November, 2019

Earlier this year – September 11th to be exact – there was a significant occurrence: 51% of the people surveyed in Northern Ireland supported the idea of Irish unification. As far as I’m aware that is the first time any poll showed there was a majority in the North in favour of unity. Brexit has changed […]

I recently watched one and a bit of a series on Britain’s latest aircraft carrier, the largest and most lethal ship in Britain’s naval history. Its cost, the technology, the intelligence, skills and courage of all involved was to be marvelled at. Its huge crew of this surface vessel might as well be in a […]

Women sometimes say that men can’t begin to understand the pain of childbirth. True. But the process of producing a book, I’d say, comes close. By the time you read this I’ll have produced, after a small lake of blood, sweat and tears, my eighth book. If you’re a woman, tell me if this doesn’t […]

If a columnist writes for a paper, does that mean his/her views match with that paper? Not necessarily but it helps. Certainly there must be few papers – I can think of none – which have a columnist who consistently sees the world and political events in a way that is at odds with the […]

We often hear that there can  be no hierarchy of victims in this society of ours and that people who died during the war here are all the same. Well recent times would suggest not only is there a hierarchy of victims among the dead there is also a hierarchy within the justice system where […]

“Speaking about the British Parliament, Ken Livingstone once opined that “if voting changed anything they would abolish it.” He wasn’t fully right or wrong, for the past decade has been one misery after another, with crippling austerity and rising suicide rates. Altogether, we have suffered the symptoms of a neo-liberal Tory winter, which exacerbated anti-EU […]

SCOTLAND AND THE TROUBLES The intent of BBC Scotland’s programme to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the recent ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland was embedded in the title, ‘The War Next Door’.  At a superficial level, there was an attempt to provide a semblance of balance with the early inclusion of an articulate, Lanarkshire woman of […]

A THE DAILY MAIL- AN ORGAN FIT FOR PURPOSE? A RAG FOR ALL SEASONS? by Donal Kennedy I suspect that the Daily Mail is the English language paper most fit for its purpose. And, so far as I can judge its purpose has been foul. It remains in the ownership of the Harmsworth/Rothermere  family which […]

On September 18th 2018, seventy years and one day after the murder of Count Bernadotte in Jerusalem, Prince William unveiled in London, the statue of Frank Foley who has been touted as a humanitarian hero who risked his life to save Jews from the Nazis. Foley enjoyed diplomatic immunity in Britain’s Embassy in Berlin, up […]

I sometimes like to consider myself sceptical, seasoned, surprised by nothing. Then somebody like Britain’s Chief Rabbi pops up and I realize I’m still easily shocked and dismayed. And angered. Ephraim Mirvis  says he doesn’t want to tell people how to vote, then gives them a long list of reasons for not voting Labour. Among […]