How odd, that Arlene Foster is now viewed as a liberal, ousted by more right-wing forces in the DUP. Will Edwin Poots push the protocol to a dangerous finale? And Sinn Féin are looking at a clear-out of everyone in the Derry Sinn Féin camp. They lost their Westminster seat by an astonishing 17,000 votes, […]
April, 2021
A Woman Scorned – by Michael Lagan
It seems Arlene was completely taken by surprise by most of her elected representatives turning against her. Such is the brutality of politics one might say. Shouldn’t Arlene Foster, as leader of the DUP, have her finger on the proverbial pulse of the DUP and its membership? Something many within Nationalism, ironically, have been vocalising […]
A Liberal? Really? – by Michael Lagan
Another DUP leader down. It only took party pressure to make her resign. Party pressure that didn’t materialise during RHI even though it was one of the biggest scandals to hit the DUP and the Northern Executive in years. £500 million of taxpayers money went down the tube and Arlene Foster, then Minister for Enterprise, Trade […]
Arlene wasn’t DUP enough for Unionism – by Michael Lagan
14 of 66,710 Loyalism is in utter turmoil, and it’s in a strange place, where the very government they look to for leadership have all but abandoned them to their own devices, and their own politicians in the North have sold them out into a situation where they gained a deal they knew their base would never […]
100 years and not out. But Arlene is – by Fra Hughes
After 18 years as an elected member of the legislative assembly for Northern Ireland, 6 years as leader of the Democratic Unionist party and the last year as joint first minister, Arlene Foster’s political future is now in question. When 75% of the elected party members called for a vote of no confidence in her […]
A song for Arlene and a brutal future for the DUP
As Arlene Foster is loaded on the cart to be trundled off to the guillotine, the title of a lesser song by John Lennon comes to mind: ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’ Why has the DUP made the decapitation of its only female leader such a public, brutal affair? One explanation and […]
The DUP suffer birth pangs – or are those death throes?
Usually bloodless political coups take time. There’s a rumble of dissent which then recedes, followed maybe by another couple of efforts to storm the citadel, denied of course by the coup leaders. Finally, a full charge is mounted, the main gate stormed and a new dispensation is in place. Not so with the DUP, it […]
Jeffrey Donaldson and an imaginative leap
‘Imaginative’ is not the first word I’d reach for when describing the DUP. But this morning, Jeffrey Donaldson is quoted in an Irish Times article which shows that he can think outside the box. And then some. The article has to do with a memorial wall at Glasnevin Cemetery. The wall carries the names of […]
Devils in the Shadows – by Michael Lagan
With three more ex-paratroopers, one posthumously from the British army’s elite Parachute Regiment facing trial over the killing of an unarmed person, namely Joe McCann, one has to wonder when these trained killers will begin to be prosecuted by the state they so readily served. In the circumstances in which Joe McCann was shot and […]
ANC leadership announces commitment to support achievement of Irish unity – by Declan Kearney
Sinn Féin National Chairperson, Declan Kearney MLA, has welcomed the commitment from the African National Congress (ANC) to pro actively assist the process of democratic constitutional change in Ireland. Speaking following the announcement from the ANC leadership, the Minister in the northern Executive, said: “The Sinn Féin leadership has held a series of recent bilateral […]