Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

In the frenzy of political activity over the past fortnight it has been rather overlooked. But today voters go to the polls in a council by-election in Craigavon. A ballot is required in the Lurgan ward after the TUV’s attempt to co-opt a replacement for its outgoing councillor, Mark Russell, was rejected by opponents. It is a four way contest which does not include the DUP. So voters will not have an opportunity to deliver a bloody nose to that party just yet. The SDLP and Sinn Féin are each fielding candidates, but the likelihood is that either Jo-Anne Dobson from the Ulster Unionists, or David Calvert, whom the TUV wished originally to co-opt, will take the seat. Despite inclement conditions, it seems that canvassing has been continuing apace in Lurgan. Daphne Timble reports a positive response to the UUP message from the doorsteps. Another by-election victory would boost morale in the run-up to the Westminster poll this spring. Incidentally, although I should illustrate th...

Abkhazia goes to the polls on Saturday in order to elect its president and the contest is likely to be dominated by two contenders who last went head to head four years ago. Sergei Bagapsh is the current incumbent and Raul Khadzhimba is his main challenger and the current prime minister. The Black Sea region, which traditionally attracted Soviet officials seeking rest and recuperation, is ostensibly identical in status to South Ossetia. Its independence is recognised by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The rest of the world considers it part of Georgia. However, whilst prevailing opinion in Tskhinvali favours eventual absorption into the Russian Federation, and unification of the southern and northern parts of Ossetia, in Sukhumi there is a more complicated relationship with Abkhazia’s Moscow patron. Leaders insist that they are animated, not by an aspiration to reunify with Russia, but by the desire to achieve full independence for Abkhazia. In the previous election the Kremlin...

Norwich North is not the only election count taking place this morning. In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 25% of votes cast in the country’s presidential election have already been counted . In the East Anglian parliamentary constituency, it is expected that the Conservative candidate will win with comparative ease. The current Kyrgyz president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, will certainly be returned with a thumping, improbable majority. In Norfolk Labour’s candidate was confined to bed with swine flu during the final days of the campaign. In Kyrgyzstan Bakiyev’s main rival, Almazbek Atambaev, withdrew from the election on Thursday, claiming fraud. The country’s central election commission has announced that the President has won 87.7 per cent of the vote so far. In contrast Atambaev, who has already denounced the poll as a fraud, has taken roughly 5% of the counted ballots. Other candidates’ tallies are negligible. The opposition claimed yesterday that widespread violations have taken place, in...

It is appropriate that Ian Paisley is spending his last day as First Minister cuddling up to fellow UK regional nationalist, Alex Salmond. His Scottish counterpart is rather more circumspect than Paisley in public, but together perhaps privately they can reflect on the evils of the ‘Brits’ . Immediate concerns, however, are focussed on the handover of the First Minister’s position from Paisley to his successor, Peter Robinson, and the potential for Provisional Sinn Féin to derail the process by declining to re-nominate Martin McGuinness for the Deputy First Minister’s post, a position which is tied to that of the First Minister. With his customary flair for understatement Paisley has deemed any potential failure to nominate, “an evil thing”, although you might be forgiven for thinking that it would not constitute the Provisionals’ most evil action throughout the years. Nevertheless the threat is being taken seriously, to the extent that Gordon Brown invited both SF president Gerry ...

In the light of Labour’s local election woes, Jeffrey Donaldson and Gregory Campbell have been suggesting that unionism should strike an electoral pact to maximise influence wielded at Westminster. In the eventuality of a hung parliament or a tight majority for either Labour or the Tory party, ten or more unionist MPs would form a powerful bloc capable of exerting disproportionate influence. DUP representatives, and in particular those DUP representatives who have defected from the UUP such as Donaldson, are unlikely and belated proponents of unionist…. er ….. unity. However if a deal on Fermanagh South Tyrone and South Belfast constituencies were to secure an extra UUP seat in the latter and deprive Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew in the former it might sweeten a bitter pill for UUP supporters. An electoral understanding along these lines has long been mooted and if it were simply to comprise withdrawing the UUP candidate for FST in return for DUP withdrawal in South Belfast I be...

Labour MP Frank Field has been addressing falling participation (PDF file) in UK politics and has turned to the US for inspiration. Field’s contention is that both government and parliament are capable of becoming more accountable and representative. His arguments on representation fall into 5 categories. Firstly Field believes that voters should have a right to object to too limited a range of candidates. This would entail introducing a category “none of the above”. The second of Field’s suggestions would provide this with more teeth. He suggests that only candidates who achieve over 50% of the vote should be returned directly, otherwise a “play-off” between the top two candidates in the first round would be instigated. Field also wishes to subject an increased number of public positions to a general vote. Initially this would extend to police chiefs and housing association bosses. Fourthly and more predictably he wants to see group representative politics becoming the basis f...

Vladimir Putin spent yesterday attending ceremonies to remember the victims of Stalinist terror . The venue was Butovo in the southern reaches of Moscow and the Russian Federation’s president took the opportunity to speak about the values of political freedom and pluralism. Given Putin’s reputation for “managed democracy” it would be easy to scoff at such sentiments. Indeed commentators have been falling over themselves to suggest that Putin will still contrive a third term as president, implying public rallies urging him to stay are part of a premeditated plan. Such commentary is quick to dismiss Putin’s involvement in December’s Duma elections as a ruse. The inference is that Putin will decline his seat in Russia’s parliament and instead claim a strong result for United Russia (whose list he heads) as a mandate to change the constitution and stand once again in presidential elections. Putin has consistently denied that he will attempt to seek a third term and it would require an ...

On only one occasion did I exercise my franchise on mainland Britain and whatever the merits or demerits of that youthful decision, my X was etched indecisively beside the name of the aspirant Liberal Democrat MP. Whether I would have stood by my chosen party in subsequent elections is a matter of conjecture, for which even I can not claim to have the answer. But regardless, my personal legacy from the 1997 election is that I harbour some residual sympathies toward the third party in British politics. Whilst I am in confessional mood, I must also admit that I was a sucker for Charles Kennedy’s amiable wit and indeed his apparent fondness for a tipple, if anything made me more sympathetic to his leadership of the party. So it was with no particular joy or excitement that I descried the ascension of an aging party grandee, Menzies Campbell, to party leader. Whether Campbell’s resignation yesterday suggests that he was a victim of ageism , is a matter on which various people will proffe...

One of the luxuries of commentating on politics, rather than being an active participant, is the ability to stand above the Machiavellian horse-trading that often dictates, more than principle, the actions of a party. I have already recorded my scepticism regarding rapprochement with the DUP. Fielding single unionist candidates seems to me capitulation to sectarian carve-up and represents a submission to the regressive communal politics right-thinking unionists need to oppose. Nevertheless I acknowledge that such a deal has its attractions for the UUP, particularly as regards the constituencies of Fermanagh South Tyrone and South Belfast. Not only would the party stand to gain one of the lost Westminster seats from such a deal, but the FST constituency would be wrested from the grip of Michelle Gildernew and its electorate would once again be represented in parliament. I was less than surprised, however, to discover that the deal likely to be proposed by the DUP, is less advantageous...

The Guardian is confident that Gordon Brown will call an early election at the beginning of next week, predicting that the poll will take place on November 1 . The Conservative conference is already being used as the launching pad for David Cameron’s campaign, but despite the headline grabbing announcements regarding Inheritance Tax and Stamp Duty , it appears from David Davies speech that traditional Tory attacks on immigration and Euro-scepticism will be rallying points for the election, despite Cameron’s progressive reputation. Time and time again it has been proven that in British politics these issues galvanise a very vocal minority, but that they are simply not pivotal enough to most people to form the battleground on which an election can be won. Taken as a whole the British electorate is a more tolerant and liberal body than is often recognised. They have accepted and integrated a number of immigrant waves with only relatively minor social unrest. They largely accept that...

I would be less than honest if I didn’t acknowledge that my concern over an early Westminster poll arises partially due to the complete unpreparedness of the UUP. Confronting the need for structural change to the party and making real progress in defining the party’s role within the realignment of unionism has been put off, supposedly to this autumn. A snap poll will catch the party napping - rudderless and divided on the direction it should take. In this context I was interested to read O’Neill’s comments defending the need for more than one unionist party. His observations come in the wake of ludicrous comments made by one of the UUP’s plodding, traditionalist foot-draggers – Billy Armstrong – advocating a merger with the DUP. O’Neill counters the argument for one unionist party correctly, by raising the electoral flexibility afforded to voters by proportional representation. He also hints at a point which I think needs to be developed. Having more than one unionist party means that...

My thoughts on Gordon Brown are ambivalent as I have blogged on previous occasions. Whether growth has been achieved at the expense of a public borrowing time-bomb is conjecture that will become increasingly pertinent as the economy slows down, the property boom runs out of steam and interest rates are forced upward. Criticism of Brown’s inefficiencies in public spending, an insatiable appetite for tinkering with new forms of taxation and excessive fondness for public / private initiatives have been tempered by very concrete reservations about whether the Tories could do any better. The long-term outworkings of Brown’s economic policies are in supremely just fashion, going to come to fruition during the years he hopes to remain Prime Minister. With unmistakeable signs of economic turbulence ahead and given a public perception that the premier has begun his term solidly, it is hardly surprising that Brown is tempted to go to the country sooner rather than later. For a new Prime Minister...