Some days, I come on statements and claims which make me wonder if I haven’t lost my mind. Can this person really be saying this? Have I totally misunderstood the King’s English? As I type these words, beads of perspiration popping out on my forehead, I’m staring at two newspaper reports that […]
Tag Archives | BREXIT
Zoom-chat with John O’Dowd
I was fortunate enough this morning to get a short interview with Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd. If there had been time I would have asked for questions from blog- readers but time didn’t allow for that. The thing that struck me most was his comment about the several links of northern parties with the south, and how this leaves the DUP the odd man out. Check the interview and see if you agree….
This week will shape our future
Knowing what’s coming doesn’t necessarily ease the pain. Watching a bomb as it hurtles from ‘way up in the skies into your living-room doesn’t mean it’s any less shattering when it hits. This week has been a long time coming. Today in Westminster will separate the boys from the men and the girls from the […]
The importance of close-up
A few days ago, a flock of sheep was herded through Westminster. An odd sight, you might think. Sheep don’t belong in the big city. Oh but they did it to get publicity? Almost certainly right, but why sheep? The people involved would have got as much or more publicity if a young woman had […]
Gregory bares his teeth
The main hall in St Mary’s University College on the Falls Road was busting with people last night. Car parks front and rear filled, pavements bulging with illegally parked cars, people stacked like grain in a granary inside the hall, people bunched outside the hall in overflow. And two lecture theatres providing a video view […]
The DUP and the Tories: so different and yet so similar
Some people believe the DUP and the Tories are not a natural fit: that Sammy Wilson is lacking in the kind of urbane manner that Tories naturally display, and similarly that you could never find a P G Wodehouse figure like Jacob Rees-Moggs in the ranks of the DUP. Those are indeed stand-out differences. But […]
Stephen Collins on the need not to be so beastly
Supposing a group of people decided they were going to wreck your conditions of living. They arranged so that you’d get a shrunken salary, that essentials would cost more, that you’d be forced to swap your BMW for a bicycle. How would you feel about that group? Would you be distressed if one of your neighbours, […]
Talking of Mrs May
Person 1 : I see Theresa May has taken to visiting different places at a dizzying rate. What’s all that about? Person 2: She’s hoping it will help her in the House of Commons vote on her Brexit agreement with the EU. Person 1: Then why’s she trotting round the UK? Person 2: She is hoping […]
The DUP: is all publicity good publicity?
If all publicity is good publicity, the DUP must be doing handstands in the halls of Westminster. There was a time not long ago that the great British public knew the name of one DUP politician – Ian Paisley – and that was it. Not so now. Last week’s Have I Got News For You […]
David Trimble and Simon Coveney on the ‘Today’ programme this morning
If you were looking for a reason why the Good Friday Agreement hasn’t worked nearly as well as it should, you’d have found it on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme this morning. Mishal Husain interviewed two Irishmen, and the contrast between the two couldn’t have been sharper. The first person she interviewed was David Trimble […]