Republican anger over plans to spend £3m on Centenary Birthday card for every home in Northern Ireland…

Plans by Boris Johnson to send a card to every home in Northern Ireland to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of its foundation have met with an angry response from Nationalists and Republicans. It is thought Boris Johnson came up with the idea as a way to remind us of our importance to the Union. The front of the card features a portrait of the Queen with a massive Union Jack backdrop. The back of the card contains a personal message …

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Boris Johnson has refused Arlene Foster on the protocol. Both governments and the EU should now get off their high horses and fix it.

Time was when prime ministers visited somewhere they used it as the backdrop to make a substantial speech about where they stood on the policy or move things along.  Think back to Tony Blair’s “acts of completion”.  Can you imagine Boris Johnson submitting himself to questions about his post Brexit and pro Union strategies?  Nowadays it’s enough for Johnson to turn up for a box ticking exercise, high viz vested or in a white coat, elbows bumping, for a few …

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No mention of the fantasy Irish Sea link in Johnson’s plan to link up the UK. Is he quietly ditching it already?

The BBC is reporting that a feasibility study is being made into Boris Johnson’s crackpot scheme of a bridge or tunnel over the Irish Sea (with ample space for customs clearing stations no doubt).  But intriguingly   the prime minister makes no mention of it in an article he’s written for the Daily Telegraph announcing a new UK wide  transport strategy “ to strengthen the very sinews of the UK.” Very odd that he makes no mention of his current pet …

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Boris Johnson, you would (almost) feel sorry for him…

No matter how bad your day is going, it is likely to be better than that of our glorious leader, Boris Johnson. You can imagine him waking up every day with a groan, and wondering what disaster will befall him today. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” as Billy Shakespeare put it. With UK Covid-19 deaths reaching the grim milestone of 100,000, Boris was forced to make an apology of sorts: The U.K. has become the first country …

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Boris says to prepare for a no deal Brexit….

From Sky News: Boris Johnson says it’s time to “get ready” for the prospect of no free trade deal with the EU on 1 January. The prime minister claimed Brussels had “abandoned” the ambition but insisted “we always knew there would be change” next year once the tradition period ends “whatever type of relationship we had”. Speaking from Downing Street after an EU summit both sides said was the deadline for hammering out a trade deal, Mr Johnson said it …

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Churchillian flourishes signal desperation from this ‘unexceptional’ Tory Government…

There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has been hard on all aspects of society, not least of all the UK Government’s approval ratings as it has lurched from one crisis to another, many a product of its own making. Then, during the Prime Minister’s address on Tuesday, viewers saw Boris Johnson attempt to emulate Churchill when he said, “Never before in our history has our collective destiny and our collective health depended so completely on our individual behaviour.” Although his address …

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Boris Johnson has thrown everything up in the air. The EU has to bring them down to earth

The roller coaster continues. In its story today the Times slips in unattributably Johnson’s terms for a deal. The right of government  to subsidise company development  is the Trojan horse  that has emerged as the biggest obstacle to a deal because it continues to apply to GB as  well as NI,  leaving a remnant of  EU regulation at the heart of the UK that the sovereignty zealots find intolerable.  On this apparently esoteric topic depends much of the future character …

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It would be a mistake for Unionists to seek terms for Irish unity now. There’s a bigger future to discuss

The time, therefore, has finally come for unionists, particularly those in Northern Ireland, to consider the terms on which they could tolerate, if not accept, a united Ireland… On the eve of Northern Ireland’s centenary next May, Unionism needs to form an assembly of its own to answer that question. So what should unionism demand in exchange for its tolerance of unification? First, let’s acknowledge that unionism holds a pretty decent hand should it care to play it: the knowledge …

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The New Deal was about more than a phrase, Boris. Michael Gove knows it and is bidding to be the government’s man of substance

Photo: The Guardian We knew in advance where Boris Johnson got “Rooseveltian” from. The inspiration came from Michael Gove, his friend and sometime rival who pre-announced Boris’s “bonanza”  and gave him a sort of intellectual alibi in his Ditchley lecture last week.  Johnson has the spectre of 3 million unemployed hanging over him and has had to think of something quick. Other than  borrowing  the phrase,  he baulks at a New Deal. He warms up the old Tory manifesto, throws …

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Slugger TV – the devolved nations fightback episode

This month, in episode 38, Slugger O’Toole’s deputy editor David McCann talks to Irish News journalist Allison Morris and Andersontown News columnist Andrée Murphy about the performance of the Northern Ireland Executive, the legacy of different devolved government strategies to ease the COVID-19 lockdown, and the Irish Government’s lack of cross-border consultation about their plans. Edited by Alan Meban and also broadcast (as a slightly shorter 30 minute edit) on Belfast’s community TV channel NvTv tonight at 20:35.

Would you prefer faster roads or faster broadband?

How are you getting on with the great work from home experiment? I have worked from home for most of my career so it is nothing new for me but I realise it will be a novelty for most of you. Your experience will vary greatly depending on if you have young kids or not. With our 4-year-old, I find it is next to impossible to get any work done while homeschooling and childminding. Whatever teachers get paid they should …

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The Sunday Times puts the boot into Boris Johnson’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic…

I am sure Boris was feeling bad enough recovering from COVID-19, opening yesterdays Sunday Times I am sure did nothing to lift his mood. Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster was the headline and just to reinforce the point the subheading hammered home the main accusations – ‘Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears. Failings in February may have cost thousands of …

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Boris Johnson sacks NI Secretary Julian Smith…

As predicted Boris Johnson has sacked Julian Smith in his reshuffle. Serving the people of Northern Ireland has been the biggest privilege. I am extremely grateful to @BorisJohnson for giving me the chance to serve this amazing part of our country. The warmth & support from people across NI has been incredible. Thank you so much. — Julian Smith MP (@JulianSmithUK) February 13, 2020 A very risky move from Boris Johnson in removing a Secretary of State who was not …

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A way can be found between the EU rock and the GB hard place. But will Boris Johnson let us take it?

Katy Hayward We are literally at sea over what Northern Ireland’s special status with the EU will mean  in practice.   Our Brexit guru – or should I now say, our Guru on Trading Relations with GB and the EU Katy Hayward  writing in the Belfast Telegraph explains neatly why Northern Ireland is between a rock and a hard place    In  the past  Katy was keen to repeat assurances that  NI’s  different economic  relationship with the EU from GB  had …

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A Short History of the “L” Word

The American poet Robert Frost was only partly joking when he said a Liberal was definable as ‘a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.’ Liberals of both (or more) genders have of course historically taken a side: their own. Now that a new decade has begun, and another important anniversary is being marked today, and there are question marks over how much longer liberalism is likely to last, now seems as good a time as …

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Labour’s defeat was their own guilty secret. But Boris Johnson’s matters much more

Andrew Parsons i/Images Now they tell us. Labour moderates had been watching the growth of the Conservative vote in north east of England council elections for years. But so had the Conservatives’ evil genius Dominic Cummings and he knew how to act on it. Forget  obsessions with social media, go knock on doors. As Tip O’Neill the old Speaker of the US House of Representatives memorably once said,  All politics is local.” And we can add,  it transcends ideology alone. …

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In denial over the front stop. Now Boris floored by 4 year old Jack, lying on a hospital floor

The NHS howler of this campaign has hit Boris Johnson so hard he wanted to hide it in his pocket in the middle of an ITV News interview .. And more on another Johnson brazen denial -.the building row over the frontstop. Two Europe editors take his case apart, culled from Twitter. Peter Foster Europe editor of the Daily Telegraph HOW can Whitehall design this new GB-NI border or customs ‘filter’ UNTIL it knows what the shape of the UK-EU …

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On border checks the evidence from his own government mounts but Boris keeps brazening out the denial

It’s more than depressing when the prime minister keeps brazening out denials about checks between GB and NI. He actually contradicts himself between “ no checks” and  “the only checks” within a couple of sentences below. When asked on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday whether there would be checks, in light of the leaked Treasury document, Johnson replied: “No, absolutely not… The deal we’ve done with the EU is a brilliant deal and it allows us to do all …

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The backtop is back in business after Johnson’s denial is nakedly exposed

It’s not actually  news that there will “be a border down the Irish Sea” if Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement is passed. But if the document Jeremy Corbyn has been waving this morning is an authentic Treasury paper, it shows that Johnson is lying or at best or in denial.   He will surely be pressed to explain himself in tonight’s BBC debate with Jeremy Corbyn.  Taken at face value it means Johnson will denounce his own withdrawal agreement as soon as …

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Johnson blames Labour and Tory predecessors for release of the latest London Bridge bomber

The parochial thought occurs that since the Omagh atrocity of 21 years ago, Northern Ireland has been relatively fortunate in not experiencing more of the dreadful recidivism by released terrorists similar to that which occurred on Friday around London Bridge. Not that recidivism has been entirely absent in the actions of dissident republicans and  loyalist mobsters. In both republican and loyalist areas they’ve been schooled and even run by former veterans of the main paramilitary groups. But overall, a negotiated …

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