I walked home from work one night. That happened a lot forty odd years ago. No buses and too many people trying to get a black taxi. Larry McCoubrey was reading the news and he mentioned a robbery at my place of work. “Did you know about that” said my mother. “That was me mammy”. My mother never knew all the details. A gun was put into my mouth and the guy said he would blow my xxxxing head off. …
The long-running campaign by UK victims of Libyan-backed IRA bombings to pass a bill in parliament for financial compensation was dealt a new blow today, being vetoed in the Commons by a government whip, despite having passed in the House of Lords. In what looks like a moment of desperation, an obscure parliamentary procedure was invoked to kill off the Asset Freezing (Compensation) Bill, a cross-party private members bill, which targets the £9.5 million that Gaddafi held in the UK …
This is one of the most acute problems of Northern Ireland today- politicians raising hopes for victims that stand little or no chance of being fulfilled. As an anti-cynic I’m prepared to believe that David Cameron’s meeting with a DUP delegation over reviving compensation claims against Libya disclosed in the Sunday Telegraph wasn’t just a clumsy diversion effort from the Adams arrest (wrong constituency and timing ).At least it got Peter Robinson into Downing St, a rare occurrence these days. It reads like …
