simple change is to move all amateur football to a sunday instead of clashing with IL saterday ko times as straight away this frees up thousands of people to go to games. This situation wood mirror what happens in England. But moving all amateur games to sunday may not suit everyone like churchgoers.
I think there have only been 3 or 4 IL games plaid on a sunday attendances were similar to saterday and only problem was about 10 free Presbyterians singing hymms outside which sure theyre allowed to do didn’t bother me it was quiet nice lol.
Northern Ireland have a qualifier on a Sunday coming up first ever at Windsor I think but apart from a wee hymm singing session outside no-one would no any different.
In the Irash lague there are quiet a few GAA players who also play football. Eion Bradley or Shane McCabe the best known
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boondock said:
The Belfast telegraph has started their election countdown with a number of articles online about East Belfast.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/east-belfast-battle-lines-drawn-as-dup-determined-to-bury-humiliation-30954861.html
One thing I do find annoying is that there are plenty of general election prediction sites and yet none of them seem to have bothered looking at Northern Ireland which seems slack considering the overall race is so tight. Likewise you can now find betting odds for every single constituency in GB but not Northern Ireland even the Irish bookies Paddy Power has gone to the bother of providing odds for all the GB constituencies but then not bothered for NI. WTF. Its like the driving license issue (no fleg) we are not actually really British. Dont tell Henry Reilly or any other Unionist politician for that matter as they may not be able to handle any further rejection lol.
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boondock said:
There was an article over on slugger that was looking at the overall election results based on bookies odds which got me interested in seeing the latest odds for seats here. Unfortunately he left no links
The results of the article are interesting and give a good idea of what will likely happen and it is a much better article than his previous effort which predicted the FPTP general election results based on STV council results DOH! giving ridiculous scenarios such as UKIP with 38 seats instead of less than 5
After a bit of further searching having wasted time on all the individual sites such as Will Hill, Ladbrokes etc etc I found this site which has some usefull figures.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics
Obviously these odds will change especially if unity deals are done but at the moment they seem to be favouring the DUP in the more marginal seats.
East Belfast
DUP 1/4
Alliance 2/1
North Belfast
DUP 1/12
SF 6/1
Upper Bann
DUP 1/12
UUP 5/1
SF 8/1
I think the DUP will win all 3 of these seats but I think they will all be a lot closer than these odds suggest.
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Feckitt said:
Hello, Hellllooooo, anybody out there!!!
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bangordub said:
Good afternoon Feckitt!
Still here and working away on the forthcoming westminster elections, Apologies for the long silence
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