LongTimeLurker

Who else were they going to endorse? The DUP only gets the UDA's endorsement because their own party, the Ulster Democratic Party had a miniscule support level and had to be wound up to save them from any further embarrassment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Democratic_Party which brings us to the question of whether the UDA's endorsement actually matters very much or is probably on balance more of a liability. My guess would be the latter given it was the DUP's opponents such as the Alliance party that were talking this up rather than the DUP.

Probably just as well Iris Robinson isn't an MP any more:

Here's a Tory politician doing the same. What's it supposed to prove? The only time the DUP ever really seriously dabbled with active paramilitarism was in the 1980s with the Third Force stuff, but why look at the facts when you can post some shite photoshop images.

Not even a particularly good job with photoshop. If you want something genuine to rant about on this, google what Emma Pengelly's dad got up to in the 1980s given she is now the MP for Belfast South.

To be fair, if the geology involved was easier to deal with, it probably would have happened a long time ago. The problem is there is a deep sea trench half way across the North Channel with a million tons of old munitions dumped into it over the years.

Also claims the SNP will get only 34 seats/

The BBC news website is saying it could be a hung parliament based on their exit poll.

That depends on whether they are gaining the extra support mainly from the Tories or SNP.

Another angle on that is that it arguably wouldn't be fair that the likes of Kelty, Bo'ness and Bonnyrigg are being told that they have to leave the east superleague to gain automatic Scottish cup entry but a club like Lochee United might be allowed to stay because of that given there is no HL feeder league for them to join. A few of the Dundee junior clubs can't be too far off being able to give that a go, because they tend to have enclosed grounds with covered enclosures.

I had better things to do with my time than googling to find out what the latest name for that constituency was. I think the meaning was still clear.

In a Scottish context, if the Tories are picking up most of their extra support in former Labour seats to a greater extent than they are in their target constituencies they may be in for a bit of a dissappointment. They should win the Borders seat, Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, and West Aberdeenshire in addition to Mundell's seat without any problem, but after that local factors could limit their gains.

The so called superduperleague was the obvious opportunity for that, but the Ayrshire clubs seem to have been less than keen.

It gets bad as you go along the streets right beside the railway lines, but you don't need to go too far in the other directions to get into reasonable areas that are no problem at all to stay in.

There's only 16 places available in the Lowland League, so there's only so many times the EoS or SoS can be skooshed until there starts to be some stiff competition and if both the east and west teams are skooshing their way through at the same time then there will be a promotion playoff between the EoS and SoS winners at the end of every season with only one of the two being able to progress. The present system isn't really fit for purpose and is designed to scare most junior teams away, but if it works out well for Kelty odds on they won't be the last to make the switch and the SFA will eventually have to address the flaws in the setup they have created.

Dunna Lob Bruck would be more like it in terms of real Shetland. Chuck is a wee bit too soothmoother sounding and you are lucky to escape alive for saying "Shetlands" there. Shetland is great when it looks like this: Not so much fun when there are gale force winds and the rain is coming in off the Atlantic horizontally, but my grandmother always dreamed of going back and leaving her council flat in the heart of the Stenhousemuir East Stirling Falkirk triangle despite that.

Looks like it and it would have been a bit off for them to announce they are in before the formal vote is made on that. Will be interesting to see if this will have a domino effect in the years ahead as well as what will happen with the other two alleged applicants.

Add to that the way that Nicola Sturgeon's plan for Indyref2 on a pro-Remain basis is likely to have alienated some pro-Brexit voters and the soon to lumber over the horizon prospect of EU entry for Scotland post-independence meaning a hard border at Carlisle and Berwick with the RoI-NI border providing an easily visible precedent on Scotland's doorstep and "peak-SNP" may well be behind us rather than ahead of us at least for another decade or two until today's OAP generation has exited the scene.

The Scotland Votes calculator predicts SNP 45, Tories 11, LibDems 2, Lab 1 on those numbers.

The SNP need a couple more percentage points for that scenario to happen. The SNP could get anywhere from the high 30s to low 50s within the error margins on that poll.

which leads to SNP 47 Cons 8 LibDems 3 and Labour 1 according to the ScotlandVotes seat calculator. Edit: 43:28 for SNP and Cons seems to be a bit of a tipping point. If it's 44:27 instead the Tories don't win East Renfrewshire (which I suspect they may not anyway if Unionist voters have latched onto Labour instead as the tactical voting vehicle), Moray, Perthshire North and Aberdeen South.

It's been a while since an incumbent president lost re-election, so I would take nothing for granted on that. Most Republicans probably would have pulled out of the Paris Accord, if they had been in Trump's position. This isn't an issue where he is hugely out of synch with either his party or public opinion in the United States.

It doesn't make much difference in the big scheme of things as a lot of the key decisions are made at the state level rather than in Washington, DC. The US paradoxically often has a better record on making progress on sustainable renewable options than some of the countries that make the most noise about supporting the whole environmentalist global warming agenda given its such a friendly environment for venture capitalism. People like Elon Musk do a lot more to make a sustainable future a viable possibility than the likes of Angela Merkel or Justin Trudeau. Change will happen quickly when it makes economic sense to use solar and wind rather than fossil fuels and that is starting to actually happen to a certain extent. The key stumbling block is energy storage to balance supply with demand and the Green lobby tend to be very dishonest when it comes time to explain how they plan to address that.

Looks more like it than what STV are claiming: SNP 51, Con 3, Lab 2, Libs 1. Think local swings would still give East Lothian to Labour and East Dubartonshire and Edinburgh West to the Lib Dems even on those numbers.

Labour doesn't need to rise much higher than that to starting taking seats. A well balanced pair of Unionist chasing parties in the low to mid 20s is the ideal scenario for the SNP in terms of having another landslide even in the absence of the tactical No voters that pushed their support up to 50% last time around.

The current set of boundaries favour Labour as urban seats tend to be smaller in population terms than rural ones. Theresa May decided to call a snap election rather than wait for the new boundaries to be implemented, so only has herself to blame on that. It looks like it all depends on whether the 18-34 cohort actually bother to vote in numbers comparable to the 65+ demographic. The difference between the polls at the moments is that the ones with the larger Tory lead like the latest ICM one assume they won't, while other companies are assuming that they will.