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.
A not so subtle threat from Ms Miller’s SPAD.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/9738505/The-minister-and-a-warning-to-the-Telegraph-before-expenses-story.html
Miller’s parents live/lived in her taxpayer funded second home.
Are you laughing in our faces, Ms Miller?
Assume this is her husband. If so, the couple are doing very nicely.
http://www.bevanbrittan.com/people/Pages/IainMiller.aspx
Sir David Bell, now chair of Trustees of Common Purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bell_(publisher)
http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/about/governance on the short video
and biog here
http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/about/governance/david-bell
Not to be confused with Lord Bell of Bell Pottinger.
@ Jives,
It depends what do you mean by the Human Rights credit. If treatment of citizens within national borders then I put the west much ahead of the east. Or comparing your own rights with rights of North Koreans, Uzbeks, Iranians, Syrians, Saudis or other non western citizens you see no difference?
Interestingly to note that treatment of foreigners in western societies is (comparatively) much better than treatment of citizens in non-western societies. You can trust me on this one as I have experienced both.
Money and greed is everywhere as these are basic “sins” of every society. This was true to Rome, Arabic Khaliphate, Mongols you name it. On the other hand these “sins” have truely excelled only when Europeans started to do “business” on global scale.
A lot more on David Bell.
What a crowd!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2233683/How-David-Bell-sits-charity-bankrolling-campaign.html
@ Doug Scorgie
I share your sentiments about Reevs views on Cuba. This was truly capitalist propaganda and US blockade although was mentioned few times, but was presented as something that needed to be done in order to save Cubans from totalitarian regime of Castro. And not a word about Cuban Missile Crisis that followed after Bay of Pigs CIA disaster.
But despite this, fall of Cuban socialism is inevitable. USSR experienced this 20 years ago. There were also thousands of doctors and other overqualified people selling socks and other goods in open markets all over former USSR. State was no longer able to fulfill its functions and was dismissed (ironically to many parts of former USSR it came back in even more repressive forms) and millions of people whose artificially created social securities taken from them were faced with harsh realities of finding enough to last for another day. Luckily for Cuba it has huge community in neighboring US and it does not have such interethnic tensions and its economy is not such complicated as Soviet was, so my guess is that Cuba will soon turn into another Latin American country, but with overall better economic prospects. Comparing Cubans to their Latin American brothers one will notice significant advantage of Cubans in terms of education and overall social standards. If Cubans are able to preserve this level of social guarantees within economic transformation into capitalism it could become truly unique case of European style social-democracy amongst Latin American nations. But for this Cuban Authorities really need to work with its people to bring much needed economic transformation soon enough.
Mary,
It seems that not listening their Ambassadors (or former Ambassadors) is something Foreign Office excels in. I think I know the case when one of their Ambassadors was not only ignored but kicked out from the job for insisting on right course of actions. One should ask why FO need Ambassadors and spend millions on Embassies worldwide if at the end only few “smart” people somewhere back door decide on right course of actions without even listening the very people they sent to get first hand intelligence. Do they need Embassies just to keep all these Oxbridge graduates properly employed?
On the demographics of London :
@ Dreoilin – your comment about the French census doesn’t answer my question, does it? A bit of a cop out, if I may say so. (and my comment didn’t concern religion, by the way). So – can anyone answer my question?
@ Jay, in response to Mary – are you contesting the right of certain newspapers to talk about the changed demographics of London? Perhaps you feel that these facts should better remain in the shadows? Your indignation is all the more surprising if you feel that these demographics are such a good thing; you should be pleased that they have made the headlines, surely?
On flying the Union flag over Belfast city council :
@ Dreoilin and Duncan – well, you are right in that one can always read (even) more about any issue. On the assumption that you have, could you please elucidate? I was under the impression that under the new dispensation, the Union flag would only fly for 15 days a year. But Dreoilin claims that the Union flag only flies for 15 days AT PRESENT, whereas Duncan opines that, under the new dispensation, the Union flag would fly every other day and the Irish flag (why? Is Belfast part of the Ireland?) would fly on the other days. So who – if either – of you is right?
@ Cryptonym – there’s no point sneering, presumably from your lofty perch as an “intellectual”, at the foolish plebs and peasants who do actually see the national flag as somewhat more significant than a pair of underpants. You know – or you should do – that flags, for better or for worse, have considerable symbolic power. That’s one of the reason why every new state adopts its own flag (cf the former Yugoslavian republics to take only one example). You may not like it, but that’s how it is. And I think my point of symbolic power is surely proved by the fact that it was the nationalists on Belfast city council, aided by the alliance party, which asked for and voted the new dispensation. If which flag is so unimportant, why did they bother?
By the way : what do you good people think about the riots in London a couple of years ago? To be condemned as undemocratic?
@ Habbabkuk
Can I trouble you for the question? Can you name me any other European capital that was at some point in history also the capital of truly global empire that included more people of non-white color than of white color?
And French question by the way answers your question very directly. If census does not ask question of ethnicity how on earth would you know how many non white-French people live in France? Or would you just guess?
Uzbek : I know that you’re not obliged to answer my question, but if you don’t want to I’d rather you just kept quiet rather than bringing forward what I might call “weasel” quibbles. No offence meant!
But still, just for the sake of good order:
1. Yes – Paris (French empire – territories in Africa, West Indies, South America, India (Pondicherry), Pacific…). But anyway, your quibble is irrelevant – we are talking about the demographics of today. In, say, 1946, when the British Empire really existed (and there were no Empire immigration controls) the percentage was miniscule.
2. No, it is perfectly well known that the French authorities possess the relevant statistics, even though the question isn’t part of the national census. But anyway, don’t harp on about France – how about the other goodness knows how many other European capitals? Grateful if you – or abyone else – could name me just one (leaving France out, if you wish).
Thank you for your interest, though.
A whitewash job just now by Cameron in the HoC.
No state conspiracy BUT agents of the state were involved in the murder.
Pat Finucane murder: ‘No overarching state conspiracy’ says PM
A review of the murder into solicitor Pat Finucane concludes that were was “no overarching state conspiracy”, the Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
But Mr Cameron said the report by lawyer Desmond de Silva confirmed that agents of the state were involved in the 1989 killing and that it should have been prevented.
The review found RUC officers proposed Mr Finucane be killed.
It said they passed information to his killers and failed to stop the attack.
Mr Finucane was shot dead by loyalists at his north Belfast home.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20662412
“@ Dreoilin – your comment about the French census doesn’t answer my question, does it? A bit of a cop out, if I may say so.”
It wasn’t intended either to answer your question or as a cop out. It was intended to point out that you might have some difficulty finding the information when YOU google for it. I have no intention of looking for you.
“and my comment didn’t concern religion, by the way”
I’m well aware of that. I thought people might find it interesting vis a vis the French census, nonetheless.
@ Habbabkuk
Of course you would rather I keep quiet.
Demographics of today is somewhat consequence of empirial past. Looking at most European capitals you would be quick to discover that when it comes to non-whites they come from former colonies. Thus Paris would mostly have non-whites of North African decent whereas in London these are South Asian, Central, West, East and South African decent as well as from Middle East (something British Empire inherited from Ottomans).
Although France could not be either qualitatively not quantitatively compared to British Empire but this again confirms my thesis that demographics of today is consequence of empirial past. There were no other European empires that reached parity with either Britain or even France. Spain colonised Americas where they quickly reduced ethnic majority into minority. And in Lisbon you can see a trace of Portugal rape of Africa.
And again you ask to name you another European capital but to leave out France because as you learnt in France it is illegal to ask ethnicity question in their census.
And finally if London claims to be truly Global city then this comes with demographic “burden”. One could not claim to have Global city which does not demographically represent the Globe. And this demographic “burden” also comes with some benefits. Consider this, there are certainly more foreign born millionaires and billionaires who live in London then in any other European capital. Many more have properties in London and even more have some sort of investments in London based firms. This should at least make demographic “burden” pill easier to swallow to neocons like yourself or like Douglas Murray who was also concerned with demographics on BBC yesterday.
“But Dreoilin claims that the Union flag only flies for 15 days AT PRESENT”
I was quoting the BBC, the link to which I gave you above. I wouldn’t normally have had the faintest idea about that flag, if this controversy hadn’t arisen. If a tourist had stopped me in Dublin and asked me about that flag, I wouldn’t have had a clue. Nor would the vast majority in the Republic, I suspect.
“(why? Is Belfast part of the Ireland?)”
Of course it’s part of Ireland. Technically it’s a part of the UK, since the partition of Ireland in 1921.
According to the Irish Independent:
“Councillors agreed by 29 votes to 21 to bring City Hall into line with Stormont and other Government buildings and fly the flag on 17 designated days.
“It is the first time the Union flag has been taken down from the Edwardian building in more than a century.”
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/protesters-attempt-to-storm-belfast-city-hall-after-flag-vote-3315464.html
@Habbabuk – According to the BBC it was a change made by a vote of Belfast City Council from flying the Union flag every day to flying it only on some holidays, such as the Queen’s birthday, but really it doesn’t make much difference exactly what number of days the flag was to fly or not fly – it’s insane to have people making death threats against councillor, attacking police and throwing petrol bombs at police in their cars over how many days a flag flies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20683375
@Mary – I think for the purposes of this report an ‘overarching state conspiracy’ seems to have been defined as something like ‘an explicit order from an elected government minister’, and I reckon it’s probably quite likely that Thatcher’s ministers didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, about this sort of thing, and probably wouldn’t have been told, even if they asked.
Presumably, when MI5 briefs everyone that Finucane was a terrorist (and don’t tell anyone that he’s going to be killed), when members of the RUC suggests to loyalist assassins that the assassination would make them very happy (and don’t work at all to stop it), and the man in the UDA picking out who to murder just also happens to be working for Army Intelligence, that’s just simply not overarching or conspiratorial enough. Everyone involved is just unilaterally working in a private non-governmental capacity for their own private non-governmental purposes. Got that? The government is only whatever a minister’s signature is attached to. Everything else wasn’t us, honest!
I imagine all of this is relevant too
“A public consultation costing up to £12,000 was launched last year, asking people who work in or use City Hall about the levels of unionist and military memorabilia in the Edwardian building.”
If (and I say IF) the building is saturated in unionist and military memorabilia – a building which is for the use of all citizens, both nationalist and unionist – I’m not surprised that changes were proposed.
And equally, the protests were predictable.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/david-cameron-statement-on-patrick-finucane/
From Mary’s link
“And he cites five specific areas of collusion.
First, “there were extensive “leaks” of security force information to the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary groups”
Sir Desmond finds that “in 1985 the Security Service assessed that 85% of the UDA’s ‘intelligence’ originated from sources within the security forces…”
Bastards. We all guessed as much at the time, but obviously we couldn’t prove it.
Shame on King who was NI Secretary at the time. He went on to become Sec of State for Defence under Thatcher and Major and still lurks in the Lords in a murky capacity for Agent Cameron. Hope all involved in this revolting murder rot in hell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_King,_Baron_King_of_Bridgwater
Perhaps he can ask his God for forgiveness for this next Sunday when he is in church.
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/thomas-king/27005
Habbabkuk
I’ve been reading your comments on the Belfast City Council flag issue, and it’s very hard to work out what exactly your position is on the matter.
Are you arguing that the Union flag should be flown every day and that if it isn’t the rioting is justified or at least understandable?
Why shouldn’t that flag just be flown on those official days as it is everywhere else in the UK? Why every day? What’s that about?
And what’s wrong with flying the Irish flag a few days a year out of respect for the substantial minority of citizens who think those colours are nicer?
Don’t you understand that the settlement included provision for both identities to be respected equally?
Republicans and nationalists have bought into the whole British thing to a remarkable extent, so why can’t shouldn’t these so-called Loyalists give an inch occasionally?
Or perhaps there’s something else going on?
This disgusts me. Everybody knows the Israelis have broken international law in their possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons. But that started ages ago. Don’t the Israeli Zionists make you sick taking away a man’s freedom?
http://www.causes.com/causes/523841-free-mordechai-vanunu/actions/1714233
This is the same as the Yanks want for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. Perpetual imprisonment to cover up their disgusting war-crimes. We really have to take some kind of action. The wrong people are in power. Evil people.
Has Douglas Hogg been mentioned in any of this state-sanctioned Finucane murder?
“In 1989 Douglas Hogg, then junior home office minister, told the House of Commons some solicitors in Northern Ireland were “unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA”. Michael Finucane has described these words as “a verbal hand grenade lobbed into the cauldron of Northern Ireland”.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/17/wikileaks-pat-finucane-inquiry
And let’s not forget that the British state sanctioned murder and terrorism from early days, way back to 1970, so much so indeed that it’s now clear that rather than damping things down, the British state was ramping them up – false flags – the whole works. Of course we’re more familiar with this strategy today as we see it every conflict daily.
More on Hague and Cameron’s decision to go to war with Iraq. Hague says he has been a member of Friends of Israel since he was sixteen.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-meetings-in-london-plotting-to-wage-war-on-syria-without-un-authorization/5315176
No more support for AVAAZ petitions from me.
Cameron was working within the belly of the beast aka the Conservative Party, at the time. He was born in 1966 so he would have been 23 at the time of this murder.
‘Before going up to Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics he took a gap year, working initially for Sussex MP Tim Rathbone, before spending three months in Hong Kong, working for a shipping agent, and then returning by rail via the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
After gaining a first class degree, Mr Cameron answered an advertisement for a job in the Conservative Research Department.
He progressed quickly through the ranks and was soon briefing ministers for media appearances.
TV job
He worked with David Davis on the team briefing John Major for Prime Minister’s Questions, and also hooked up with George Osborne, who would go on to be shadow chancellor and his leadership campaign manager.
He was poached by then Chancellor Norman Lamont as a political adviser, and was at Mr Lamont’s side throughout Black Wednesday, which saw the pound crash out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
By the early 1990s, Mr Cameron had decided he wanted to be an MP himself, but he also knew it was vital to gain experience outside of politics.
So after a brief spell as an adviser to then home secretary Michael Howard, he took a job in public relations with ITV television company Carlton.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4502656.stm
Reading on:
‘But Mr Cameron’s period at Carlton is not remembered so fondly by some of the journalists who had to deal with him.
Jeff Randall, writing in The Daily Telegraph where he is a senior executive, said he would not trust Mr Cameron “with my daughter’s pocket money”.
“To describe Cameron’s approach to corporate PR as unhelpful and evasive overstates by a widish margin the clarity and plain-speaking that he brought to the job of being Michael Green’s mouthpiece,” wrote the ex-BBC business editor.
“In my experience, Cameron never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative, which probably makes him perfectly suited for the role he now seeks: the next Tony Blair,” Mr Randall wrote.
Sun business editor Ian King, recalling the same era, described Mr Cameron as a “poisonous, slippery individual”.’
~~~
Quite so. Nothing has changed.
I have unsubscribed.
‘I’ve supported AVAAZ petitions for a long time. My understanding is that AVAAZ has taken a partisan role in supporting activists (i.e. rebels) in Syria thus linking in with NeoCon/Zionist intent on destabilising the Middle East to steal oil. I cannot offer my support any longer. Perhaps AVAAZ started off with good intent, as so many things do, before it became corruted. Bye!
John Goss’
“Theresa May says UK plans more visa interviews for students” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20692893
The other thing about the Belfast City council flag thing is that there’s a substantial proportion of East Belfast, from the inner city out to the suburbs, which is controlled by another council, Castlereagh Borough Council. This is a major Loyalist/Unionist council and the decision doesn’t affect them. They can make their won decisions about flag waving.
http://www.castlereagh.gov.uk/councillors.asp
So, if any of these rioters were from East Belfast, and we know they were since that’s where a lot of the worst violence took place then they’re out of order as they’ve got their own council to make these decisions.
Well Done Tory. Something to lean on next general election. Economy is failing. Social cuts are plunging more and more middle income into red. Housing market is out of reach for more and more yonger generation.
Immigration, that what Tory will use in 2015.