Rows and Statistics
It's been a hot and heavy end to the day at Stormont with a bemused Sir Reg Empey complaining about Martin McGuinness throwing him and his colleagues out of his Deputy First Minister's Office, after they objected to being "lectured" about their supposed anti-agreement stance.
The Ulster Unionists had started the day fulminating against Shaun Woodward over his eve of vote poll
Then came further poll woes with the release of a similar
Both surveys included some rather leading questions. For example respondents were asked to agre or disagree with the statement "I believe we should transfer policing and justice powers to Stormont so that the Executive can get on with the job of improving life for everyone in Northern Ireland."
That said there is some interesting stuff in the OFMDFM survey about people's desire for the First and Deputy First to work together, and the gap between this aspiration and how well people think the Executive is doing its job. Additionally less than half those interviewed felt well informed about what the Executive is doing (maybe that's my fault!)
Neither the NIO nor the OFMDFM released figures on which parties those interviewed supported, even though both polls were apparently conducted on a representative sample of 1000 people. However I have obtained some figures on this score which appear to show the DUP well in the lead of the UUP and record a surprisingly low score fof the TUV. There have long been doubts about the reliability of NI polls when it comes to voting intentions and this is maybe born out by an equally surprising set of low figures for Sinn Fein in comparison to the SDLP. I don't know how many people in the NIO commissioned survey declined to answer, but I gather that in the OFMDFM poll 26% of those who were interviewed over the phone refused to say which party they backed, whilst 13% gave no affiliation.
So, as ever, a note of caution. But these are the figures given me unofficially.
NIO commissioned poll
DUP 26%
SDLP 21%
TUV 1%
PUP 1%
SF17%
UUP 14%
Alliance 8%
Green 4%
Conservative 2%
Workers Party 2%
RSF 1%
UKUP 1%
OFMDFM Commissioned Poll
DUP 30%
UUP 19%
SDLP 19%
SF 16%
Alliance 11%
TUV 2%
PUP 1%
Others 3%
I'm 
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