“While we are a city of culture there has to be a recognition that we’re not part of the UK.”

Londonderry may have been shortlisted to become the UK’s first City of Culture in 2013, but the Sinn Féin party leader on the council, Maeve McLaughlin, is not happy.

Ms McLaughlin said she believed the bid was “very heavily weighted in terms of cementing our relationship with London”. “While we are a city of culture there has to be a recognition that we’re not part of the UK.

“We are not opposing the bid, but we are putting down a marker at this stage and saying we should be exploring, rather than cementing, this relationship. “There is a huge onus on the team that’s been put together to lead this bid to put in writing how they will address the issue of the tens of thousands of nationalists and republicans in this city and region who do not recognise themselves as part of the UK,” she said.

She’s wrong on both counts…

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