6 County Assembly Elections - 5th May 2022

[marty34]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

[armaghniac]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

How about a majority of both designations to keep NI going, after all it was always seen as temporary arrangement?

[RedHand88]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

Pie in the sky stuff. Who verifies whether someone is a nationalist or a Unionist? Will there be an oral where they ask you to pronounce the 8th letter of the alphabet?

[Eire90]

There will probably weeks of will they or wont they after this election better to ignore then all jim alistair will be on nolan every morning

[Armagh18]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

That'll never work.

[general_lee]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

It's win win. I'm in favour of it. Don't give them any excuse, call their bluffs. If they go for it, great, look at Republicans tending to the Unionist sensitivities of having to serve under a SF FM. If they refuse, the offer was there, a gesture SF weren't obliged to give but did anyway.

[marty34]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

Pie in the sky stuff. Who verifies whether someone is a nationalist or a Unionist? Will there be an oral where they ask you to pronounce the 8th letter of the alphabet?

No, political party wise per designation in the assembly.

If majority of nationalist parties want a border poll, all well and good but unionists need a majority also.

I'd say unionists will push for this change.

Whether it can be changed is another thing.

[Armagh18]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

Pie in the sky stuff. Who verifies whether someone is a nationalist or a Unionist? Will there be an oral where they ask you to pronounce the 8th letter of the alphabet?

No, political party wise per designation in the assembly.

If majority of nationalist parties want a border poll, all well and good but unionists need a majority also.

I'd say unionists will push for this change.

Whether it can be changed is another thing.

There goes the Good Friday agreement so.

[imtommygunn]

Sure the people who never supported it say we can't have the protocol because it is in breach of the thing they never wanted.

[Snapchap]

In fairness, I don't think it's a case that the two nationalist parties are constantly knocking each other - it's more a case that the SDLP are obsessive about attacking SF. SF rarely bother engaging in attacks on the SDLP. Brian Feeney recently wrote a very good column in the Irish News about this:

"It seems obligatory for SDLP speakers to attack Sinn Féin rather than promoting their own position on any matter. It's obsessive, it's repetitive, it's tedious, it's been constant for years. Sometimes its just silly, such as trying to say Sinn Féin's behaviour is the cause of the DUP threatening to pull down the executive.
Enoch Powell said never to mention political opponents in speeches because it only give them a chance to excercise their right of reply. You'll notice Sinn Féin seldom or never mentions the SDLP. They concentrate their assaults on their political enemy the DUP even though it's the SDLP that's their political antagonist for votes."

And he is right. Only last week, the Irish News was reporting on the SDLP annual conference over a two page spread. Each headline was about a speaker trying to link SF to the DUP's collapsing of the executive. You'd thing that surely SOMEONE in that party should be savy enough to know that absolutely nobody is stupid enough to fall for that and that it won't refelect well on them to be trying to take people for fools? Yet as Brian Feeney went on to say in his article:

"For some reason no-one in the SDLP seems to have realised that persistently attacking Sinn Féin doesn't work. They've been hammering away now through four leaders since John Hume. For a while they tried calling the DUP & Sinn Féin 'the problem parties'. No good. The voters didn't agree and continued to vote in increasing numbers for both.
Is relentlessly attacking Sinn Féin a strategy or has it long since become merely a reflex reaction?"

As if to prove Brian Feeney's point:

Yesterday, Colum Eastwood accompanied Nicola Mallon as she handed in her papers to the electoral office and he gave an interview to the Irish News. The first TEN PARAGRAPHS of the interview are attacks on SF.

Meanwhile, under his watch, the SDLP is polling at it's lowest ever in successive polls. One day the penny will drop with him. Surely. It's bound to.

[marty34]

In fairness, I don't think it's a case that the two nationalist parties are constantly knocking each other - it's more a case that the SDLP are obsessive about attacking SF. SF rarely bother engaging in attacks on the SDLP. Brian Feeney recently wrote a very good column in the Irish News about this:

"It seems obligatory for SDLP speakers to attack Sinn Féin rather than promoting their own position on any matter. It's obsessive, it's repetitive, it's tedious, it's been constant for years. Sometimes its just silly, such as trying to say Sinn Féin's behaviour is the cause of the DUP threatening to pull down the executive.
Enoch Powell said never to mention political opponents in speeches because it only give them a chance to excercise their right of reply. You'll notice Sinn Féin seldom or never mentions the SDLP. They concentrate their assaults on their political enemy the DUP even though it's the SDLP that's their political antagonist for votes."

And he is right. Only last week, the Irish News was reporting on the SDLP annual conference over a two page spread. Each headline was about a speaker trying to link SF to the DUP's collapsing of the executive. You'd thing that surely SOMEONE in that party should be savy enough to know that absolutely nobody is stupid enough to fall for that and that it won't refelect well on them to be trying to take people for fools? Yet as Brian Feeney went on to say in his article:

"For some reason no-one in the SDLP seems to have realised that persistently attacking Sinn Féin doesn't work. They've been hammering away now through four leaders since John Hume. For a while they tried calling the DUP & Sinn Féin 'the problem parties'. No good. The voters didn't agree and continued to vote in increasing numbers for both.
Is relentlessly attacking Sinn Féin a strategy or has it long since become merely a reflex reaction?"

As if to prove Brian Feeney's point:

Yesterday, Colum Eastwood accompanied Nicola Mallon as she handed in her papers to the electoral office and he gave an interview to the Irish News. The first TEN PARAGRAPHS of the interview are attacks on SF.

Meanwhile, under his watch, the SDLP is polling at it's lowest ever in successive polls. One day the penny will drop with him. Surely. It's bound to.

There's just a certain arrogance to him I think.

Key issue for me was the attending the 'birthday party' in Armagh - celebrating the failed statelet. I think that annoyed a lot of middle of road nationalists.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

PBP wont be getting many votes after yesterdays antics in Dáil, put that with their stance on killing babies and Brexit. The far left would want everyone back in Russia working meitheal style economies whilst toking joints

[seafoid]

I feel there will be a big push after the election to redefine the roles to joint first ministers. As I told the two SF canvassers with me last night that is they agree to this don't ever knock my door again. Maybe petty of me but it was ok to have deputy first minister to put us pesky taigs in our place.

I'm split over this tbh. I understand completely where your coming from but it gives SF and opportunity to be the bigger person. Plus for power sharing, it should have been joint posts (in name) from the get go.

The Brits are hardly likely to agree to that

I think unionists will try in the next while to push for a majority for both designations for any change i.e. border poll.

I.e. a majority of nationalists and also a majority of unionists required separately.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

I think we should just go for a 30 county republic lol

[johnnycool]

I think we should just go for a 30 county republic lol

How dare you leave Derry and Antrim within the UK.