The Monklands East by-election, where a considerable amount of effort was put into pointing out that the Labour candidate's maiden name was Reilly.

Function follows form.

The other thing about E Derry at Westminster level is that if you look at the 2019 and 2024 results Alliance seem to have been tactically squeezed (out of left field) by *SF*.

My bad there (although if you add in the UUP and DUP in 2017 about half of Alliance transfers went unionist.)

The thing about E Derry in Assembly elections is that it's the one place where we can see Alliance terminal transfers over a number of elections.

I'm looking at the movement between 2017 (when Sugden got half the Alliance vote on McCaw's elimination) and 2022 (when it was down to a quarter).

Alliance terminal transfers in the last Assembly election (when Claire Sugden was still in the race).

Colour me skeptical about "winnable" as much as "willing to put up with". One of "moderate" unionism's consistent characteristics down the decades has been its condescension and incomprehension towards both nationalists and the lower social classes of its own side.

It has also arguably moved on a lot from its 70s/80s incarnation of Ecumenically-Minded If Firm Unionists Plus Tactical Nationalist Voters. Transfer patterns in places like E Derry are suggestive that its voter base is now quite different, taking from the SDLP as much or more so than the UUP.

"Gyurcsányok haza!"

No longer having the ex-PM whose cynicism and incompetence enabled Orban in the first place somehow hanging around as the linchpin of the opposition coalition (along with his tactically-divorced missus) also helped.

Zelenszkij nevet a végén.

Pope Leo XIV, standing in the aisle of an airplane. He's holding a baseball bat, looking at someone seated, with a small smile.

It has always been at its core the party of Old Money and Respectable Society™, and everything else flows on from that.

OK, there are certain facts there but the rest is... debatable.

The Business Post has gone drastically downhill in recent years. Puff pieces and partisan sludge.

Drama king.

"Where is this pear and chocolate mouse you mentioned?"

Woken by the Premier Inn's fire alarm.

It is admittedly coming from the most trollish element of that ménage.

I see LOI/Tankie Twitter is being its predictable self on that topic after the penalty miss.

Caution is not a bad thing IMV especially if you have some loolah like the abovementioned.

Disappointed with the lack of a pea-shaped Lough Gowna.

archive.ph/4Ef8I

WP is an odd case in that they abandoned domestic nationalism for soft-focus Tankieism (difference between themselves and the CPI on that score was that the latter retained the support for a UI) before the majority left for Blairism and the remaining rump - as with CPI - went full Slobo/Kim/Putin.

Ireland requires postal votes to have *arrived* on the day of the election plus you almost always have to vote at the local polling station assigned to you.

That's mainly because of the delays inherent in a) allowing postal votes to be *sent* until the day of the election plus b) allowing people to vote at any polling station in the country, meaning that the late votes spend two weeks dribbling in.

The really cringe bit was officially renaming the townland rather than just the village.

Forgot to do the needful to Scrabby Bridge though (between Cornamucklagh and Kilmore).