Positive case for Britishness as well as the Union

You could be forgiven for missing the poll on Britishness contained in this month’s Prospect Magazine.  It’s buried in a series of articles about the UK’s involvement in the European Union. 

Yougov found that people in England who identify primarily as British are less likely to want to leave the EU, while people who describe themselves first as English are much more likely to want immediate withdrawal. 

It’s hardly a startling revelation that nationalism often coincides with euroscepticism.  More eye-catching is the break-down in the number of people who identify first as British / English.  This survey suggests that over 60% of people in England view themselves primarily as English rather than British.  That compares to just over 40%, as recently as 2008.

Again, you might say it’s hardly surprising in a post-devolution UK, with nationalist politics influential in Cardiff and dominating governments in Edinburgh and Belfast, that Britishness is being eroded.  The extent of that decline, though, should be a major cause for worry. 

Arthur Aughey recently wrote that English nationalism is, as yet, still a mood rather than a movement, but the poll seems to confirm that the mood is being nurtured by an aggressive assertion of Scots’ nationalism north of the border.

It would be wrong to infer that there is not still a major disconnect between Scottish nationalists’ constitutional aspirations and those of the bulk of Scottish people.  The SNP has acquired a reputation for delivering competent government, which has brought electoral success.  That is its mandate, but it doesn’t stop Salmond et al from pursuing another agenda.

The forbearance of English public opinion is generally quite remarkable, but constant attrition from Holyrood can’t help but affect attitudes south of the border.  And the same process is taking place to a lesser extent between London and Belfast, with the Stormont executive dominated by Irish Nats and Ulster Nats.

None of this is fatal for the Union, of course.  The British identity can comfortably exist alongside its component identities.  Nor can it necessarily be assumed that the figures can be explained simply as an expression of English resentment at the lack of collegiate spirit from other corners of the Union.  The financial crisis has thrown at least one more element into the mix. 

The fact remains, though, that English support for the Union can’t be taken for granted.  There’s a need to make a positive case not only for the United Kingdom, but also for a sense of Britishness itself.  The identity which explains the interlocking history of these islands, the political institutions which define our citizenship and the cultural similarities which we share.  

Nationalism hindering opposition in Belarus

The World Affairs Journal has published a nicely written article by James Kirchick, called ‘The Land of No Applause’.  It’s a sprawling account of modern Belarus and well worth reading.

The author quotes some startling statistics which suggest that popular disillusion with President Lukashenko is spreading and they lead him to the obvious question – why hasn’t a credible opposition emerged in Belarus?

It’s a little disappointing, but at this point Kirchick opts for a traditional answer.  He argues that a viable challenge to the President has not developed because Lukashenko has so effectively suppressed Belarusian national identity.  While that is a tidy enough explanation, I suspect it reflects only one aspect of a more complex situation. 

The President took power in 1994, at a time when the politics of nationality were to the fore in Eastern Europe.  He judged that there was no similar appetite for a nationalist rewrite of identity in Belarus and, it must be said, he appears to have judged correctly.

Conversely the most prominent forms of Belarusian opposition were often linked to hostility toward the Russian language, an equivocal attitude toward Soviet achievements in World War 2 and efforts to cut all links with Moscow.

To western eyes Lukashenko has constructed a rather strange hybrid.  Belarus is an independent state which is also an inseparable part of a larger cultural space shared with Russia.  To Belarusian eyes, though, it’s rather neatly reflects the country’s post-Soviet identity.

Of course that isn’t to excuse the basket-case economy, the suppression of pluralism or the eccentric demagoguery.  But it does partly explain why opposition movements haven’t become credible and it suggests that nationalist fantasies are helping to keep Lukashenko in power.

The article mentions a number of enemies of the President’s regime who are almost as scathing about the so-called opposition.  That tells a tale and it would have been an interesting angle to investigate further.    

Guest post: Germany resists British calls for greater European integration.

The following is a guest post from itwassammymcnallywhatdoneit. I should point out that all views expressed in guest posts are solely the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Three Thousand Versts.

As economic crises rage across the Eurozone, it is still not clear whether we are witnessing the (relative) decline of Western Capitalism and the passing of the prosperity baton to the East (as the Olympic  baton goes in the opposite direction) or just the latest Western adjustment to the fallout from the financial crisis.

The Chinese, sitting pretty on trillions of dollars in foreign reserves responded to being tapped up by an indebted Eurozone by suggesting that "European labour laws induce sloth, indolence rather than hard work." and told the Europeans to get their act together before looking for their help. (The US of A, having recently had its credit rating downgraded was not invited to provide assistance, presumably to spare their blushes.)

Last week, the crisis in Europe centred on the small Mediterranean country of Greece, perhaps but the Aperitif to a main course of Italy and Spain (with Ireland and Portugal as side dishes) for the perfidious and greedy Markets seeking to devour any country showing economic weakness.

The Greek political class, facing warnings of expulsion from the Eurozone and even from the EU itself, withdrew the 'threat' of consultation with the Greek people via a referendum and promised to toe the austerity line.

In Britain, strangely, there was little support for the Greek referendum position from the British Prime Minister, who, although using the promise of a referendum on Europe to get himself elected leader of the Tory party, was telling the Greeks to hurry up and sign up to the Euro austerity deal.

David Cameron though, finds himself in the very awkward position of needing to throw a few anti-EU bones to his anti-EU backbenchers to chew on in order to stave off further parliamentary rebellions, whilst trying to avoid a (further) dressing down from European colleagues for daring to talk down Europe at such a sensitive time.

The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr George Osborne has been eagerly repeating the (new?) Tory party line that greater European integration is required in Eurozone countries in order for the Euro to work - you simply cannot, so the argument goes, have such divergent economies as Greece and Germany sharing the same currency and with the same interest rates-unless there is central control of economic policy. Britain, Osborne insists, cannot and will not, bail out the failed currency. The European central bank, must be the lender of last resort for the Euro and stump up the cash to solve the Euro debt crisis.

Except, the European Central Bank does not seem inclined to do such a thing and instead, much to British annoyance, the supplier of cash to Euro countries in these crises, may well be the IMF - part funded by Britain. Ed Balls, Labour’s  Shadow Chancellor,  opportunistically sniffing Mr Cameron's political blood has publically demanded that no British cash arrives in Europe even under the IMF flag of convenience.

So why does the European Central Bank seem reluctant to be the lender of last resort? Well if the BBC political correspondents are to believed it all boils down to one word 'Weimar' - that tragic period in German history when their severe economic difficulties were dealt with by quantitative easing (a practice now very worryingly popular in non-Euro and heavily indebted Britain).

Perhaps a couple of hours of heavy output from the Frankfurt printing presses and there would be enough cash to lend to Greece and Italy?

As the name suggests the European Central Bank- is a European institution - which might lead some to believe it should be run for the benefit of Europe as a whole but it rather looks to others, to perhaps being run by, and for the benefit of,  only one country.

Germany, believed by many to be a 'good' European and a central part of project Euro, a project allegedly set to undermine the Nation states of Europe, is now perhaps showing her true (National) colours.

... surely all that frightful fretting by Eurosceptics over the threat of a European super state hasn't been for nothing? 

Dowie for manager!

I was unsure of who I wanted to succeed Nigel Worthington as Northern Ireland manager, but my mind's now made up.  I give you Mr Iain Dowie esq. and his mission statement.

"we need to get some passion back. We can't have players not turning up, then playing for their clubs at the weekend, and we have got to stop the trend of losing so many players to the Republic. If we can do that, anything is possible, as Billy Bingham showed in the 80s. We haven’t been to a major tournament since, and that is something that needs putting right. It's a tough group we are in for the next World Cup, but we really should be able to compete with teams like Israel. We will, if we can get back to making Windsor Park a difficult place to come to on a wet and windy night. That has to be the aim, and it is a realistic one."

Well said Mr Dowie Sir!  There's been a lot of technocratic talk about the respective merits of various candidates' CVs.  Let's cut through the nonsense though, splitting hairs about achievements in the lower leagues in neither here nor there.  Lawrie McMenemy had the most impressive CV of recent Northern Ireland managers, and he was the worst manager.  Arguably his namesake Sanchez had the least striking club record.

Dowie understands the Northern Ireland set-up and he understands the fanbase.  He can put fire into the the players' bellies, get the stands roaring again and, most importantly, put out a team charged with harrying, pressing and disrupting superior opposition.  That's the only way we can compete and challenge for qualification.

The only thing the IFA need look at in its recruitment process is the above quote.  It is the most inspiring, no nonsense statement any candidate has made to date.  And the man has a record in management to compare with the rest.  Offer him a contract right now.

P.S. I'm fully aware that my photoshop skills are appalling.

Hard-line leaders driving trades union members toward strikes

Following Unison’s strike last month, Nipsa, which represents 45,000 workers across the public sector, is urging its membership to vote ‘yes’ in a ballot, aimed at bringing about industrial action.  

Not only will any further stoppages bring widespread misery, but the vast majority of union members don’t want to strike.  Unison’s walkout was carried on a ballot of just 18% of its membership. 

That’s hardly surprising.  Most employees join a union, simply expecting it to help them if they encounter a problem in the work place, while their leaders are sometimes driven by hard-line politics.  

Where the latest batch of strikes is concerned, unions readily admit that they don’t know the details of public sector job losses which they say are in the pipeline.  Some of those potential redundancies could yet be avoided with a little flexibility where it comes to pay and conditions.  However their stock response is nothing to do with protecting jobs.  They just repeat, “you can’t cut your way out of a recession”.

That’s nothing to do with pay, or conditions, or even possible lay-offs; it’s an abstract political theory.  And it’s extremely foolhardy to persuade people to risk their livelihoods on the basis of an economic doctrine, especially when it’s based on a flawed understanding of our current financial circumstances.   

What the unions don’t seem to grasp, as they call for more public spending, is that the mess which the current government inherited from Labour is primarily a debt crisis, just as the turmoil engulfing international markets stems from anxiety that countries will not be able to pay back what they owe. 

In difficult circumstances, the chancellor, George Osborne, managed to defy a world trend and stabilise the UK’s economy, but he could only do that by devising a credible plan to cut our deficit. 

In contrast the seventeen countries which use the euro are currently locked in crisis talks.  Setting aside the bizarre jargon of ‘Greek haircuts’ and ‘big bazookas’, the crux is that you can’t tackle a debt crisis by continually taking on more debt.

Thankfully, as a region of the UK, we’ve got room for optimism.  We’re part of a relatively stable economy and our government took prompt action to get the deficit under control.  We’ve also got a favourable settlement on our block grant, avoiding the worst spending cuts, felt across the rest of Britain.

We still need to do our bit, of course, and save money where we can.  And the parties at Stormont need to be more straightforward when they spell out which cuts are necessary, so that jobs and services can be saved where possible. 

As for the unions, they can only serve workers’ interests well if they are constructive and flexible.  Most of their members, after all, aren’t fiery leftists, spoiling for a fight with the government.  They just want help and advice which enables them to keep their jobs and work hard in decent conditions.  The unions should stick to looking out for their welfare, rather than campaigning for strikes on the basis of outdated political ideology.

From yesterday's News Letter.

All registered parties will contest State Duma election

Elections to Russia's State Duma will take place on December 4th.  Ria Novosti reports today that all of the registered parties will contest the poll and points out that this is the first time that has happened since 1993.  The Russian ministry of justice provides a list of the contenders.

It includes Pravoye Delo, or Right Cause, the free market friendly group, whose newly appointed leader, Mikhail Prokhorov, was recently ousted.  Other contenders Zyuganov's perennial challengers, the KPR (Russian communists), and another veteran's grouping, the LDPR, led by nationalist rabble-rouser Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Pollsters were suggesting that United Russia, whose list will be topped by the outgoing President, Dmitry Medvedev, might struggle to retain the 2/3rds majority which it needs to change constitutional law.  Levada's latest suggestion is that voter apathy might help the party to maintain its dominance.   

Oh minister, where art thou?

Sinn Fein reps are quite the culture vultures this week, with the notable exception of culture minister Caral Ni Chuilin.   Máirtín Ó Muilleoir is curating an exhibition of ‘political art’ hosted at the Golden Thread Gallery.

 It includes an offering by Conrad Atkinson (above), which apparently caused controversy back in the 70s, when Protestant museum workers refused to hang the painting at the Ulster Museum.  

As it happens, they may have acted on aesthetic rather than sectarian motivations, because, aside from its questionable 'political message', the artwork looks rather like it was painted by a disturbed four year old child.     

However all art exhibitions are certainly not equal in Shinner land.  According to the Irish News our so called culture minister has declined an invitation to attend the Royal Ulster Academy’s 130^th Annual Exhibition, which gets underway at the Ulster Museum today.  One of its exhibits is a rather striking portrait entitled “Remember Mary Travers”.   

Guest Post: Leave our Alain alone

By itwassammymcnallywhatdoneit

As we know well in Northern Ireland, predicting someone’s views on a range of issues doesn't require a crystal ball, just a clue as to their background - their name, the school they attended or their address. Once you have sniffed out those details, you can identify their tribe and you can then have a fair stab at working out what they think.


Of course, tribalism is not just confined to Ulster and tribal loyalties are not always that straightforward. Take Monsieur Alain Rolland for example, born and raised in Ireland but with a French father. For many Welsh rugby fans such continental lineage was proof positive of his preference for the land of his father, Wales's opponents in the rugby world cup semi-final and of course explains his 'outrageous' decision to send off the Welsh captain Sam Warburton.


When England were knocked out of the world cup, by perhaps the bitterest of their many 'old enemies' France, Wales found themselves up against the same opponents and the centre of British media interest in the run up to the semi-final. Unlike poor unloved England, who had exited in disarray in the glare of dreadful publicity, all the media stories about Wales were extremely positive. Rather than tossing dwarves in the local hostelries, we were told the Welsh formed themselves into a Choir and whiled away the hours singing harmonies - no going on the pop and chasing the local talent for them. David Cameron, perhaps reeling from the Fantastic stories circulating about his defence secretary Mr Fox(who by now was rivalling the English rugby team for bad press) declared his Prime Ministerial support for Wales and ran the Welsh flag up the mast in Downing Street.


Not a bad word was muttered against the Welsh, not even from the Irish - still smarting from the hiding we took from our fitter and younger Celtic cousins the previous week. Cymru am byth.


The stage was set.


Only France stood between Wales and a world cup final and with the Millennium stadium, rocking with 65,000 (more than at the game itself), there could only be one winner?


But after 17 minutes of the semi-final the Franco-Irish referee reached into his pocket and took from it a card - colour Red, not colour Yellow(which would have been in contravention of the IRB directive issued only weeks previously). Yet every rugby pundit and Welsh (or English) fan or ex-player who could overcome their indignance to be interviewed or to tweet, insisted that it was a 'dreadful' or 'shocking' or 'awful' or 'outrageous' (or all of the preceding) decision. Of course, part of this indignant outrage was based on ignorance of the rules and part based on sheer disappointment. Rugby pundits, who had previously demanded consistency from officals, were now calling for inconsistency, a Yellow card because it was only the 17th minute, a Yellow card because it was the semi-final of the world cup, a Yellow card because the perpetrator had no track record for foul play, a Yellow card because otherwise the game would be wrecked, a Yellow card because a red would stop Wales getting to the world cup final. Shame on you Alain – deep shame.


Jamie Roberts, the outstanding Welsh centre and Irish and British Lion(who is completing a medical degree in his spare time) was clearly struggling to keep his emotions under control when he was interviewed directly after the game - but pointedly refused to criticise the referee's decision. Such a dignified response was not however in evidence from the Welsh coaches with each of them lining up to condemn Rolland for enforcing a punishment designed to prevent serious spinal injuries in this extremely physical contact sport. (Warren Gatland, Wales's head coach, further added to his repuation for ill-judged remarks, by bizarrely trying to claim credit for not cheating during the match by faking a player injury).


In France of course, there was a somewhat different tribal reaction, with coaches and ex-players joining a chorus of approval and lauding Monsieur Rolland for a fine decision.


Back in Ireland, I suspect we too, have rallied behind ‘our Alain’, the bilingual, Garret Fitzgeraldesque official who oft represents Irish Rugby in major tournaments (long after our team have departed) and we will be ready to remind anyone daring to criticise him that the only person who should be in the dock for the incident in the 17th minute is Wales's outstanding young Captain Mr Warburton i.e. the person who actually made the reckless and dangerous tackle.

Difficult job for new Northern Ireland manager as Worthington era draws to an end.

This blog and Nigel Worthington’s spell as manager of Northern Ireland are about the same age.  My first post, way back in May 2007, dealt with the IFA’s search for a replacement for Lawrie Sanchez, who had just taken up an English Premier League job at Fulham.

It’s fair to say that after Worthington took charge, I was quickly a sceptic.  As early as 7 June2007, I voiced disillusionment with his tendency to ‘talk down’ players and two months later I asked, for the first (but not for the last) time, ‘is Nigel worthy?’.  

Now Worthington has announced his intention to leave the post after his current contract elapses on 31^st December.   We’ve come full circle and the IFA has to start the search for his successor.

Back in that opening blogpost I expressed the hope that Jim Magilton would end up in the Northern Ireland hot-seat.  More than four years later and this time the West Belfast man is the bookmakers’ favourite to take over from Worthington.

If Magilton does get the job he will have a formidable task ahead. 

Back in 2007 Sanchez left the Northern Ireland set-up comparatively healthy, but it doesn’t look nearly so robust in 2011.  The playing staff are low in confidence, each match sees a series of high profile cry-offs and the FAI’s poaching strategy is beginning to seriously affect the pool of players which a new manager will have at his disposal.

Worthington is gone and there’s no point labouring the point, but he has to take a share of the blame for the depressing state of Northern Ireland football. 

The belittling comments about his own players started as soon as he took the job and continued throughout his reign. 

He scarcely made any attempt to ensure that squad members turned up for international duty rather than crying off injured at the behest of their clubs; let’s face it, if he had, he wouldn’t have had a shred of credibility.

Nigel himself was the worst offender when he was manager of Norwich City.  He persistently withdrew Phil Mulryne and Paul McVeigh from Northern Ireland squads, until Lawrie Sanchez was forced to invoke the 5 day rule, which prevents players playing for their clubs until 5 days after an international match for which they’ve declared injured.

Far from showing contrition, Worthington vehemently defended his conduct, even after he’d become an international manager.  

How could his complaints be taken seriously when other club bosses did exactly the same thing?

On the poaching issue he was confused and hypocritical.  He didn’t seem to understand FIFA’s eligibility criteria and he often resorted to contradictory arguments about players playing for the country in which they were born.

That’s before we get to the slow, tedious style of play which he inculcated.  He couldn't seem to grasp that, because 'Northern Ireland aren't Barcelona', as he once witheringly observed, that we have to disrupt teams, play at a high tempo, get the ball forward directly, rather than attempting to play passing football.

In fairness his legacy isn’t all bad.  The new manager will inherit a healthy youth set-up and a scouting network which should help to identify future stars. 

And future stars are sorely needed because at the moment the squad looks rather threadbare.  

There's a nucleus of ageing players, some of whom are retiring, while others fail to get game-time at their clubs.  There's a small handful of players in their prime, some of whom withdraw from squads on a regular basis.  And there is a larger pool of unproven young players, many of whom are now actively being courted by the Republic of Ireland.

Good luck Jim, or whoever else the IFA decides to put faith in.  You're going to need it.  

Russia's presidential saga resolved as Duma election takes a familiar shape.

Last Saturday a lengthy political saga finally came to an end at United Russia’s conference in Moscow.  Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin announced that the latter will contest next year’s Russian Presidential election.  This resolves the “will he or won’t he” speculation about President Medvedev seeking a second term in office.

There will, of course, be many Russian liberals who see this decision as a fatal blow to Russia’s democracy.  There will also be a chorus of “we told you so”s from commentators hostile to the Kremlin who always maintained that Medvedev’s presidency was a sham.  

Their arguments have some force, but they’re very far from the full picture.  

The President has defended his decision to step aside and let Putin contest the election, observing that the Prime Minister is Russia’s “most authoritative” leader.  

The Russian public has consistently expressed its preference for Putin, ahead of Medvedev, where polls gave a choice between the two men.  Alexei Levinson, from the Levada Institute, runs through the figures on Open Democracy.

Another switch of positions between Medvedev and Putin hardly suggests flourishing political competition, but it is broadly reflective of the will of the Russian people.  Russia will end up with the President whom a majority wishes to fill the post. 

Earlier in the year I mentioned the thesis of Richard Sakwa’s book, The Crisis of Russian Democracy.  Sakwa argues that the competitive element in Russian politics is subsumed within the administrative system but he also maintains that the ‘constitutional’ aspect of Russian politics holds the worst excesses of the unelected ‘administrative regime’ in check.

He can’t be re-examining his theory with any undue concern this week.  The competitive element seems more than evident after the liberalising Finance Minister, Alexei Kudrin, was forced to step down, when he expressed unwillingness to serve under the new arrangements.  And the fact that Putin felt obliged to observe the letter of the Russian constitution, before launching his comeback, emphasises that proprieties hold some force.

Witness the Kremlin’s efforts, now in disarray, to establish the market-friendly party Right Cause as a contender in December’s State Duma elections.  Sakwa has a fascinating article in OD explaining how the leadership of billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov, has fallen apart.

Only months ago Right Cause was being touted as a pro-Medvedev, liberal alternative to Putinite United Russia.  Now Prokhorov has been ousted, Right Cause is in a mess and Medvedev has stepped aside to give Putin a free run.

There is a justifiable degree of scepticism about the independence of the parties which can realistically challenge for seats in the State Duma; whether it’s Just Russia or even Zhirinovsky’s LDPR, but although United Russia is dominant, the party isn’t allowed to hold a monopoly of power and both Putin and Medvedev remain a step removed from it.   

That’s just another small reason why the “Putinism = the new Stalinism” editorials which graced many papers on Monday morning seem so hysterically shrill. 

So we move towards an election in December that will be viewed effectively as a plebiscite on the inverted Putin – Medvedev tandem which will surely follow the presidential contest in March.  It's all a little familiar, given the equivalent contest in 2007.    

You don't learn basic honesty at journalism school.

For months now the Johann Hari affair has gripped the political blogosphere.  The Independent columnist caused consternation when he was caught out embellishing some of his interviews with quotes taken from other sources. 

Now I don’t intend to make any contribution to the highly personalised debate which has taken place for and against Hari.  I didn’t particularly enjoy his columns, but neither did they send me into apoplectic rage.  The most I can say about his writing is that it was highly ideological and as such it had that precocious-but-angry adolescent feel to it.

His interviews, I must admit, I rarely bothered to read.  The Independent may take a great deal of pride in its ‘journalistic integrity’, but it’s by some distance the least read national quality newspaper and it is (let’s be honest) seriously dull. 

Its coverage of the UK regions is frankly shameful and the best that can be said about the re-modelled paper is that it’s dropped those intensely irritating ‘issue’ front pages, which had a minimum of text and a big picture illustrating the ‘outrage’ of the day.

I did buy the Independent yesterday though and I  read Hari’s ‘personal apology’.  It was highly unconvincing.

The columnist is promising to take a four month course in journalism, after which he intends to continue working at the Independent.  He assures his readers that any future articles will be published online with accompanying foot-notes and, where interviews have taken place, video evidence of their content.

Now, I know that Hari must attract readers to the Independent, but for goodness sake, give it up!  

Who on earth wants to read a journalist who is so discredited that he has to jump through hoops before anyone can believe a word that he’s written?  "Interesting interview, but I’d better boot up the old computer and double-check that it actually took place"!

Imagine if a cowboy handy-man caused litres of brown sludge to swamp your bathroom; would you employ him six months later if he pledged to undertake a plumbing night-class?

The preposterous conceit here is that Hari didn't quite fully realise that he was doing something wrong, because he’d been fast-tracked through the world of journalism and hadn’t received the necessary basic training.  As someone who isn’t a trained journalist, but who has tried, for a spell, to make a living writing in newspapers and magazines, I resent that analysis.

Hari is accused of plagiarism. 

He went to Cambridge for goodness sake.  Is anyone seriously suggesting that no-one ever walked him through a few basic lessons in not copying huge chunks of other people’s work and claiming it as his own?  That’s one of the first things that any university drills into its students nowadays.  It’s even a major theme in schools.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that anyone can walk into a newspaper and do the job of a seasoned reporter.  But honesty - basic intellectual honesty - in writing, that’s not something that can be picked up at journalism school. 

Since time immemorial writers have taken different paths into journalism.  But if you’re currently thinking of making money by penning articles professionally and you haven’t come up through the traditional route, working for a local paper, whether your background is academia, politics or even blogging, your prospects have just got that bit bleaker.

And you have Johann Hari to thank.  

Boundary changes in Northern Ireland

If you're one of the chosen few pouring over details of the boundary commission's proposed changes to the electoral map in Northern Ireland, this map will prove useful.  We're set to lose 2 out of our current 18 Westminster constituencies and these are the commission's plans to change the boundaries.

The possible electoral ramifications will keep pundits busy over the coming weeks and months, but a few weird and wonderful geographical / local identity issues will also keep debate boiling.

For instance it's intriguing that the new mid-Antrim constituency will snake out from the coast to encompass Ballymena, as well the East Antrim locale of Larne and Carrickfergus.  Indeed Ballymena town will be separated from outlying villages like Cullybackey and Broughshane, which are part of Ballymena council and undoutbedly part of the same area.

No doubt there will be similar issues elsewhere.  Intriguing.