Author Jude Collins

There is a particular political talent that deserves more recognition: the ability to denounce violence with solemn gravity in one context while authorising it with brisk efficiency in another. It requires a straight face, a flexible vocabulary and a memory for audiences rather than principles. At home, violence is condemned as barbaric, counter-productive, corrosive to […]

Ian Paisley had a one-way view on alcohol – it was the devil’s buttermilk. He didn’t explain whether the devil produced it for humans or for his own consumption but he was four-square agin it What then might he think if he could see the party he founded blocking an attempt by just about all […]

In most geopolitical soap operas, the script is simple. One side denies talks. The other side insists talks are happening and going tremendously well. The audience — that’s us — clutches popcorn while oil prices twitch like a caffeinated meerkat. Right now the surreal twist is this: Iran says there are no negotiations whatsoever, while […]

A country doesn’t “produce” men like Stephen McCullagh in the way it produces butter, poets or tech start-ups. Violence is not a national export, stamped Made in Ireland and shipped abroad with a harp logo and a customs declaration. But when a case like the killing of Natalie McNally rips through public consciousness, people understandably […]

There is a particular kind of geopolitical imagination that assumes history is a Netflix series: you drop the bombs in Episode 3, declare victory in Episode 5, and roll the credits before the global economy notices the plot holes. Donald Trump appeared to script the Iran confrontation like that — a high-stakes trailer of ultimatums, […]

Markets used to move on earnings, wars, harvests and the odd central banker’s eyebrow twitch. Now they seem to move on whether Donald Trump wakes up feeling hawkish before or after breakfast. Threaten strikes on Iranian power plants — stocks tumble, the dollar flexes like it’s back in the gym. Pause the strikes for five […]

That sensitive man Donald Trump has expressed pleasure at the death of Robert Mueller, a political opponent. A step too far, maybe? A recent balcony that collapsed and injured two children, a car in Buncrana ten years ago that slip into the sea and drowned five people: should any of these events have occurred? Or […]

Well now. Gerry Adams is to give a press conference in Belfast at 3.30 pm today – I doubt if  B(ritish)BC Raidio Uladh will carry it live. It comes in the aftermath of lunch-time news that the claimants – those taking the case against Gerry A – had decided to withdraw their claims and end […]

It’s an under-rated play in the political game: if you don’t mention a topic for long enough, it will wither, fade and eventually vanish. It simply is necessary to keep schtum on the subject and what was a hugely important issue simply ceases to exist. The integrity of the national territory is a core requirement […]

The spectacle has been almost theatrical — a stampede of certainty from people who have spent decades insisting that the case against Gerry Adams is overwhelming, definitive, nailed to the wall. And yet here we are, watching the eager anticipation of a £1 victory as if it were the capture of some towering prize. A […]