MPs have declared victory for British restraint in the Troubles. They leave it to Legacy Commission to deal with the unanswered questions
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Without attracting much attention even from the local media, the Commons spent the best part of two days this week debating the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. This is the latest attempt at what’s claimed to be the very last chance …
The End of Morality – Part 2…
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A while ago I wrote a piece entitled “The End of Morality” in which I drew attention to a number of issues where morality had gone AWOL. Well where are we now? Let’s start with the UK. British politics has …
Jeffrey Donaldson being investigated over alleged rape in Westminster…
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From the BBC: Jailed former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Jeffrey Donaldson is being investigated by London police about an alleged rape of a woman inside the Houses of Parliament, the BBC can reveal. The disgraced former MP has been …
Two Sinn Féin MPs to stand in Assembly elections…
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From the BelTel: Sinn Féin’s Chris Hazzard is planning a high-stakes bid to move from Westminster to Stormont and become Strangford’s first nationalist MLA. The South Down MP will tonight launch his campaign for next year’s Assembly election in the …
What ‘Before the Vote’ gets right and wrong about education…
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John Doyle’s Before the Vote: Planning for a united Ireland, published by DCU Press in September and available as a free download, compares Northern Ireland and the Republic on the economy, welfare, health, and education. It then sets out what …
Try Not To Get Involved With Any Spooks
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It was ‘Blue Lights,’ folks but not as we know it. But before we dissect Episode Four of the fourth series, let’s make our customary appeal. If you’ve watched the entire fourth series on the BBC iPlayer, please don’t give …
Go East, Old Man – Part II: Opting Out of Opting Out
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From an interrogation at the Russian border to an anti-war lecture in Moscow and a power cut in wartime Mykolaiv, Peter Emerson travels through Putin’s Russia and into Ukraine. Along the way he asks why binary referendums, the “matryoshka” votes of Crimea, Bosnia and the Donbas, so often end in bloodshed, and what that means for Northern Ireland’s border poll.
‘We collect without fear or favour’: embodying inclusion at the Linen Hall Library
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A Good Relations Week workshop at the Linen Hall Library offered an unusual angle on this year’s theme of ‘Include’: rather than framing inclusion as a goal to be worked toward, it asked how a library collection can embody it. …
From grievance to governance: why Irish nationalism needs a Long Peace strategy
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At 105, partition is unlikely to end on a 50%-plus-one border poll. Nationalism’s vote has stalled at 40% while voters drift to “neither”. The path forward runs through governing Northern Ireland well, not waiting it out, and Micheál Martin’s Bodenstown speech shows what that looks like.
A Blueprint for a New Centrist Political Force in Northern Ireland…
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“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” What if three political parties that have spent years competing for parts of Northern Ireland’s political centre have more in common than their public disagreements might suggest? The Ulster Unionist Party, Alliance …