I did a presentation yesterday on the Balkans – my only work-related engagement this trip. F was most amused that I went to a place called “Foggy Bottom” to do it (and in fairness, Foggy Bottom is a very funny place name).

The reason I agreed to do it was that the people in Foggy Bottom offered me a decent honorarium which would go some way to defraying the costs of this trip. They duly presented me with a pleasantly-sized cheque drawn on Citibank of South Dakota. (Why the good people of Foggy Bottom, which is quite a long way from South Dakota, do their banking there, I don’t know.) So I left the building and more or less jumped straight on the train to New York having picked up the rest of the family en route.

So this morning I went to the nearest Citibank, on Broadway, to cash the cheque. But they told me that you can’t cash a cheque drawn on Citibank of South Dakota anywhere except South Dakota, if you don’t have an account (and of course I don’t have an American bank account of any kind). So effectively the people of Foggy Bottom have given me a useless piece of paper, with a fictitious sum of money written on it. I’ll see if my bank at home in Belgium will accept it, but I suspect I already know the answer…

It seems there is no H.P. Lovecraft museum in Providence, Rhode Island.

I’d been vaguely wondering about driving the next leg of our journey from New York to Boston, since the express trains aren’t running, and four and a half hours on a train with two small children just seems qualitatively different from the three and a half hours from DC to NY. But if there’s nothing to stop off for en route, then why bother?

An early start again, and another long walk this time to the Smithsonian; we were dismayed when we discovered on reaching the Mall at 9 am that the museums don’t open until 10 o’clock! But in the end we hung out in the increasing heat until the Air and Space Museum opened.

It really is fantastic – the orignal Command Module from Apollo 11; the back-ups of the lunar module; F here posing against a background of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. He bought a set of models of the moon landings which kept him busy on the train.

I had a work-related engagement immediately after lunch, and then we went to Union Station to get a train to New York. As it happened there was one in five minutes which we managed to get. But three and a half hours seemed like quite a long time for all of us – the Acela expresses are off at the moment. So I decided that for the Wednesday leg of the journey, from NY to Boston, we would drive.

Arrived in the end though, and taxi up to my old friend S and his newlywed wife E on the Upper East Side. F’s comment on the architecture has been noted. S and E have a cat and a dog; the former curled up on F once he was asleep; the latter kept a wary and respectful distance.

F and cat (both asleep)

“Look at those buildings, F – aren’t they tall!”

Deadpan response: “That’s because this is New York.”

Anne's birthday; we all woke up very early, and did the long long walk from the hotel past the White House, along the reflecting pond and past the WW2 and Vietnam Memorials, and then the Lincoln Memorial and finally down to the FDR Memorial.

We both found that really moving – F was less impressed, being very tired from the long walk. Totally different in concept to the other big Washington monuments, flowing water and a dynamic sense of history, and the kind of statement that one doesn't expect to hear from today's generation of politicians – apart from the famous lines like "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and "Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear", I was struck by

No Country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.

and

Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.

and

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

and

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded.I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

All stirring stuff; though of course I'm aware that he didn't always live up to these noble sentiments I'm glad to see them highlighted.

The afternoon passed at the hotel in a jet-lagged haze, but in the evening we went out to Friendship Heights for dinner with my former colleague B, her husband J and their son Ben; joined also by another former colleague G and her partner P. B is from Turkey; J, G and P are all Americans and all lawyers. (This country has 8% of the world's population and 50% of the world's lawyers.) But we had fun.

F and Ben

Brought F downstairs so as to let the others sleep, and been doing a little surfing via the terminal in the lobby.

Very good flight (once again, thank you, United Airlines); awful queue at immigration; long taxi ride; staying at Holiday Inn on Rhode Island Ave; had a little walk yesterday evening as far as Jury’s in Dupont Circle for family-friendly dinner. Sightseeing today will start soon. But I’ll see if we can get anothe couple of hours sleep first.

Frantically trying to ensure things are more or less in order as we set off on our grand US tour. Anne, F, U and I will be in the US from tomorrow until the 23rd; two days in Washington DC, two days in New York, and then in Boston for ‘s wedding. I doubt very much if I’ll be updating here, except for the occasional brief post by text message; I’m pretty sure I won’t be reading much livejournal while we’re away. So if anything interesting happens, save it for my “Did anything happen last week?” post in ten days time!

Answer: This 6-time Hugo-winning sci-fi writer’s last name was near the end of the phone book.

Question: Who was Roger Zelazny?

Looking through the local council election results, the general pattern seems fairly clear – massive stampede of voters to DUP from UUP, SF consolidate their position ahead of SDLP, but made no gains at all in their strongest areas, which suggests they may not be able to go much further. Particular local peculiarities that jumped out at me were:

Lisburn – UUP down from 13 seats to 7; DUP up from 5 to 13. Obviously this is a reflection of Jeffrey Donaldson’s defection at Westminster level. The DUP’s most dramatic gain; they now have more seats than the UUP on 18 of 26 councils, and fewer on only 5.

Moyle – always a weird case, the only council where the DUP lost a seat, in this case the one previously held in Ballycastle by Gardiner Kane but lost in a by-election after his assault case. On paper SF went up from 1 seat to 4, but two of the three gains were previously local independents, one of whom is a long-serving councillor.

Cookstown – two weirdnesses here – first of all, in Ballinderry only six candidates were nominated for six seats, so there was no election; second, the five seats of Cookstown Central went DUP 1, UUP 1, SF 1, SDLP 2 despite the SDLP having fewest first preference votes – a combination of poor balancing by SF and (probably more important) only two Unionist candidates but almost three quotas of Unionist votes. That led to the SDLP’s only gain from Sinn Fein (they did gain one other seat, from retiring independent Davy Kettyles in Fermanagh, but lost out overall.)

Some interesting indications around the fringes. The first is that the smaller parties, apart from Alliance, were in general crushed. 20 self-declared independents elected this time, compared to 34 in 2001; the PUP lost half of their four councillors, the last elected representatives of the UKUP and Women’s Coalition lost their seats, the Conservatives failed to regain any, and the three small lefty groups made little impact. Two micro-parties which are basically brading mechanisms for successful local councillors held their ground.

On the other hand the Greens won three seats (one sitting independent councillor who joined them, one former independent councillor, and another who inherited the seat of an independent councillor who had joined them a couple of years ago), and will presumably now be challenging for Assembly seats in North and South Down, even though both the co-chairs failed to get elected. There are some interesting lessons here for the centre ground which I’ll be thinking about over the next few weeks.

Shifts across the divide – not a lot of these. Ballycastle (SF gain from DUP) has been mentioned above. In two Ballymoney DEA’s, the Nationalist vote went from just under to just over the next quota, and SF duly picked up from the UUP in both cases. They also picked up from the UUP in Downpatrick, but there the UUP didn’t even have the votes last time and won the seat only on poor balancing from the SDLP and SF.

On the other hand the DUP picked up from the SDLP in Craigavon Central, and (by virtue of poor Nationalist vote management) from SF in Mid Tyrone. In Belfast Alliance’s gain from SF in the east of the city was off-set by SF’s gain from the SDLP in Lower Falls (where they won 5 seats out of 5, with 88% of the votes cast). The SDLP lost one of their Newtownabbey seats to Alliance.

The total number of seats held by councillors from the two Nationalist parties increased by only 2, from 225 to 227, compared with the surge over the last electoral cycled from 194 to 225; and several gains not noted above were from independent Nationalist councillors. In addition, the total vote for SF and SDLP in the Westminster elections was actually down slightly, from 42.7% to 41.8%. This suggests that the Nationalist vote as a whole may have reached a plateau. (Similarly in last year’s European election the two-party total was down from 45.4% in 1999 to 41.9%.)

The outlook generally of course is pretty poor. Both the DUP and SF can claim to have had their policies endorsed by the electorate, both with justification. From my own informal contacts with both sides, I don’t see any real readiness to compromise; oddly enough, each expects the British government to force the other to make the key concessions. In addition, the SDLP and to a lesser extent the UUP are not eager to facilitate any new deal for which others will get the credit. The fact that the new Northern Ireland Secretary of State will also apparently be doing Wales two or three days a week tells its own story about the level of interest from Blair’s third government.

One of my former party colleagues back home shares a local council constituency with a much-disliked but long-serving councillor from another party, who I will refer to here as Joe McPrick. This was what happened at the count:

My “funny moment” was while we were checking the spoiled ballots.

We were all crowded round the table as the officials went through them one at a time to agree they were spoiled.

I was beside one of the young DUP counting agents who, amazingly, had quite a sense of humour.

As they turned over the ballots one surfaced which said “End Sectarian Politics NOW!!!” and he said to me, “Now, surely that’s one for you!”

The next paper had a large and detailed phallic drawing on it and, without missing a beat, he said, “And there’s one for Joe McPrick.”

It was hilarious – everyone heard it but nobody could bring themselves to look round and see if Joe was in ear shot. Even the staff struggled to keep straight faced and professional.

So, folks, the lesson is that if you spoil your ballot, people will read it. And remember it for about thirty seconds.

Thanks to the practice of holding local and Westminster elections on the same day, and because the local elections use the single transferable vote (because unlike the Westminster elections, local elections in Northern Ireland have to be fair), the final results of last Thursday’s voting back home have only just come through.

DUP on 208278 votes, 29.6%, up 9%; won 182 seats, up 51.
Sinn Fein on 163205 votes, 23.2%, up 3%; won 126 seats, up 18.
UUP on 128381 votes, 18.1%, down 5%; won 115 seats, down 39.
SDLP on 121991 votes, 17.4%, down 2%; won 101 seats, down 16.
Alliance on 35149 votes, 5.0%, down very slightly; won 30 seats, up 2.
Greens 5703, 0.7%, won 3 seats (two of whom were sitting independent councillors who had joined before the election)
PUP 4591, 0.7%, 2 elected (down 2)
Newtownabbey Ratepayers 1897, 0.3%, held their 1 seat
Socialist Environmental Alliance 1321, 0.2%, won nothing.
Conservatives 1164, 0.2%, won nothing. Hooray!
Workers Party 1052, 0.1%, won nothing.
Socialist Party (Northern Ireland) 828, 0.1%, won nothing.
Women’s Coalition, 738, 0.1%, lost their last elected representative so I guess that’s the end of that.
UK Unionist Party 734, 0.1%, lost both seats they were defending. Hooray!
and
Independents 27677 votes, 3.9%, 20 elected

Shift to the extremes confirmed. But some cause for consolation in the middle and lower reaches of the table.

We’re going to be away for the next two weekends (in America for my brother’s wedding). Could someone tape the next two episodes of Doctor Who for me, on Saturday night (14th and 21st) on BBC 1 at 2000/8 pm? We can then arrange to pick up the tape once we’re back.

The Sandzak of Novi Pazar is chiefly remembered as one of the smaller pieces in the game played by the Great Powers before World War I, an obscure place which doomed those who got too closely involved with it.[1]

---

[1] See, for instance, “The Lost Sanjak”, a short story by Saki (H.H. Munro) published in 1910, whose protagonist’s failure to remember the location of Novibazar (Novi Pazar) proves fatal; and Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, in which a minor character, Lord Blatherard Osmo, “occupied the Novi Pazar desk at the Foreign Office … for on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe”, and similarly comes to a very sticky end.

Novopazarski Sandžak se uglavnom pamti kao jedan od manjih figura u diplomatskim igrama koju su velike sile vodile pre Prvog svetskog rata – izolovano mesto koje je osuđivalo na propast sve one koji bi mu se previše približili.[1]

---

[1] Vidi, na primer, “Izgubljeni Sandžak”, kratku priču autora Sakija (H. H. Munro) objavljenu 1910. godine čiji protagonista ne uspeva da se seti lokacije Novibazara (Novog Pazara) što se ispostavlja kao pogubno po njega; i roman Tomasa Pinčona, Gravity’s Rainbow, u kojem jedan sporedni lik, Lord Bladerard Osmo, koji je “radio u odeljenju za Novi Pazar u Ministarstvu spoljnih poslova… jer je od ovog nepoznatog sandžaka nekada zavisila sudbina čitave Evrope”, na sličan način doživljava veoma neugodan kraj.

I’m sorry to lose “sticky” as part of the footnote – “neugodan” doesn’t quite have the same meaning, and I wrote it as a coy reference to the fact that Lord Osmo is found drowned in a bath of tapioca – but I guess it can’t be helped.

Both the Kyrgyz and the Albanian elections are in early July, so there may be more openings for international election observers via the OSCE than usual. I posted details for how to apply here.

Review now up at my website.

This exotic blog has linked to my (rather negative) review of Asimov’s The Gods Themselves. I had to blink a couple of times before I realised what language it was in.

(Also reminds me it’s about time I wrote the next piece in that series.)

Interesting to look through the list of new MPs – there are four who I knew from my days in student politics, two Conservative and two Lib Dem (this was not an election when my Labour contacts would have been much use). The two Tories were both called Greg and both Cambridge contemporaries of mine, Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham) who I beat in the election for Deputy President of CUSU, and Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) who in those days was one of the remaining cheer-leaders for the David Owen’s post-split SDP. The two Lib Dems are David Howarth, who was (and I guess still is) a Fellow at my college, now elected for Cambridge, and Tim Farron, who was the sole success of the “decapitation strategy” defeating shadow education secretary Tim Collins up in Westmorland. (Hey, Quarsan, I know you’ll have been pleased by that.) Tim Farron’s star rose rapidly in the student Lib Dems in my time of involvement, and he was always in his element.

Other new MPs who I know slightly include some of the Northern Ireland ones who I vaguely knew in my time in politics there (specifically Sammy Wilson – DUP, East Antrim – and Alisdair McDonnell – SDLP, South Belfast) and also the two Lib Dems who have switched from the European Parliament, Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) and Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam). Indeed, Nick Clegg was also an exact contemporary of mine at Cambridge, and remembers me though I don’t remember him from university.

Naturally, it makes me think what might have happened if I had pursued my own vestigial political career. I’d be now waiting to hear if I had been elected to my third term as a local councillor in Newtownabbey, probably, with a miserable result in North Belfast announced yesterday. A lucky escape.

I’ve found a web comic to replace the hole left in my life when Queen of Wands ended a couple of months ago.

I do like that “describe yourself in twenty words or less” question from . I’ve copied my own answer into my user info.

If you want questions, comment.

From :

1. Where have you lived in your life? Belfast, until I was 17, apart from a year when our family lived in Massachusetts and another year in the Netherlands. County Down for my last year at school. During my year off, Northamptonshire, Armagh and Germany. For five years of BA, students union and M Phil, Cambridge. For another five years of PhD and political activism, Belfast again. Sixteen months in Bosnia; eight months in Croatia. Then the last six years in Belgium (two and a half years in Rhode-St-Genese, since then in Oud-Heverlee).
2. What’s the last cd you bought/listened to? I don’t buy music as often as I’d like. I think the last one I bought was a set of eight cds by the Finnish composer Sibelius, and I’m sure the last cd I listened to was the one out of that set with my favourite piece, The Swan of Tuonela.
3. Describe yourself in 20 words or less? Husband, father of three, Irish, European, UK citizen, liberal, Catholic, political analyst, science fiction fan, psephologist, lapsed medievalist, aspiring polyglot.
4. Worst injury suffered? Surprisingly difficult. I’ve never had to spend a night in hospital, thank God; I’ve had an ingrowing toenail cut out, but that’s not quite an “injury”; I think the pathetically minor incident that counts as worst must be when I walked into a lamp-post one night in summer 1988 at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and they took me to the local hospital to be checked up. But I don’t think that even needed stitches.
5. Favourite type of food? Indian. One of my aunts is married to a Bengali, so as children when visiting we were introduced to the authentic cooking of the sub-continent; also my wife is from Birmingham; also absence makes the heart grow fonder, as it’s very difficult to find a decent curry in Belgium. (God bless , for introducing me to the delights of the lunchtime buffet at the Grapevine on Place Luxembourg. But it’s too far from my office to casually drop in, and not sufficiently up-market for a business lunch, which means I can only go there if meeting actual friends for whom the location is convenient.)

Here. (Hat tip to , who claims he isn’t even a Doctor Who fan.)

*@Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Fein) 18,638 (38.2% +4.1%)
@Arlene Foster (DUP) 14,056 (28.8%)
@Tom Elliot (UUP) 8,869 (18.2% -15.8%)
@Tommy Gallagher (SDLP) 7,230 (14.8% -3.9%)

Not the most exciting result, which is why I forgot about it earlier. Arlene Foster, like Jeffrey Donaldson in Lagan Valley, was able to take most of the UUP votes with her when she changed party.

*@Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP) 23,289 (54.7% +41.3%)
Basil McCrea (UUP) 9,172 (21.5% -35.0%)
@Seamus Close (Alliance) 4,316 (10.1% -6.5%)
Paul Butler (Sinn Fein) 3,197 (7.5% +1.6%)
@Patricia Lewsley (SDLP) 2,598 (6.1% -1.4%)

As with Arlene Foster in Fermanagh, most of the UUP votes went with Donaldson. Some odd shifts of votes around the lower end of the results table. SF very slightly widen the margin over the SDLP.

@Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein) 20,965 (41.4% +10.5%)
@Dominic Bradley (SDLP) 12,770 (25.2% -12.2%)
@Paul Berry (DUP) 9,311 (18.4% -1.0%)
@Danny Kennedy (UUP) 7,025 (13.9% +1.6%)
Gerry Markey (Independent) 625 (1.2%)

Almost a mirror of the Assembly election (except that the UUP vote is down a bit). Surprisingly turned out to be the SDLP’s only loss.

@Mark Durkan (SDLP) 21,119 (46.3% -3.9%)
@Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Fein) 15,162 (33.2% +6.6%)
@William Hay (DUP) 6,557 (14.4% -0.8%)
Eamonn McCann (Socialist Environmental Alliance) 1,649 (3.6%)
Earl Storey (UUP) 1,091 (2.4% -4.5%)
Ben Reel (Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket) 31 (0.1%)

I was fooled, I must admit, by the last-minute rush of predictions on my website for SF to win here. Ever the gracious losers, they are complaining that Durkan owes his victory to Unionist voters – quite apart from the offensive implication that Protestant votes don’t (or at least shouldn’t) count, this is belied by the figures which indicate that he may have got 2,000 Unionist votes but since he was 6,000 ahead of McLaughlin it wouldn’t have affected the result.

That seems to be it for now – apparently they are still chasing missing ballot boxes through the back roads of Mid Ulster, and in South Down they’re taking their time, but based on what we;ve seen they should be safe holds for SF and SDLP respectively.

*@Gregory Campbell (DUP) 15,225 (42.9% +10.8%)
David McClarty (UUP) 7,498 (21.1% -6.3%)
John Dallat (SDLP) 6,077 (17.1% -3.7%)
Billy Leonard (Sinn Fein) 5,709 (16.1% +0.5%)
Yvonne Boyle (Alliance) 924 (2.6% -1.5%)
Malcolm Samuel Independent 71 (0.2% +0.2%)

A good swing to the DUP, despite some evidence of tactical voting for the UUP (SDLP down, but SF not up by corresponding amount).

*@Pat Doherty (Sinn Fein) 16,910 (38.9% -1.9%)
@Kieran Deeny (Independent) 11,905 (27.4%)
@Thomas Buchanan (DUP) 7,742 (17.8%)
@Eugene McMenamin (SDLP) 3,949 (9.1% -19.6%)
@Derek Hussey (UUP) 2,981 (6.9% -23.5%)

Fascinating stuff here, as five of the six Assembly members for the constituency fought it out, and the parties that stood in 2001 managed only 55% of the vote between them. Deeny clearly managed to pull together two thirds of the SDLP vote and a respectable chunk from the Unionists too, a genuine cross-community result in one of Northern Ireland’s more polarised areas.

*Lady Sylvia Hermon (UUP) 16,268 (50.4% -5.6%)
@Peter Weir (DUP) 11,324 (35.1%)
David Alderdice (Alliance) 2,451 (7.6%)
Liam Logan (SDLP) 1,009 (3.1% -0.3%)
Julian Robertson (Conservative) 822 (2.5% +0.3%)
Chris Carter (Independent) 211 (0.7%)
Janet McCrory (Sinn Fein) 205 (0.6% -0.2%)

Lady Hermon is thus the unlikely sole survivor of the UUP cull. As with West Tyrone, the parties that stood in 2001 got only 57% or so of the votes cast this time. The DUP/UKUP vote appears to have plateau’d here in the mid-30s; Alliance got back some of the votes loaned to the UUP (and it would seem to the SDLP as well) in 2001. It will be interesting to compare with the local election results.

@David Simpson (DUP) 16,679 (37.6% +8.1%)
*@David Trimble (UUP) 11,281 (25.5% -8.0%)
@John O’Dowd (Sinn Fein) 9,305 (21.0% -0.1%)
@Dolores Kelly (SDLP) 5,747 (13.0% -1.9%)
Alan Castle (Alliance) 955 (2.2%)
Tom French (WP) 355 (0.8% -0.2%)

On a straight swing characteristic of the rest of Northern Ireland, David Trimble lost his seat to the DUP. On the face of it he doesn’t seem to have benefited from tactical voting any more than in 2001 – indeed it almost looks as if Alliance votes last time went to the SDLP, which can’t be right. The end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.

@William McCrea (DUP) 14,507 (38.2% +3.4%)
*@David Burnside (UUP) 11,059 (29.1% -8.0%)
Noreen McClelland (SDLP) 4,706 (12.4% +0.3%)
Henry Cushinan (Sinn Fein) 4,407 (11.6% +2.2%)
@David Ford (Alliance) 3,278 (8.6% +4.1%)

Given the overall DUP swing, McCrea winning this seat was not surprising – notable if anything that his vote went up rather less than most DUP candidates, and that the margin was increased by a “tactical unwind” of votes from Burnside, particulalry to Alliance.

*@Iris Robinson (DUP) 20,921 (56.5% +13.7%)
Gareth McGimpsey (UUP) 7,872 (21.3% -19.0%)
@Kieran McCarthy (Alliance) 3,332 (9.0% +2.3%)
Joe Boyle (SDLP) 2,496 (6.7% +0.6%)
Terry Dick (Conservative) 1,462 (3.9%)
Dermot Kennedy (Sinn Fein) 949 (2.6% +0.4%)

The result not surprising, though the swing to the DUP in what is now their strongest constituency (I think) is impressive. Note again some tactical unwind in favour of Alliance.

Nigel Dodds (DUP) 13,935 (45.6% +4.8%)
Gerry Kelly (Sinn Fein) 8,747 (28.6% +3.4%)
Alban Maginness (SDLP) 4,950 (16.2% -4.8%)
Fred Cobain (UUP) 2,154 (7.1% -4.9%)
Marjorie Hawkins (Alliance) 438 (1.4%)
Marcella Delaney (WP) 165 (0.5% -0.1%)
Lynda Gilby (Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket) 151 (0.5% +0.2%)

Alas, the Alliance vote here has slumped far below even my poor effort of 4% in 1996. Similar swings to elsewhere, no big surprise.

Sammy Wilson (DUP) 15,766 (49.6% +13.6%)
Roy Beggs (UUP) 8,462 (26.6% -9.8%)
Sean Neeson (Alliance) 4,869 (15.3% +2.8%)
Danny O’Connor (SDLP) 1,695 (5.3% -2.0%)
James McKeown (Sinn Fein) 828 (2.6% +0.1%)
David Kerr Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket 147 (0.5%)

After Wilson unexpectedly ran Beggs close last time, not at all surprising that the DUP took this seat. Note drop in SDLP vote not matched by corresponding rise for SF – my bet is that Alliance, who basically chose the wrong candidate last time, are benefiting from a peculiar Northern Ireland version of a tactical unwind.

Peter Robinson (DUP) 15,152 (49.1% +6.6%)
Reg Empey (UUP) 9,275 (30.1% +6.9%)
Naomi Long (Alliance) 3,746 (12.2% -3.6%)
Deborah Devenny (Sinn Fein) 1,029 (3.3% -0.1%)
Mary Muldoon (SDLP) 844 (2.7% +0.3%)
Alan Greer (Conservative) 434 (1.4% -0.8%)
Joe Bell (WP) 179 (0.6% +0.3%)
Lynda Gilby (Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket) 172 (0.6% +0.4%)

PUP vote divides roughly equally between the Unionists; I suspect some tactical voting by Alliance supporters for the UUP, but it’s still a better result than Naomi got in the Assembly election; interesting to see a rare up-tick in the SDLP vote and a corresponding down-tick for SF, in the constituency where the McCartney sisters have been most visible.

@Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP) 10,339 (32.3% +1.7%)
Jimmy Spratt (DUP) 9,104 (28.4%)
@Michael McGimpsey (UUP) 7,263 (22.7% -22.1%)
@Alex Maskey (Sinn Fein) 2,882 (9.0% +1.4%)
Geraldine Rice (Alliance) 2,012 (3.3% +0.9%)
Lynda Gilby (Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket) 235 (0.7% +0.4%)
Patrick Joseph Lynn (Workers Party) 193 (0.6% +0.1%)

Probably the biggest upset of the election – Alastair McDonnell wins with 32% of the vote, DUP coming second, UUP losing half their vote from last time. Interesting that with no Women’s Coalition candidate, the total Nationalist vote goes up by 3% but the total Unionist vote by 7%. The SDLP survives after all, despite my predictions.

*@ Ian Paisley (DUP) 25,156 (54.8% +4.9%)
@Philip McGuigan (Sinn Fein) 7,191 (15.7% +5.9%)
Rodney McCune (UUP) 6,637 (14.5% -6.5%)
@Sean Farren (SDLP) 5,585 (12.2% -4.6%)
Jayne Dunlop (Alliance) 1,357 (3.0% +0.4%)

Similar shift of votes to the very different constituency of West Belfast, but no big surprise. Encouraging to see a minor up-tick in the Alliance vote.

*@ Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) 24,348 (70.5%, +4.4%)
@Alex Attwood (SDLP) 5,033 (14.6%, -4.3%)
@Diane Dodds (DUP) 3,652 (10.6% +4.2%)
@Chris McGimpsey (UUP) 779 (2.3% -3.9%)
John Lowry (WP) 432 (1.3% -0.5%)
Lynda Gilby (Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket) 154 (0.4% +0.2%)
Liam Kennedy Independent 147 (0.4%)
Valid Turnout 34,545 (64.2%)

* outgoing MP.
@ member of the Assembly

If SF can put on 4% in what is already their strongest constituency, I feel more confident in my prediction that they will take Foyle as well. And the significant factor in the Unionist swing is not so much that it was 4%, enough to tip South and East Antrim and Upper Bann, but more that it was over three fifths of the UUP’s former vote…

OK, that leaves ten Nebula winning novels that I have not read. Which one should I read next?

1. Babel-17 by Samuel R Delany
2. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delany
3. Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
4. A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg
5. The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe
6. The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy
7. The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
8. Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick
9. Moving Mars by Greg Bear
10. The Terminal Experiment by Robert J Sawyer

Given my toxic reaction to his other work, probably not the Sawyer…

2) No Enemy But Time, by Michael Bishop

A while back I listed the Nebula winners I had read, and was fairly sure I read this last summer but couldn’t remember much about it. I’ve just reread it, and I must have been very sleepy or something first time round; it’s a pretty memorable book. Joshua Kampa hs these odd dreams about the Pleistocene; an African government teams up with the US military to send him back in time two million years. The time-travel adventure bit of the story is the kind of thing I generally enjoy unquestioningly, but in this case there’s a lot in there about family relationships and communicating; Kampa’s biological mother cannot speak, neither can his prehistoric companions, and he voluntarily cuts off all contact with his adoptive mother. (Overlaid a little with the difficulties of cultural communication between the West and traditional Africa, though this was not much developed.) So I found more than I had expected to like about this book. Recommended.

(And the disappearing dalek mood icon has nothing to do with my feelings about the book, I just wanted to use it!)

Dragi prijatelji,

kao sto smo i ocekivali, Medjunarodna krizna grupa (MKG – ICG) je reagovala na analizu koju smo Jan Oberg i ja objavili u “European Voice”-u pod nazivom “Kosovo’s independence, the wrong solution for Europe” (kao rezime serijala “The Kosovo Solution Series”). U najnovijem broju “European Voice”-a, odgovara nam niko drugi do “big boss” Nicholas Whyte, sef MKG za Evropu.

Saljem vam ovom prilikom njegov odgovor koji je toliko isprazan da se covek pita zasto Albanci placaju tolike pare ovako jadnoj argumentaciji.

Za nas reakcija Whyte-a i MKG znaci dve stvari:

1) Nasa analiza ih je pogodila, pogotovu smo smo “udarili” usred Brisela, neocekivano i snazno. Oni nisu na to navikli – do sada su “nasi” samo reagovali, najcesce mlako i povrsno. Nikada nismo bili u ofanzivi i to je uspanicilo MKG.

2) Iz odgovora se vidi koliko je argumentacija MKG i pro-albanskog lobija tanka, prakticno nikakva. Oni idu na buku i diskvalifikaciju. Argumente nemaju.

Imajuci ovo u vidu, prosto je neverovatno da se u Beogradu i dalje cuti, ceka.

Bez koordinisanog rada, medijske i lobi ofanzive, nemamo sanse. Sa tom ofanzivom, sanse su vise nego dobre.

Cega se plasimo?

Pozdrav,
Sasa

P.S. Na kraju Whyte-ovom odgovora, “big boss” indirektno najavljuje uplitanje Sandzaka i “Presevske doline” u pitanje statusa Kosova. Cilj je naravno jos jedno upozorenje Beogradu i uterivanje straha Srbima. Dan nakon sto sam video Whyte-ovu reakciju na nas clanak, procitao sam da je u Srbiji (valjda Novom Pazaru) njegov izaslanik/ “uterivac straha” James Lyon predstavio specijalni izvestaj MKG o Sandzaku…

Dear friends,

As we expected, ICG has reacted to the analysis that Jan Oberg and myself have made public in the “European Voice” under the title of ” Kosovo’s independence, the wrong solution for Europe”. In the newest edition of the European voice, there is an answer from the “big boss”, Nicholas Whyte, the director of the ICG Europe.

I take this opportunity to send you his answer which has no substance that we wonder why the Albanians pay so much money to such a bad argumentation.

To us, the reaction of N. Whyte and ICG means two things:

1, Our analysis has had a lot of effect on them; we “hit” hard and unexpectedly in the middle of Brussels. They are not used to it, because until know “our people” have reacted smoothly and superficially. We have never undertaken an offensive and that is what panicked ICG.

2, From the answer, one can see that the argumentation of ICG and the pro-Albanian thin thank is basically very bad. They do not have arguments, they only want to make noise.

Having this in mind, it is hardly comprehensive why people in Belgrade still wait.

With a lack of coordinated work, no media and no lobby offensive we have no chance. But with that offensive, our chances would raise.

What are we afraid of?

Best wishes,

Sasa

P.S. At the end of N. Whyte’s answer, the “big boss” indirectly takes into account the Sandzak and Presevo valley in the Kosovo’s question. The aim is obviously to give another warning to Belgrade and scare the Serbs. The day after I saw Whyte’s reaction to our article, I have read that in Serbia (in Novi Pazar I think) his “protégé” or “the man who wants to frighten”, James Lyon, introduced the newest ICG report about Sandzak…

David Howarth has won in Cambridge!

Makes me feel my vote for Shirley Williams in 1987 is strangely justified!

[ETA: I see Stephen Twigg, not very surprisingly, lost his London seat.]