More bad names

Today the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner, Richard Mackenzie, published his revised Provisional Recommendations (originally published on 17 September 2008). While much of the revision concerns minor changes to boundaries, and the kicking into touch of the issue of Irish language names, he has also decided to revise his proposed names for the 11 new district councils.

This blog was not very enthusiastic about the original names proposed for the councils, but Mackenzie's new names are even worse.

In some cases he had originally proposed new shorter versions (Causeway Coast District Council, Mid-Antrim District Council, and Mid-Ulster District Council), but in an unnecessarily backward-looking spirit he had proposed to keep the names of some of the old (and soon to be dissolved) councils, just cobbling together the names of the old councils, such as Newry City and Down District Council, or Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, or Lisburn City and Castlereagh District Council, and so on.

However, following representations from people whose areas were not represented in his original names, he has now turned some of them into real mouthfuls, such as:

• Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon District Council
• Newry City, Mourne and Down District Council
• Causeway Coast and Glens District Council
• Mid and East Antrim District Council
  

This is a real display of parish pump politics and paucity of imagination. These names are long, unwieldy and unnecessary. There are many ways in which they could have been shortened – of course there may have been a loss of 'local identity' for those areas whose old council names disappeared, but by attempting to please everyone Mackenzie will end up confusing and annoying many people. The old names did not have to be maintained – they were, after all, only recent creations as local authority names. There are many other ways to foster local identity without imposing long strings of names into council names – counties, rivers, mountains, baronies, the old Irish Tuath (Oriel, Dalrada, etc), and so on. Or why not simply name them after the town in which their offices are located: Derry, Belfast, Coleraine, Cookstown, and so on?

Hopefully Mackenzie will have another change of heart, but this time in the direction of simplicity and user-friendliness.

What an awful name!

So it's official – the UUP's common-law marriage with the English Tories will be known as the 'Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force'.

The announcement of the new name – not the name of a party, yet, but a banner under which joint candidates will stand for election – was reportedly delayed for weeks because of difficulties in deciding whether the word 'Ulster' should appear in the title. The Tories didn't want it, while the unionists did. It seems that the unionists got their way, and the poor Tories will have to pretend to be happy to be called 'Ulster Conservatives'.

For once the Tories were right. The word 'Ulster' is loaded with connotations, and carries a lot of historical baggage. By dispensing with it, the new partnership could have sought moderate, non-sectarian support. But by keeping it, they have virtually ensured that the new partnership will remain trapped within the slowly dwindling 'Ulster Protestant' community. I expect some Northern Irish Tories will be sufficiently disgusted that they will not fully support the partnership. As for the middle ground, or Catholics, the partnership has just ensured that it will receive very little of their support.

Ironically, Reg Empey, UUP leader, said: "We don't believe in a little-Ulster mentality. [ …] We believe in promoting a vision and version of the union which will be attractive to everyone in Northern Ireland." So why, then, was he so insistent on keeping the offensive term 'Ulster' in the title?

And what on earth does that tag-on 'New Force' mean? What purpose does it serve? It sounds like some tacky 1970s paramilitary organisation. It is part of the name, but in reality it is just a poor slogan, combining the clichéd and over-used word 'new' with the vaguely militaristic and threatening word 'force'. Why did they tag it on to their name instead of, for instance, one of their other failed slogans, like: 'simply British' or 'for all of us'? While parties elsewhere in the world are using simply, snappy, easily-remembered names, the media-unsavvy backwoodsmen of unionism have saddled themselves with a long, offensive, and partially pointless name and acronym. The UCU-NF … it really runs off the tongue, doesn't it?

Schools Census 2008-2009

Today the Department of Education released the detailed results of the Schools Census for this academic year (2008-2009). For this blog the particular interest lies in the tables dealing with the religions of pupils, insofar as it provides a preview of the community breakdown of the future Northern Ireland.

The results reinforce the pattern that is visible elsewhere – the proportion of the pupils in Northern Ireland's schools who are Protestant continues to decline, while the proportion who are Catholic remains over 50% and continues to rise.

The proportion of schoolchildren in Northern Ireland who declare themselves to be Protestant or 'other Christian' (a category including the following denominations: Jehovah's Witness, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints, or Other Christian) now stands at 40.7%.

The proportion of schoolchildren in Northern Ireland who declare themselves to be Catholic stands at 50.9%.

The graph below shows the historical evolution of these raw Catholic/Protestant proportions taken from the Schools Censuses from the last 10 years:


The remaining 8.4% are made up of non-Christians (0.4%) or 'Other/no religion/not known' (8.0%). In the northern Irish context the non-Christians are largely outside the political debate, and are primarily Chinese, Muslims and Hindus. The 'Other/no religion/not known' are more interesting because they account for one pupil in twelve and their actual community backgrounds will make a considerable difference to the shape of Northern Ireland in the future.

Some people believe that atheists or agnostics are more likely to come from a Protestant community background, on the basis that Protestantism has traditionally been more liberal and that the proportion of people who state 'no religion' both in the Schools Census and the decennial census is higher in majority Protestant areas. Another possibility, though, is that Catholics in Protestant areas (or schools) may be more likely to not want to draw attention to themselves, and thus fail to declare themselves as Catholics. The argument based upon the relative liberalism of Protestantism may have had some merit in the past, but is less likely to be the case currently as the strength of all the churches on their flocks is increasingly weak. It is likely that a significant part of the 'Other/no religion/not known' group is actually from a Catholic community background.

The two graphs below show two possible interpretations of the 'Other/no religion/not known' proportion. In the first, a strictly even breakdown is made (though this, of course, slightly benefits the Protestant score, as it is only four-fifths of the Catholic score in the 'raw' figures. The second graph makes some concession towards those who believe that most of the 'Other/no religion/not known' are from a Protestant community background, and allocated them as 70% Protestant, and only 30% Catholic.



In neither case does the allocation of the 'Other/no religion/not known' significantly alter the inescapable outcome. The proportion of the schoolchildren who are Catholic, or from a Catholic community background, remains considerably higher that that who are Protestant or from a Protestant community background.

And the gap is widening over time.

When you consider that the majority of every year's Schools Census was included in the previous year's exercise – only the previous year's leavers and this year's P1 class are different – the changes visible represent only the net differences in two years out of the complete 14 year cycle. In a nutshell, if the proportion of Protestants has dropped, this means that far fewer of the P1 intake are Protestant than was the case of the previous year's leavers.

The significance of these figures is enormous. It shows that, barring asymmetric migration, in the future Protestants will be a minority of Northern Ireland's population, and Catholics will be a majority. The figures reinforce the decline in the Protestant proportion of the population as a whole seen in the decennial census, and the linked decline in the unionist vote seen in the elections over the last generation. If the two communities continue to vote along religious/community lines, it means that the unionist political project is doomed.

Even if, as some would argue, the 8% 'Other/no religion/not known' represents a centrist non-sectarian group, by definition it cannot come to the aid of the unionist cause. If its adult counterpart votes for the Alliance Party, the Greens, or various independent candidates, then they form part of neither community block, and will take a neutral position on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. If unionism must rely on the votes of Protestants, as it currently does, its future looks increasingly bleak; if it tries to break out of its community ghetto (as the UUP increasingly claims to be trying to do) then it will have to make far more serious efforts than it is currently making. If nationalism retains its support from the Catholic population it will succeed in outvoting unionism within a generation.

You are what you read - Newspaper circulation in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has five 'native' daily and Sunday newspapers: the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News, the Sunday Journal, the Sunday Life, and the News Letter. Like most other things in this divided society, these titles are generally identified with one side or the other. Amongst the three dailies, the Belfast Telegraph and the News Letter wear their unionism on their sleeves, while the Irish News is clearly nationalist. The Sunday Life is part of the Belfast Telegraph stable, and the Sunday Journal, though part of the Johnston Press group, has a very clearly nationalist editorial slant. It is generally a Derry local newspaper, though, so is of limited relevance outside that area. In brief, of the five, three are 'unionist' papers, and two are 'nationalist'.

Although many people read two or more papers (especially if they don't have to buy them), and many institutions buy all of the dailies, if people buy only one it is likely to be one that they identify with, and whose editorial position is closest to their own.

The absolute sales figures of the five give the impression of a unionist dominance of the print media in Northern Ireland – the Belfast Telegraph outsells the other papers by a fairly wide margin, clearly sells well even in Catholic areas, and is considered to be a more moderate unionist voice than the News Letter. Perhaps the fact that it is owned by the Dublin-based Independent News and Media group may make it more acceptable across the board. That being said, though, only 87% of its sales are paid for (the rest are given out for free) and its circulation is declining.

The latest circulation figures for all of the newspapers and magazines published in Ireland, released today by ABC, show that sales of almost all Northern Ireland's daily and Sunday newspapers are declining, with the exception of the Irish News.

Over the period December 2007 to December 2008, the circulation figures for the five titles changed as follows;

Belfast Telegraph: -8.1%
Irish News: +0.1%
News Letter: -4.6%
Sunday Life: -6.0%
Sunday Journal: ('NA', though the most recent six months show a decline)

Printed newspapers worldwide are tending to suffer a decline in their sales, so the negative figures above are not too unusual (though for comparison, the Belfast Telegraph's sister paper in the south, the Irish Independent, saw only a 3.9% drop in circulation over the same period).

The slight growth in the circulation of the Irish News during 2008, bucking both local and worldwide trends, could provide an indication of a growth in that newspaper's target market – nationalists – while the above-average declines in the circulations of both unionist daily newspapers could indicate a decline in the numbers of newspaper-buying unionists.

If you are what you read, then newspaper circulation figures in Northern Ireland show that there are more nationalists than a year ago, and fewer unionists.

The Glorious Revolution and Mary Stuart

On this day (February 13 in the modern calendar) in 1689 the 'Glorious Revolution' (aka the coup d'état that overthrew King James II) neared its conclusion with the accession of William of Orange and Mary Stuart to the throne of England as joint monarchs (they acceded to the throne of Scotland a few months later). Mary Stuart – James's daughter and heir until his son (the 'old pretender') was born in 1788 – was a Protestant while James was a Catholic.

The Orange Order claims the 'Glorious Revolution', and the supposed religious freedom it brought, as one of the key reasons why it wants Northern Ireland to remain in the UK, and practically deifies King William. Every other Protestant male over a certain age is called William (or Billy), and his image adorns banners, murals and Carrickfergus.

But where is Mary? Why is she absent from the deification, the banners, the murals, and the names of most Protestant women? Where is her statue? If the 'Glorious revolution' was the key event that Orangemen celebrate, Mary was as much responsible as her husband (and cousin) William. They were, after all, joint monarchs – she was not just called the queen because she married the king. Yet she is largely invisible in Orange hagiography. In fact, in Northern Ireland if a woman is called Mary, there is almost complete certainty that she is a Catholic, whereas if a man is called William, he is almost always a Protestant.

It is true that Mary Stuart deferred to her husband, but she was far from a submissive wife, and played a very active role in religious affairs. Is her absence from the modern Orange consciousness a reflection of misogyny, or is it simply because William actually came over to Ireland while Mary consolidated the regime in England?

It is surely time for the Orange Order to rediscover their feminine side.

Crowdsourcing the European Parliament election

Crowdsourcing is where you outsource a task to an undefined, generally large group of people. Democracy is, in a way, a crowdsourcing method of choosing rulers, on the basis that the outcome of a choice made by a million people is, if not better, at least more representative than a choice made by fewer people.

Until the actual election though, anyone interested in knowing how it might turn out is usually limited to a few opinion polls. Happily, though, we have an alternative crowdsource that can provide an indication, via the betting public.

Paddy Power, a betting firm (aka bookie), allows people to place bets on the outcomes of future events, mostly sporting but also political, and the aggregated bets influence the odds. The bookie sets the odds to provide an incentive to betters while trying to avoid losing money. The odds set represent the bookie's best interpretation of the likelihood of an outcome based upon the collective 'wisdom' of the crowd. Since money is at stake people tend to 'vote' as accurately as they can, rather than on party political grounds.

The initial odds being quoted by Paddy Power to the question 'Who will win the most first preference votes?' in the European Parliament election in June is as follows:

Bairbre de Brun: 4-5
Diane Dodds: evens
Jim Nicholson: 10-1
Jim Allister: 14-1
Alban Maginness: 25-1
Steven Agnew: 80-1
Alliance Party: 80-1

[For betting novices, the fractional odds show the multiple of an original bet that the punter wins if the outcome occurs. In other words, if Bairbre de Brun tops the poll, a punter who placed their bet at those odds will get his original stake back, plus four-fifths of that stake, or 180% of the stake. A bet placed on Dodds will see a return of the stake plus its same value, or 200%. As the likelihood becomes less and less likely, the odds go up. If Steven Agnew tops the poll, whoever placed a bet on that happening will win back his stake, plus 80 times the stake.]

What this shows is that, irrespective of the spin and noise created by the political parties and the media, at this early point the average punter tends to think that Sinn Féin will top the poll in June.

This blog will revisit Paddy Power from time to time during the campaign to see how these odds change.

Paddy Power is also taking bets on the very interesting question of how many first preference votes Jim Allister will get. Here the results are:

0 - 10,000: 7-1
10,001 - 20,000: 9-2
20,001 - 30,000: 3-1
30,001 - 40,000: 9-4
40,001 - 50,000: 4-1
50,001 - 60,000: 6-1
60,001 or more: 4-1

These odds show that the average punter sees Allister most likely getting between 20,000 and 30,000 first preference votes, or between 3.5% and 5% depending on the turnout. There is some evidence (4-1) that some punters see him getting a considerably higher score, but it is not clear how many bets these odds are based on. As time goes on, and the number of bets placed increases, the odds should get clearer and the crowdsourcing more accurate. For the DUP, of course, the question of Allister's votes (which otherwise would probably be their votes) is of great importance.

As horse racing sometimes shows, crowdsourcing through betting is not always accurate, but at least it provides an alternative to the opinion polls. It will be interesting to see, when it is all over, how accurately the punters called it.

Unionists can do irony

The Andersonstown News on Monday carried a nice little example of the irrationality of the unionist position. The UDA (who nice unionists abhor, of course) ordered a man "out of the country" for alleged criminality.

But which 'country' was he ordered out of? The UK? Or just Northern Ireland? It was clearly the latter, which shows up the reality of the unionist position at its most ignorant – they are 'loyal' to a vision of Northern Ireland (the fantasy of 'Ulster') rather than to the UK. At their street-thug level they are really just 'little Ulsterites', and therefore an ideal complement to the political 'little Ulsterites' of the DUP.