I am definitely predicting a first round victory for John Mahama, and also but with less confidence predicting he will get over 50% and there will not be a second round.
The regional swings look like this with 91 constituencies in my calculations:
Ashanti Region 1.9% swing to NDC
Brong Ahafo 3.9% swing to NDC
Central Region 1.9% swing to NDC
Eastern Region 0.5% swing to NDC
Greater Accra 1.4% swing to NPP
Northern not enough results
Upper East not enough results
Upper West 21.4% swing to NDC
Volta 3.2% swing to NDC
Western 2.9% swing to NDC
John Mahama needs an overall swing of 1.5% compared to the 2008 first round to overtake Nana Addo, and needs an overall swing of approximately 2.4% to get over the 50% margin and win in one round. That is an estimate based on the poorer performance of minor parties.
It looks like he will do it, but this is a projection based on a third of the results (not all of which were useful due to complex boundary changes). It is a fact that the majority of the first dozen or so results declared gave a definite swing to Nana Akuffo Addo and the NPP, across a variety of constituency types and regions, causing me and other pundits to jump to quite wrong conclusions. It cannot be ruled out that there will come a long run of swings to the NPP, but it is looking statistically unlikely now.
The swing is pretty consistent and there are not obvious anomalous results. The massive swing to Mahama in Upper West is in part a reflection of the expected northern excitement at having a northern president, and was predicted. I expect we will see larger than average swings to Mahama in Upper East and Northern as well.
“And if you don’t know that much …”
What load of crap. Making some useless fuss about a casual usage of the word britain, british, british isles etc and whatever.
-You love fuss Dreolin, you write pages of fuss about fuss long after anyone else is fussed. Throw in a few woeful links to pretend you know what is important. fuss away off why dont you.
Habba-thingy? Ignore. Or I’ll get more boring and irritating than the troll and embarrass you with a running word count of your attempts to converse with a senseless object.
Which I can do if you want, but I’m practising a milonga (Cuban parent of the tango) for guitar at the moment, and would prefer to have nothing else on my to-do list. So would you, probably.
I wonder what the ratio of whites to non-whites is in Havana? Would the milonga sound different if that ratio were different? Aren’t those dusky rascals just such bloody savages?
I have just watched this programme on BBC1.
Britain’s Hidden Housing Crisis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pc1qb
Duration: 1 hour
Britain is in the grip of a housing crisis of a sort not seen before – where even the most unexpected people are finding themselves homeless. Every two and a half minutes someone in Britain is threatened with losing their home. This Panorama Special follows four stories over five months and reveals the devastating impact of being evicted from your own home and losing everything – from an investment banker now sleeping rough in a park in Croydon; to a businessman who lost his company in the recession; and a grandmother who gets cancer, has to stop working and then has her house repossessed.
I have just sent this note to Genie Films who made it. Steve Hewlett was the Executive Producer. We often hear him commenting on media matters, Leveson, phone hacking and the like. He used to be a BBC producer.
Dear Producers
I have just watched your most moving and sympathetic portrayal of the people and families made homeless. Thank you so much for making it. The plight of these decent people moved me to tears at the end. I hope that the film will inform those who condemn the homeless as feckless and useless members of society and perhaps even move the current agenda and policy.
I felt especially sorry for the mothers coping with their awful conditions in hostels and the like and for the children who seemed very bewildered, having no stability in their lives. Not even going to school.
There but for a stroke of fate go all of us in 21st century Britain. We are certainly not ALL in it together!
Yours sincerely
etc etc.
Oh, Vronsky, are you another of those people who doesn’t like what the mirror shows?
Anyway, good luck with your milonga, and I hope you get to Havana to do your bit to alter the local demographics.
“white British-born people are now in a minority in London”
To non-white and non-british born people, -is perhaps true. But most Londoners dont seem to discriminate on the basis of colour and place of birth. There is debate about immigration rate, but the situation claimed is due to history, not recent immigration rate.
As a observer the most attractive thing about London is its sophisticated mixture of appearances, foods, music, styles etc. Most Londoners seem to appreciate it too.
Habbabkuk, easy does it please. Most people are here as a pastime as well as to engage with issues of serious concern, but very rarely because they want a fight on the internet. So please be civil with your interlocuters, and make it enjoyable to participate in discussions with you.
I deleted your earlier dig at Dreoilin at 9:04pm, as it served no purpose other than to antagonise.
“NI has been since its majority elected to remain, and continues to elect and confirm overwhelmingly in numerous polls” – yes, well, they did fix the boundaries precisely for that reason, thatcrab. doesn’t take into account the people who still, understandably, feel and are Irish and yet who still have to live within them – how do you feel about them?
Not sure about your weird attack on Dreolin either – apart from, well, weird. are you OK?
Habbbbakuk – you would probably benefit from researching the flashpoint of the London riots and doing some comparison.
Oh well, another happy day on the board 🙂
Garlic is good as an anti-inflannatory, Jon. Also good for vampires.
“anti-inflammatory” sheesh.
And wherever there is a fuss to be had here, who familiar does not know that technicolor would never be satisfied without being part of it!
When open forums like this get too cosy, people start tutting and demanding apologies when it gets uncomfortable, for whatever reason. The ‘new’ are hesitant to join in or add something of their own, because there is a daunting huddle of right-on’s who will receive them, who are reasonable dont you know and should not be upset them. A smattering of offense, encourages a nonchalant indifference to the many negative energies which can appear in an open forum, and liquifies and opens up the ‘membership’.
And i reckon thats enough hypocritical self indulgent crap from me then, back to the ‘regulars’… whoever might need a virtual retraction, try turning it off and on again. :p
Thatcrab; I don’t see a lot of coziness, here. I do see a lot of ‘voices crying out from the wilderness’
like trees falling in a forest with no one to hear. When something is heard, it unfortunately, is a discouraging word, as though the instigator seeks to attract negative attention, which is seen as; better than nothing at all.
For those who have expressed an interest in drones ….
….. here’s an impressive demonstration of what even an entry level off-the shelf model is capable of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jplh7uatr-E&feature=player_embedded
Get yours today. They’ll be taking them off the shelves soon.
Loose use of the term Britain to include Northern Ireland is neither accurate nor helpful. Language is highly symbolic and loose talk costs lives. Hardly a quibble. Anyone who has grown up on the island of Ireland is highly sensitized to the prejudicial use of terminology.
For myself, I have found Dreoilin’s links both informative and interesting.
@Thatcrab: the trend towards cosy and defensive atmosphere. I find it stultifying and agree with your astute commentary (at the risk of causing a “fuss”). Thanks for shaking things up.
As I mentioned before, there are genealogical studies and surveys to back up the notion that a large proportion of the NI has far more familial, cultural and business links to the UK (particularly Scotland) than to the Republic. That’s one of the reasons why the political situation is so intractable, and the prospect of a UI doesn’t make good sense in the current situation. It’s a tribal notion in its own right. The EU once offered a prime opportunity for changing the game, maybe with a “third-way” solution, but it seems less feasible now.
When people feel threatened, they cling to a well-defined identity, however distant in time. I think that people from all sectors are feeling less threatened as things develop, but the flag riots this week marked a bit of a setback. I’m sure they’ll get over it in due course. The politicians (esp. the DUP and PUP) have been making the right noises.
“Loose use of the term Britain to include Northern Ireland is neither accurate nor helpful.”
I see it as the sort of linguistic pedantry which eg. Zionists employ to deny the existence of Palestine. And for my hundreds of years -at least- heritage in Northern Ireland, i am called by proud nationalists “a brit”.
My Country is British and it is just petty puffing over a weak linguistic vaguery, that some minority fantasists object to it being called a part of britain.
Re: the term “Britain”. Please read up on the proper usage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles
Some people tend to confuse “Britain” with “Great Britain”, but the conflation is easily refuted. The historical term “British Isles” can rouse tribal passions, but it still has an accepted international usage.
Regards Nextus, i recalled you foresaw a risk.
Ive learned this britain and british and gb and uk thing, and forgotten it more times than i can remember. NI is british soil – like an embassy, we brought it with us in the plantations. Suck it up :p
“As I mentioned before, there are genealogical studies and surveys to back up the notion that a large proportion of the NI has far more familial, cultural and business links to the UK (particularly Scotland) than to the Republic.” — Nextus
Hardly surprising when a large number of those ‘planted’ came from Scotland. Presbyterian Scots were hardly likely to look to the South either for friendship or cultural or business links. And it hardly takes studies to figure that out.
“Following Irish defeat at the Battle of Kinsale … the region’s Gaelic, Roman Catholic aristocracy fled to continental Europe in 1607 and the region became subject to major programmes of colonialism by Protestant English (mainly Anglican) and Scottish (mainly Presbyterian) settlers. Between 1610 and 1717 perhaps as many as 100,000 Lowlanders came across from Scotland, and by the latter date there were some five Scots to every three Irishmen and one Englishman in Ulster.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland
For the record: ‘The UK’ refers to ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’.
No one is going to revert the influx of people from a neighbouring country 400 years ago by policing use of easily confusable geographic labels.
Who said NI is not British? It is not part of Britain, but, for better or for worse, the UK does not have a separate adjective of its own, so British is used for both Britain and the UK.
For the avoidance of doubt, perhaps the UK could have its own adjective, for example, UKer, but that would surely bring out the graffiti artists in their droves.
Póló: “that would surely bring out the graffiti artists in their droves.”
– F(oreign) UKer’s go home? 😉
For the avoidance of confusion, ‘Great Britain’ is a geographical entity, referring to the British mainland; ‘Britain’ is a political entity which includes Northern Ireland.
“No one is saying that its not Palestinian – just dont call it part of Palestine because that is not encyclopedic language. Don’t call the bit of land where you live something which i find insensitive to my historic/political claims to it…”
Is it a wonder they’re rioting to keep the flag flying?
“NI is british soil – like an embassy, we brought it with us in the plantations. Suck it up :p ”
Thatcrab,
I said here a long time ago that I hadn’t come to this blog to argue about Irish/British relations, or about Irish history. I came here as a member of Amnesty International who admired what Craig had done in confronting the FCO about torture, and losing his job because of it.
Perhaps you could drop the subject now. Bragging that “NI is british soil …Suck it up” is not designed to calm things down.
My own family originated in Ulster, and the family tree traces us back to before the Flight of the Earls. So yes, it’s sensitive. And yes, I identify with the Palestinian people.
Nextus
“‘Great Britain’ is a geographical entity, referring to the British mainland; ‘Britain’ is a political entity which includes Northern Ireland.”
Not in Ireland it’s not.
From your own Wiki link:
under Political Terms:
‘Great Britain means the countries of England, Wales and Scotland considered as a unit’
I don’t see the distinction you’ve made anywhere on that page.
The plantation to Ireland and also to the American colonies served another purpose too, of depopulation and pacification of the Borders, where long running generational fighting was legendary, it wasn’t so much cross border conflict but internecine familial/clan warfare, cattle raiding etc, complete lawlessness, not subject to English or Scottish authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debatable_lands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_reivers
This makes interesting reading too: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gallgaedhil/ especially pertinient to the supposed genealogical ancestry of the border clans: “The border region between Scotland and England has been a melting pot since before The Middle Ages. According to James Leyburn, author of The Scotch-Irish, the Lowland Scots were a mixture of eight main groups – Picts, Gaelic Scotti, Brythonic Celts, Irish emigrants, Angles, Saxons, Norse and the descendants of the soldiers who manned the frontier forts of Roman Britain. These, plus a smattering of Norman nobles and Flemish traders – even a few Hungarian courtiers from the entourage of Margaret Atheling, bride of Malcolm Canmore – made the people of this region one of the most diverse in the Medieval British Isles. ”
“Certain groups were more prevalent in some areas than in others. The Flemish gravitated to Edinburgh, while Northumbria was ruled by Angles and Danes. Irish-Norwegian Vikings, fleeing from The Battle of Clontarf in 1014, sailed from Dublin to Cumbria, and settled from the coast to the Pennines. Celtic tribes like the Brigantes preceded the Norse in Cumbria, while the Gall-Gaedhil – Irish Gaels who had defected to the pagan ways of the Vikings – merged with the native Britons of Galloway. ”
Pagan Vikings from Dublin! 🙂
“Is it a wonder they’re rioting to keep the flag flying?”
In light of the Good Friday Agreement, which undertook to honour both traditions equally, yes it is. On the other hand, knowing Loyalists, no it’s not.
Goodnight
@Thatcrab
You say on the one hand:
NI is british soil – like an embassy, we brought it with us in the plantations. Suck it up :p
and on the other:
for my hundreds of years -at least- heritage in Northern Ireland, i am called by proud nationalists “a brit”
On the face of it these seem contradictory as you give the impression that you resent the nationalist community in NI calling you British.
Perhaps there is a deeper meaning. Do you mean UK “nationalists”?
@Dreoilin: You’re not looking very hard, are you? On the first screen of that link:
And rom the Wiki page on Great Britain:
There are plenty of other definitions out there. From the Cultural dictionary:
What a coincidence that on the day Nick Clegg calls for a review on the ‘drugs war’, which Dave said was working because drug use was down (neglecting the fact that the ‘use’ of everything is down thanks to a wrecked economy), the newspapers are full of stories claiming that cannabis, i.e.Sativex, has failed to demonstrate any health benefits to MS sufferers.
Sativex is not cannabis. Sativex is two compounds taken from cannabis (two of over 4,500 complex organic molecules found in cannabis) and reproduced artificially.
To suggest that the failure of Sativex demonstrates that cannabis has no medicinal value shows what happens when you let research into a natural medicine that cannot be patented be conducted by a for-profit multi-national pharmaceutical corporation who’s only reason for existing is to make money from drug patents. Media folks fail to see these things for some reason (corruption).
[Mod/Jon: posted as Skinup, but has posted in the past under Ginger Nuts, so fixing]
Thatcrab and Nextus, thank you for your posts – I’m glad that there are others here who are trying to bring a little bit of accuracy, realism and – dare I say it – intellectual honesty into these discussions.
@ Jon – of course I bow to your ruling(s), but I would allow myself to contest your feeling that I’m just seeking to provoke fights on this blog. I’m sure this will sound pretentious, but I feel, on occasion, that pulling up some people from time to time is occasionally called for, and if this means making posts in a vigorous manner then so be it. But I agree that this can be largely a matter of perception…
Have a good day, all.
The media is obsessed with MI5 man, former KGB agent and Russian traitor, Alexander Litvinenk’s ‘assassination’, apparently by Russia – for which they have exactly zero evidence (when it’s discovered how Arafat was killed they might need a new suspect too).
This would be fine it were not for the fact that it comes just a couple of days after the report into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane – who was not even a Russian agent and yet was clearly murdered by the UK government. Even if they cannot bring themselves to take responsibility they have tacitly admitted this was a murder that was ordered by the British establishment.
Just like yesterday, admitting to rendition when handing over £2.5 million to a Libyan man but not taking responsibility, even when it is clear that the people involved (Tony Blair) should be prosecuted for the many crimes committed against this man and his entire family. A shame he took the money rather than wait for his day in court where he could have called Blair to give evidence.
The British appear to be taking lessons from Israel in lying, hypocrisy and tyranny. A plague on you all.