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Election 07

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Another election webcast

  • Mark Devenport
  • 2 Mar 07, 10:52 PM

In case you've missed it elsewhere here's a reminder that my colleagues in 91Èȱ¬ Online were so chuffed by the response to their first election webcast that they are doing another. This time it's the turn of the smaller parties - UKUP, Greens, PUP, Rainbow George, Conservatives and the Workers Party. Questions to the politicians can be e-mailed in advance to niinteractive@bbc.co.uk

The campaign that never was

  • Mark Devenport
  • 2 Mar 07, 10:47 PM

Fielding a question on Hearts and Minds this week about why the Assembly election campaign has been so dull, I started thinking about what might have been. After all, the St Andrews Agreement specified the need for an electoral endorsement of the deal, but it didn’t become clear until some time later that this would be an election, not a referendum. So what might the campaign have been like if the governments had chosen the road less travelled by? What follows is an imaginary alternative…

Continue reading "The campaign that never was"

SDLP Sodoku

  • Mark Devenport
  • 2 Mar 07, 03:04 PM

The SDLP has produced a handy leaflet setting out their policies on public transport with a number game you can play whilst stuck on the bus. I think it's a sudoku game although the leaflet claims it's "sodoku". I hope it's not as my dictionary tells me that's a kind of rat bite fever normally found in the Far East.

Missing person?

  • Mark Devenport
  • 2 Mar 07, 01:27 PM

One of the 91Èȱ¬'s researchers has been trying to track down the Independent candidate for South Belfast, Geoffrey Wilson, who is proving more elusive than most local politicians. His posters are notable by their absence and his nominees don't seem to know much about him. Geoffrey, if you are out there, here's your chance to let the blogging public know you exist.

Goodbye Phil

  • Mark Devenport
  • 2 Mar 07, 11:44 AM

The Secretary of State's Special Adviser Phil Taylor is expected to step down at the end of the month. Mr Taylor will take two months unpaid leave to become Political Director for Peter Hain's campaign for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. That's provided devolution is restored - if there's no deal by March 26th the move might be reconsidered.

During his time as Special Adviser, Phil Taylor has been heavily involved in the development of policy initiatives such as the introduction of water charges and restrictions on building in the countryside. He has radical views about the scope for cutting the layers of bureaucracy here. Some civil servants will tell you he has been the "real Secretary of State".

After some documents from the Hain campaign were leaked to the Guido Fawkes website, some have questioned whether a Special Adviser can work on such a campaign whilst holding on to a civil service job. Phil Taylor tells me he has sought advice from his Permanent Secretary and believes he has remained within the ministerial code. Advisers, he says, are entitled to assist the campaigns provided it does not interfere with their other duties or impinges on the hours they should be working. Mr Taylor says that whatever criticisms might have been made of him during his 18 months at the NIO, not putting in the hours has not been one anyone could sustain.

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