I've not yet heard anyone make the following simple point, least of all those who are seeking to create the 'progressive coalition' in Britain.

Sure, the Tories got the most seats. That's their argument.
And sure, the Liberals and Labour collectively got many more votes. That's the only argument they've offered in terms of legitimacy so far.

But my argument would be this: surely a coalition made up of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SDLP, Lady Sylvia (former UUP), NI Alliance Party, the Greens (and possibly Scots and Welsh nationalists too) represents a much broader and wider sweep of the UK than a simple coalition of Tories and Liberals, propped up perhaps by the DUP.

The Tory spin that such a coalition would be fragile is undone by this argument. Because the very thing that makes it fragile is the very thing that makes it democratic - plurality of representation.

One of the many problems with the Irish electoral system (whose PR-STV system is pretty excellent) is that too many people vote tribally.

Not tribally like in the headcount that passes for political elections in the North, but tribally nonetheless.

Even stupider is the fact that there is no overriding sovereignty issue dividing the tribes in the South. It's an antique inheritance from the civil war. Why else do people continually vote FF and FG? Primarily because they consider themselves of the respective tribe.

I always find it fascinating when people cut loose from inherited opinion and think for themselves. To this end, the extension of VoteMatch to include Northern Ireland is fascinating.

My results didn't surprise me:
SDLP 51%
Sinn Fein 45%
Alliance 37%
UUP 35%
DUP 28%

What did surprise me what how little I agree with ANY of the parties on major issues. Hence I shouldn't be surprised when half of what the SDLP choose to do infuriates me, and more than half of what the Shinners do.

I'd love to see a version for the Republic. I think probably three-quarters of the electorate might be surprised to find how little they agree with the people they vote for. Perhaps they might even change their voting patterns as a result.

Wouldn't that be revolutionary?

Well, it would beat holding a sit-in with five mates at the Anglo-Irish Bank on a Saturday.

Ok, let's leave the schadenfreude to one side for now. Iris Robinson is, apparently, an ill woman with a recent history of suicidal ideation.

Dear SDLP,
Your vote has been declining in recent elections. People have been querying the party's very raison d'etre, even including senior party members.

Your leader has ignominiously touted his mandate to Fianna Fail in a desperate attempt to shore up some electoral relevance, and been embarrassingly rebuffed.

Now he's proposed scrapping designation, a nice recipe for a return to sectarian majority rule, in an attempt to grab some headlines.

In short, you're still on your own and you need every vote you can get.

So would it not make a bit of sense to sort out your communications?

I got a letter from the SDLP through the front door. There wasn't even a phone number on it, or any mention of how to contact my local SDLP representative.

On the SDLP's website, there is no mention of how to go about joining the party, if anyone was so inclined.

Is it any wonder that the electorate and membership of the SDLP is declining to the extent that senior party members are prostituting themselves at FF, when basic communications are so lax?

Sort it out, or else stand back and watch your decline into irrelevance.

I made a few predictions this time last year. I'll return to see how wrong I was about 2007 in my next post.

In the meantime, here is my doom-mongering for 2008.

1. Pakistan becomes the no. 1 threat to world peace. By no. 1, I mean the return of the nuclear fear and five minutes to midnight.

2. Bertie gets dumped at long last by Fianna Fail. When the chairman starts offering support to the manager in soccer, it's invariably followed by a sacking. So how else to read the fact that half the cabinet are sympathising with El Berto's ongoing tribunal antics?

3. A Republican, possibly Romney, will be the next US President. Pace Richard Delevan, who's been proselytising for Obama for some time (which is odd as eggs for an American right-winger), I can't see the US electing a black man. If he ran as Hilary's Veep, they could do it, but the 'dream ticket' will never come off, now that Obama thinks he can gain the nomination.

4. Man Utd for the premiership, annoyingly. Ferguson to again fail in Europe, and again to delay his retirement, much to Carlos Queiroz's chagrin. Real or Sevilla for the champion's league. Rafa Benitez to leave Liverpool in the summer after row with the club owners.

5. The SDLP and UUP to leave the Northern executive and set up in proper opposition. The SDLP will be courted by FF and Irish Labour who both finally formally set up as Northern parties, thus simultaneously copper-fastening the union and pissing off the unionists.

6. British final pull-out from Iraq, and probably Afghanistan too.

7. Ongoing dollar collapse, commodity surges, oil spikes, banking crises and falling house prices in Northern Europe, especially the bubbles like NI and Spain. In other words, job losses, house repos, and the end of living beyond your means on credit. There will be no credit available this time next year.

8. No boycotts of the Beijing Olympics, despite the appalling behaviour of the Chinese government. The Chinese will finally outperform America in the medals table. People will mutter about drugs, as if that's a surprise. The 13 year old British diver will be the new Eddie the Eagle Edwards. In other words, he'll be crap but the British public will love him.

9. People will realise that 'social networking' sites are a waste of their time. Others will migrate from one site to another with increasing frequency. Astronomical share valuations in these firms will collapse. Call it Dot-bomb 2.0.

10. I will finish my damn novel. Really, I will.

According to Stormont's Deputy First Minister Marty McFly, the SDLP and the UUP have become 'problem parties.'

Please, stop! My sides are hurting too much here!

We have a DUP/Sinn Fein coalition which has copperfastened water charges, sought to defend funding the UDA, tried to privatise the Giant's Causeway and are now forcing through a cut in heating grants to pensioners by refusing to expand Margaret Ritchie's budget.

Remember, prior to their belated conversions to peaceful democracy, both of these parties were heavily connected to paramilitary terror organisations. Both contributed to the prolongation of three decades of conflict during their existence. Both eradicated prospects for peace and reconciliation for all that time.

But, because they refused to sign off on a budget that will hurt the elderly, the vulnerable and those with special needs, apparently it is the SDLP and the UUP who are the problem parties!

Welcome to Northern Ireland, people.

You really couldn't make it up.

Gambling is a mug's game.

Paddy Power didn't announce record profits for the umpteenth year in a row due to the amount of cash he's giving away, you know?

Nevertheless, gambling gets more and more popular every year. Now, I have an unusual perspective on gambling. I once worked as a professional croupier. I used to see all sorts come through the doors of the casino, blinded by the neon lights and the sheer James Bondness of it all.

And this in a sleepy South of England town! Most would leave a few hours later, down a few quid but having in many cases enjoyed themselves. After all, if they'd kept their punting to a certain level, they'd have spent less than they might have otherwise in the pub, and at least they wouldn't be waking with a blinding hangover the next day.

But there was always one or two who couldn't let it lie. A former soap star used to drive up to our casino in order not to be spotted in the plush London clubs. He'd regularly blow most of his not insubstantial wages on a single Saturday night.

He could've and probably should've been down the Ivy or some other West End glamspot, trying to score with vampy wannabes and sipping Cosmopolitans. Instead he was up with us, in the quiet hush of a regional casino, handing over his hard-earned.

The saddest case was a little old lady who'd come in every Friday evening with a plastic bag full of used notes. We used to wildly speculate on where she got the cash, which often topped three grand.

She never left till the early hours, and usually with virtually nothing left. Her game was roulette, and the little ball just didn't seem to favour her one bit.

One day, I was in a distant part of town, hoping to hook up with a guy who was selling some concert tickets. I stopped off in a little corner shop to buy some smokes and there she was, behind the till. Throughout the shop, the shelves were mostly empty.

She looked sheepish, and I couldn't meet her eye. Clearly, she was losing the shop's take on a weekly basis. I bought the smokes, attended the concert and then left the job within a couple of weeks.

I used to play poker long before it was online or popular. My friends, even my acquaintances, won't play me anymore, even though it's very likely they'd take my money these days, as my interest in the game waned in indirect proportion to its popularity. I haven't played much since they started televising it and sticking it online.

But I used to like the game. It's a cold hard mix of luck and skill. And it's beautifully karmic, unlike most gambling.

If you've got a lot of chips in front of you, somewhere across the table, someone you know has lost them. You've got to be able to look them in the eye and accept that, even as you have to look them in the eye and accept it when they've got the chipstack and you're the one on your uppers.

Back in 2000, a pal and me decided to find out could we make a living as professional gamblers. Not at poker, but by punting on sports mainly. We reckoned we knew as much about the games as the odds layers, and had a good eye for a decent bet.

We kept detailed and accurate accounts of all bets for a year exactly. At the end of it all, I was up about six hundred quid, my pal back around four hundred. We'd actually done the bookies out of a grand in cash!

However, when I worked out the hourly rate of income, ie how many hours had I spent reading, researching and thinking about my bets that it had taken to make that six hundred quid, it soon became apparent that gambling would never replace going out and earning a living.

Then a couple of years afterwards, I was in a pub in Rathmines, (South Dublin for the uninitiated), and met a bloke who worked as an odds setter for one of the big bookmaking firms. He told me, in tedious detail, about the form, home life and personal circumstances of even youth team members of Irish football teams.

He had to know that detail in order to set the odds, and he wasn't the only one employed in that capacity. A few times a week, he and his peers would gather and argue the toss over every soccer and GAA game, discussing likelihoods of certain players taking the pitch and so on.

It quickly became apparent that I'd never know as much about the games I had a punt on as the guys laying the odds. In other words, I'd been pretty damn lucky back in 2000.

So it seems to me, having been both sides of the table and lived through it without losing my shirt, that gambling is a mug's game. I'll still go out and stick a few quid on a football game that I'm attending or watching on telly, just to heighten the interest as it were.

But I've long dispensed with ideas of making money out of the passtime. I never frequent card clubs or casinos now, don't play any poker, and crucially I bet buttons rather than serious amounts of money.

I view stories of people suffering from gambling problems with dismay. Medical research shows that gambling is as potent an addiction as cocaine. I consider the development of 'super-casinos' in Britain as short-termist and highly dangerous. I'm very concerned about the proliferation of card clubs and online gambling in Ireland.

But I wouldn't ban it. It's unbannable. Gambling would only go underground, back to the shady criminal class who once oversaw all punting. Instead, I place my few quid on the odd game or event I have an interest in anyway, and permit lady luck to do her best and worst, safe in the knowledge that the rent is never at risk.

If only everyone could obtain the same perspective on gambling, I'd feel a lot better about giving money to and taking money from the bookies.

People sometimes ask me for tips, as if I have any great insight into the wheel of fortune from having spun it professionally for a while. I don't generally offer any, because I don't want to be anyone's enabler.

But just this once, I'll mention a bet I've placed. I think the odds are good, and I think it could come off. But if it doesn't, please don't blame me. And whatever you do, don't chase your losses if it or any other bet you place loses.

The SDLP are being priced at 2/1 to retain their 18 seats in the Stormont Assembly elections this week. I think those are generous odds. I've put some pin money where my mouth is. We'll know on Thursday if I'm up or down. But either way, it's just a bit of fun.

After Thursday, when the results are all in and the parties sit down to decide whether to go into power sharing again or not, that's when the serious business begins. And if ever there was some future event I'd love to influence, it's that one, not any bet I've ever made.

If you have a gambling problem or if you thing you might do, please click here.

It comes as no surprise to see that the direct rule paperpushers are seeking to implement a truly outrageous 20% hike in local housing rates.

This of course comes on the back of a previous 12% hike, and the fact that water charges were removed from the rates to be made their own separate charge, the injustice of which I have previously mentioned in recent times.

By my basic maths, if someone was paying around £500 in rates for their average Belfast house (see image) two years ago, then they're looking at a combined rates and water charges bill of somewhere in the region of £790 this year, a whopping increase of over 50% in only two years for a service no better than it was before.

Oh, and of course that would increase to £1,026 by 2009 (a doubling of costs in only four years), and probably by a minimum of 30% or more again in 2010 when houses are again revalued for purposes of assessing these charges.

These increases are not aimed at providing better services to NI householders. The water charge wheeze in fact will almost definitely result in worse service, according to research into previous examples of water provision privatisation in other locales.

No, these charges are simply aimed at reducing Northern Ireland's resource drain on the British taxpayer. In short, London is tiring of us and intends to tax us out of the United Kingdom if necessary.

However, devolved authority in the Assembly would have the power to overturn these appalling attempts to extort money out of people who simply cannot afford it, especially those who are asset-rich and cash-poor as a result of their family homes rocketing in value in recent times.

It is now essential that all the Northern Irish parties come out and categorically state what they think of these arbitrary and scandalous hikes in charges, and what they'll do about them if elected.

Tulip was onto me last week moaning about receiving a bill for water rates in the mail. He's right to moan. These charges are inequitable, unfair, and a form of double taxation.

The people he should blame are the local politicians who, through their inability to sustain the local Assembly, have permitted the direct rule Ministers to levy this unfair double-taxation charge on the people of Northern Ireland.

Now, with an election coming up, and given that this wheeze was foisted on Northern Ireland by the direct rule wonks of New Labour, you would think that the local parties would be falling over themselves to declare themselves against this levy, which will cost the average household an additional £314 per YEAR.

Strangely, they're not. Sinn Fein have confirmed to me that they have no expressed position on the issue, and the SDLP, whose policy document is available here somewhere, seem negative but non-committal.

The DUP, who in the past claimed to oppose water charges, actually proposed them in their election documentation in 2005. At least one UUP councillor is opposing them, but again there does not appear to be an official party policy one way or the other.

At least there is a grass roots campaign urging people not to pay.

Is it too much to ask that the parties, in advance of the election, come out and tell us whether they oppose these charges or not, and whether they would undo them in the event of coming to power at Stormont, as is their right?

The people deserve to know.

I suppose I am a little tardy rolling out my predictions a fortnight into the new year, but I really did want to chew them over first. Last thing I need is to have you all on my back come December going ner-ner-ner-ner-ner! at me for getting it all wrong.

So here are my predictions for 2007, carefully considered and guaranteed to come true or your money back.* Get down to the bookies now!

Mystic JC gazes into his crystal ball and sees:

1. The NI elections will see a bump in the SDLP vote, but not enough to overhaul Sinn Fein. Both parties will hail their performances as a success. The UUP will similarly close on the DUP and both parties again will claim public support for their strategies. Ian Paisley will then find further nit-picking reasons not to enter power-sharing, and the whole process will end up on ice again, and Northern Irish citizens will still be denied democracy.
2. More American troops will enter Iraq, which will deteriorate further, if that is indeed possible. The US government will blame Iranian influences within Iraq for the upsurge in violence and, with the support of Tony Blair, though without British troops, will attempt to overthrow the Ahmedinejad regime.
3. The destruction of Afghanistan will continue apace, in media silence and to no particular outcry from the Western world. Al-Qaeda will retain a presence there, and British and American troops will start to leave in order to free up manpower for Iraq, and later, Iran. Opium will flow out of the place, children will starve, women will be suppressed and many people will die needlessly.
   
4. Fianna Fail will be returned to power in a bad-tempered election marked by the emergence of negative campaigning for the first time in Ireland. Expect particular trouble in the Dublin Central constituency, where Bertie the cheque signer faces off against the fashion wing of the Republican movement, Mary-Lou.
5. However, the PDs will not be returned to power, leaving McDowell in control of himself only in the Dail, as Mary Harney, Mae Sexton and the rest all bow out ungraciously. The PDs will be behind Joe Higgins' Socialists in parliament after they secure a second seat.
6. The Shinners will boost their number of TDs, but not so much as to create a hung Dail. Bertie will make up the numbers of his government with randomers like Jackie Healy-Rae as he did previously.
7. Enda Kenny will face a leadership challenge, as will Pat Rabbitte. Enda may survive his, but Pat will not. Expect to see Brendan Howlin in charge of Labour by year's end.
   
8. Tony Blair will finally get thrown out of Number Ten, to be replaced by Gordon Brown after a late party leadership challenge from John Reid and some other numpties. 'New' Labour will continue to ignore the needs of the British working class despite the figurehead change, and will continue to leak support to the Tories. The BNP, Respect and Scots and Welsh nationalist votes will all inexorably rise.
9. The Basque peace process will collapse, leading to further sporadic bombings and violence. Shinners will wring their hands about it and talk about the need for dialogue.
10. Conflicts will flare across Africa, in Sudan, Somalia, and along the Western coast. But that happens every year, so that's not really much of a prediction, I admit.
    
11. Manchester United will win the Premiership, leading to the 'mutually agreed' departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea. In a fit of pique, he will take Frank Lampard with him to Real Madrid. Whoever wins the Barcelona-Liverpool tie will win the Champions' League.
12. There will be a major spike in oil prices again.

That's your lot! Thanks for listening. Remember, I'm on 5% of all winnings, which can be remitted to me in used notes of either Euro or Sterling (no soft currencies like the dollar, which is going down further this year than a deep-throating hooker). Non-consecutive numbers please.




*Guarantee dependent on acts of God, and of people who think they're God, like Georgie Bush, Tony Blair, Jose Mourinho, etc.