LongTimeLurker

^^^

SF and DUP have tried to stitch up the system that way so they will always be in power together. Going from 6 to 5 MLAs per constituency also favours the largest parties. For example, the higher quota that creates helped ensure TUV got no gains and under STV that meant most of their votes transferred straight back to the DUP helping a disproportionate number of DUP MLAs get reelected despite the loss of about a quarter of their first preference votes.

Are they viewed as part of the "pan-nationalist front" now? Think the only people SF would need tacit approval from before any major policy decision are the ones that haven't gone away you know.

Wasn't able to follow where he was going with that either. For people in NI who are not keen on having SF in power the most subversive thing they can do to upset the DUP-SF duopoloy is to vote for parties that refuse to designate as being either Unionist or Nationalist. If enough people did that the St Andrews Agreement would no longer be workable and the entire system would have to be changed. Unlikely to happen next time but if Stormont lurches from crisis to crisis on forming executives because the conjoined twins simply can't work together due to their never ending posturing over the constitution, odds on more people will start considering whether there is a viable alternative.

Remember as well that although Alliance takes no posture on the Union most of their support (certainly not all by any stretch of the imagination) comes from Belfast's commuter belt and is drawn primarily in that context from people from a Protestant background ancestrally who are fed up with the traditional Billy vs Dan stuff. It's a reasonably safe assumption that most of that chunk of the electorate actually would be a No on a border poll barring something really bad for the local economy happening on Brexit which wasn't what ultimately unfolded.

They collapsed Stormont over this issue before the election so think Jeffrey Donaldson would argue this is just a continuation of that. Think they are making too much out of the NIP as a threat to the Union especially as there is very little prospect of it being axed but their approach to Brexit has been a car crash in strategy terms for many years now so nothing new there.

SF did much the same over the issue of an Irish Language bill not so long ago. Only surprise was that Paul Givan went off message on this in an interview a day or two back.

PUP and the defunct UDP would be the Loyalist equivalents of SF. DUP cannot sensibly be directly compared with SF on this even if they do still have some baggage in that regard.

They'll deserve to be treated as a normal mainstream party when there is no more paramilitary "justice" being exacted in their electoral strongholds and they provide the PSNI with full unequivocal support to stamp that sort of criminal activity out once and for all.

Northern Ireland was an idea that came from Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster Unionist Party and its voters rather than the Westminster elite. Not sure why you think it was such a bad idea in economic terms. NI did a lot better than the IFS/Eire/RoI did from partition up until EEC entry and the Troubles because it had access to the British economy. The RoI economy benefited from the EEC/EU entry because it undid the damage caused by leaving the UK. Brexit is bad news economically for both the UK and RoI but not drastically so because the Brexit agreed on was a relatively soft one. It's a poor substitute for being in the EU but having a foot in both camps might actually turn out to be advantageous for NI in the years ahead. Time will tell basically.

UI was pretty much dead as an issue in NI before Nigel got his referendum with numbers as low as 4% saying they wanted it immediately in polls rather than as a long term aspiration and the DUP had the Unionist vote stitched up giving them plenty of safe seats and careers for life. Check out some of Ian Jr's antics for how fond they could get of the gravy train.

Think many in the DUP were genuinely blindsided by the sea border. Even on here when I mentioned the issue of NI having a land border with the EU in the run up to the referedum vote some people seemed to think the Common Travel Area meant the EU's outer border somehow no longer matters. Alex Salmond had also downplayed the significance of these issues during the independence referendum after all. The DUP were very foolish to support Brexit but like a lot of people probably assumed Remain would win so they could wave the UJ about to keep TUV in check and hadn't really thought too much about what came next. They should have tried to nudge the Tories towards the EEA and a soft Brexit if they wanted to avoid a sea customs border and are lucky the NIP is not linked to a far harder WTO type Brexit. Nigel & co at UKIP were always going to sell them out as Little Englanders just like the Liberals did with the Home Rule Bill in 1912 and the Tories did later with Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreement so anybody who thought keeping NI out of the EU in customs terms was going to be a deal breaker for the Westminster elite in EU exit negotiations was dreaming in Technicolour. The NIP isn't going away so the DUP's going to find it difficult to cobble together a majority of pro-Union votes again because they don't have a clear vision of the way ahead. Meanwhile the over-excited posters peddling imminent UI memes are going to be disappointed. The combined nationalist-republican vote actually dropped this time. The Alliance party can provide a vision of how to deal with the NIP that doesn't revolve around border polls and UI happening any time soon. Hopefully a similar viable alternative to the constitutionally obsessed will emerge in Scotland soon. The CAQ in Quebec provides a blueprint for how to sideline them.

So we all pretend SF is something it isn't and never mention the 500 lb gorilla in the room? Robert McCartney's murder happened well after Stormont was up and running again and paramilitary punishment beatings haven't gone away you know.

Let's not forget that SF did something similar on collapsing Stormont in the not too distant past. Nicola Sturgeon and The National could have made congratulating the Alliance party and the rise of the moderate middle ground their main talking point. They chose not to. Maybe says something important about how the SNP view themselves.

How would the BNP fit in on that? Being on the ballot paper isn't enough to be treated as a fully accepted part of mainstream politics. It's normal for a cordon sanitaire to be applied to extremist parties like the AfD in Germany or Golden Dawn in Greece. When the GFA was signed it was the SDLP snd UUP that were expected to be in the drving seat not SF and the DUP. Coldly following protocol if voters in NI are misguided enough to vote SF in is one thing. Sending friendly tweets and that sort of headline is another and wasn't something the SNP needed to do.

Think you'll find that the local council have already been involved in determining what the safe capacity is at New Dundas Park for Scottish Cup games as part of entry level. Prorege has posted a lot of interesting stuff related to the pyramid that helped provide a more rounded picture of what was happening than the very EoS centred picture that was pushed very hard by certain posters on here but he's a Cowdenbeath fan with an agenda on this particular topic.

Chat about who is leaving should maybe be left for after the cup final? There will be plenty of weeks coming with no competitive games for that sort of thing to be the main talking point. Hopefully this season ends on a high note as the perception that things are heading in the right direction again might help on recruiting.

Think Prorege was clutching at straws with this stuff and was looking for a procedural way to derail the playoff. They already have entry level, which is all the rulebooks state is actually necessary even up to the Championship and how likely a scenario is it that a local council would block SPFL entry by one of their local clubs?

With the money Darvel are spending courtesy of the Killie pie man I'd rate them as more likely to. Only half time on Bonnyrigg vs Cowdenbeath. It woukd be very surprising if Cowdenbeath turn it around but stranger things have happened.

People need to get a grip on this tactical nuke stuff. The prevailing wind direction would take any resulting fallout over Rostov and a large portion of Russia's most fertile farmland. It would also be a while before any fish consumption from the Sea of Azov would be a good move. Odds on Vlad will give that a miss.

Think it's quite telling that Jeffrey Donaldson hasn't left Westminster yet as to how likely a republican First Minister is any time soon. Odds on it will be a while before Stormont is functional again and that outcome has no doubt been the DUP's plan for many months. Hence why there has been no Lagan Valley by-election. The seethe over SF not being able to have the top job in a state they don't even believe should exist will be quite amusing in some ways but suspect the Alliance party will benefit more than the DUP will electorally because the DUP don't have any answers on what comes next because the NIP isn't going to be scrapped.

Think you and HoB are almost safe given the goal difference LTHV have to make up and Tynecastle vs Dunbar being one of the fixtures.

Sunday next weekend and Ainslie Park (Spartans) from what I've read elsewhere.

If/when Darvel make it into the LL, they are almost certainly going to be the next Kelty in terms of a financially doped rise through the divisions.