I was recently required to do an analysis of an academic research paper. A colleague I was working with chose this one, which I hadn't read before. There are some fascinating things in the responses.

Page 6 of the PDF shows the huge swing in support for the agreement before finally resting where it started. I'm a bit dubious about the unexplained sharp rises towards the end of the campaign, but maybe I'm just forgetting something. Page 8 highlights the fact that the republic had a vote one third larger than in the north, but 10 times more spoilt ballots.

On page 11 we get into the really interesting stuff. Only half of Protestant no voters objected to power sharing. Two thirds of them supported the establishment of an assembly. 86% of catholic nationalists supported NI remaining in the UK, and half supported the removal of articles 2 & 3. Over 80 percent of all protestants felt that the IRA should complete its surrender BEFORE SF were allowed in Government.

Page 13 shows that Trimble had at least 50% approval ratings across the board. 50% of no voters trusted him, compared to 27% of yes voters approval for Paisley. Paisley and Adams had the square root of no cross community support.

History has without doubt shown that Trimble was right in the broad picture. But I wouldn't be surprised of even the man himself now recognises that his timing was very slightly, but critically, wrong.

But we all got there in the end.

OK, so Peter Robinson is going to be confirmed as the new leader of the DUP on Thursday after being selected by the party's MLAs yesterday. Nothing unexpected there. I've been waiting for the day when Paisley would finally step down and I suppose what happens next should, in theory, be interesting. So why am I so bored by it?

Peter Robinson impressed me (a little) at Finance and I've always thought he came across as much more pragmatic and sensible than his former sensei. He has a reputation as a good strategist, and it's his brains that many credit with the DUP's surpassing of the Ulster Unionists as the most popular party among unionist voters (that and keeping Paisley out of the way anyway).

He's also spoken a lot about cutting down on waste and absenteeism and sickness in the civil service (demanding efficiency savings across the board at the latest budget IIRC) and boosting the private sector. As a small c conservative, this all sounds great to me, although it seems to have been painfully slow progress. Which I think is where the boredom comes from. Nothing is likely to change any time soon.

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Slugger has highlights from Iain Dale's picking up on the Irish Daily Mail getting hold of a copy of an email. The email was sent from a UK diplomat in Dublin following a briefing from the Irish government. It lists the various underhand methods the government planned to use to get the answer they wanted from the referendum and let me tell you it's a strategy Robert Mugabe would be proud of.

You kind of expect a government to set the date they feel would be most suitable, but they've also been found to have been deliberately and consciously misleading the public and their opponents into believing it was a date much later than the date they had planned.

They're practically rejoicing about the fact that the document is "largely incomprehensible to the lay reader", which is no small help to a government whose inherently dishonest aim "is to focus the campaign on overall benefits of the EU rather than the treaty itself". Could that be because there are no tangible benefits in the constitution treaty itself? As the 'No camp' has pointed out, the Republic's place in the EU is secure and a no vote will not change that. What it will do is let the people have a say in what shape the EU takes, rather than having it decided in an undemocratic and unaccountable manner by a remote and powerful elite behind closed doors in Brussels.

The EU are obviously worried by this whole pesky exercise. The EC has promised to 'tone down or delay' any announcements from Brussels 'that might be unhelpful'. A lie of omission is still a lie, but what do you expect from an entity that, when they realised people didn't want their superstate, scribbled out the word "constitution" and replaced it with the much more vague and fluffy "treaty". Let's not forget that the punishment of the French and Dutch voters for defying their governments and exercising their democratic rights on the first vote was to be denied a second.

As an aside, all this makes me wonder what right the EU has to demand potential new members meet certain standards of democracy when the EU itself is one of the most undemocratic (in attitude and procedure), scummy and deceitful governmental institutions in existence anywhere in the so-called civilised world.

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This story was on 5 Live yesterday evening. According to the media, Poole Borough Council used "laws to track criminals and terrorists" (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) to determine whether they were lying about living in a school catchment area.

So what powers were these? Phone tapping? CCTV cameras pointed at the house 24/7? SWAT teams on standby?

No. They sent a man to check if the family left the house they claimed they lived at each morning and returned there in the afternoon. The BBC did their best to sensationalise this as "spying" - despite listeners texting in telling them to stop trying to 'sex up' their stories. Others went one better, using attention grabbing headlines claiming that 'spies stalked' the family. If this is spying, the government have been 'spying' on suspected benefit cheats for years now. Why is this any different?

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You'd scarcely credit it but Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey is fuming with Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and is demanding an apology after the chief of police allegedly claimed the policing board had "gone a bit tribal".

Supposedly Orde accused the elected members of being more interested in political debate than policing issues. Frankly, I suspect describing the debate as "political" was being generous.

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I got really pissed off with Queen's University in my last year or two, specifically with the School of Computer Science (as was), despite the university being short-listed for Sunday Times University of the Year in my graduation year, and it really made me regret not setting my sights higher on my UCAS forms. If Northern Ireland's supposed top university is that bad it makes one wonder what the competition is like. Now we know.

The UU's Magee campus is so shite the university feels the need to bribe students with £3,000 grants to take their Computer Science courses at the campus. The question is: is it the university itself that prospective students are turning their noses up at, or is it simply the idea of living in Londonderry just that repellent?

Downing Street have issued a non-response to a petition calling on them to prevent GP surgeries from using expensive, revenue-generating 084 and 087 phone numbers.

The government has said that the patient shouldn't be expected to pay more than a local call but companies have traditionally lied/manipulated their way around this using the vague definition of what constitutes a local call charge (something I've discussed previously).

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So much to blog and so little time. It's like being off work and coming back to an inbox overflowing with emails. Let's start with this kerfuffle over flags in Kilrea.

Long story short, some folk erect tricolour on Protestant church. Some other folk decide to repay the favour, erecting Union Jack on Roman Catholic church. As Turgon highlighted, more interesting than the incident itself is a local MLA's reaction (and the apparent double-standards therein). Compare and contrast his description of what happened to the Protestant church with what happened to the Catholic one.

"The congregation of the Church of Ireland have my deepest regret that their church was used to fly a Tricolour on Easter Sunday.

Likewise, as a member of the Catholic community, I deeply regret that the Marian Hall, built in honour of Our Lady, was also desecrated by the sectarian flying of the Union Flag."

John Dallat, MLA for East Londonderry

I'm sure the disparity in condemnation wasn't deliberate, but if not that's possibly worse as it perhaps belies an underlying, unspoken attitude that British symbols are inherently more sectarian than republican ones.

I should point out that Dallat isn't alone in this and I'd be surprised if any other representatives, nationalist or unionist, would act any differently. I just thought it was worth highlighting an attitude which I think we're all guilty of sometimes - that somehow the motivations of 'our lot' are more noble and/or less immoral than 'theirs'.

Colm Bradley has outlined some ways he thinks the GAA can remove the barriers to Unionists joining. Just over a year ago I outlined that the GAA has a de facto ban in Unionists joining. Unfortunately Google hasn't cached it, so some of the substantive points are below the fold. The main contention I have though, is that the GAA is explicitly a political organisation, and should not be treated as a sporting organisation unless and until it sheds the vestiges of a political pressure group.

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It's one of those times when life comes between me and my internet so I'll not be blogging for about a week or so; be good while I'm away!