May, 2019

Donald and Boris: big boys?

You could call Theresa May many things, you could call Barack Obama many things, you could call Hillary Clinton many things; but you’d be unlikely to refer to any of them as immature.  So how odd it is that immaturity is what many people think of, when they consider the President of the United States […]

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Does the Labour Party hate Jews?

`You have to bend at the waist and doff your cap to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) and the Jewish Labour Movement.  They’ve made legal complaints that the British Labour Party is not compliant with equalities law. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will now conduct an investigation into these complaints.   The CEO of […]

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Glad confident morning for Alliance?

I wonder who’s wakening up with the sorest head this morning? Lots of people have good reason to be feeling a bit post-celebration shaky. The Greens might be feeling off-colour, given their striking successes throughout Europe as well as in the south of Ireland.  Martina Anderson might be feeling pretty wasted, given that she topped […]

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LAPDOG BITES BULLDOG (42) by Perkin Warbeck

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA Red. Simply red, was the colour which Jeff and Mutt saw when they looked through their rose-tinted BA-issued reconaissance binoculars in a wee northerly direction towards Croak Park from the shared space atop Liberty Hall. Even as they waited to sing their first performance in public of the song first sung by […]

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Why did the Greens do so well?

 Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it?  Whoops of joy from some quarters,  yelps of pain from other quarters. And we still, at the time of writing, haven’t had the results for our six sick counties. The three most striking features of the European election were the triumph of Nigel Farage’s Remain Party, the rise of […]

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Taking stock by Randall Stephen Hall

An appeal for all enquiring minds to learn of their genetic origins beyond politics, religion and tribal conflict. Simply by being given a prescription, paid for, by the state, of a free and detailed DNA test. Of course we are a combination of the cultures we have absorbed in our minds but much of our […]

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Can we trust Auntie?

I always thought Robbie Burns was living dangerously when he wrote the lines: “O was some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us.” If we really were to know how others regard us,  the chances are we’d jump off the nearest cliff. A modified version might help, though: if we […]

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Karen Bradley and a reunited Ireland

They say that if voting changed anything, it would have banned years ago. There’s a a tiny nugget of truth in the claim, but mostly it’s bullgrit. If  voting changed nothing,  would the power to have a border referendum rest between the ears of  British Secretary of State Karen Bradley? To say that she holds […]

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Seamus Mallon: wisdom or a wee weakness?

Some people are critical of Seamus Mallon for the things he’s been saying recently. But consider the circumstances. Seamus has a book to sell, and when you’ve a book to sell you’ll do  or say just about anything to capture public attention. Believe, I know – I’ve been there. Although Seamus is obviously much better […]

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