June, 2017

National delegates at The United Nations General Assembly  on  Thursday 22 June voted by 94 votes to 15  with 65 abstentions to support Mauritius in a bid to seek an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the dispute between the former British Colony and the legal status of the Chagos Islands in […]

The powers that be have ruled that a European Champions League football match at Windsor Park on the same day as the Orange marches on the 12th of July would be a massive security risk and trouble would be unavoidable. So much for the marketing of the newly branded Orangefest as a family event with […]

        Unlike the BBC or UTV, I was at the Sinn Féin conference An Agreed Future in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall yesterday. It was really about an agreed united Ireland, but the title helped people focus on how inclusive any future united Ireland could be. Three  key questions were raised: Why do unionists prefer […]

  During me recent travels in the USA I tried to keep in touch with developments here since the June election. I heard that May and her Tories needed the DUP to form a government in Westminster and I thought ‘happy days’. This is bound to end in disaster for both parties. It is a […]

At the time of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland, envisaged in the minds of Protestants motivated by Revolutionary France, many Presbyterian clergymen warned of the tyranny of the Crown.They prophesied doom and destruction on the basis that “Orangeism” was not Protestantism, merely “Toryism” dressed in Reformation clothing. Of course this was the era of the […]

Pics 1-4 are by Perkin Warbeck    pic 1 Pic 2   Pic 3 Pic 4    “RABAT by Perkin Warbeck   Rabat is a compact city on a hill in the middle of Malta. Its very name indicates the Arabic roots of the Malti language: it means ‘suburb’. The city it share the hill-top […]

Last night’s NEWSNIGHT on BBC TWO produced a significant moment. The Tory MP and Chief Whip Andrea Leadsom was being interviewed by Emily Maitlis. It’d be fair to say that Maitlis was giving the Tory MP a pretty thorough grilling about her party’s handling of the UK negotiations with the EU. And yes, Virginia, Leadsom […]

You have almost got to feel sorry for the DUP. Here they are having their moment in the sun, holding the balance of power at Westminster, and yet there is something not quite right, the moment is not quite as  euphoric  as it should be. The DUP face several problems in their attempts to reach […]

The Military Covenant: it has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Echoes of the Ulster Covenant and behind that, biblical echoes too. And rightly so. Young men (and some women) who have fought unquestioningly (‘’Theirs not to reason why’) in conflicts throughout the world, and have suffered injury of various kinds in doing so – surely […]

How will Brexit affect the north’s economy? That’s easy – it’ll be very good for us. Figures from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs released in January last year showed that in 2014 the north had a £239 million trade surplus with the EU – that is, we were exporting far more than we imported. But […]