Go East, Old Man IV: A ballot where nobody votes no
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From a Dartmouth parade ground to a Belfast youth club, a Moscow kitchen table and a Tibetan lake, Peter Emerson traces the chance encounters that turned an ex-submariner into a lifelong critic of yes-or-no voting. He also asks what ancient Asia might teach us about deciding things together.
America goes to the polls today in their midterm elections…
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I’m sure many of you will join me in hoping that the Republicans get the absolute political sh*te kicked out of them today at the polls. Has there been a more corrupt presidency than Trump? He oversees what is basically …
SDLP proposes moving Stormont to Belfast city centre…
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Via the Irish News: The SDLP wants to shut down Stormont and move the Assembly to a “more appropriate and more accessible” building in Belfast city centre. The party argues that its plan will “bring democratic decision-making closer to the …
Slugger End of Year Review tickets are now on sale…
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Our always popular live event returns to the Black Box on Tuesday, the 15th of December 2026. Join Alex Kane, Allison Morris and Alan Meban as they reflect on the year in politics. This event is sponsored by Brown O’Connor- Ireland …
What ‘Before the Vote’ gets right and wrong about welfare and living standards…
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Chapter 3 of John Doyle’s Before the Vote: Planning for a united Ireland compares living standards, welfare payments and poverty in the two jurisdictions. Its evidence on basic payment rates is accurate, and many of those rates are much higher …
Carla Lockhart Quits the DUP
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In ananticipated move, Carla Lockhart tonight quit the DUP. Lockhart published her resignation letter to DUP leader Gavin Robinson on Facebook accompanied by a personal statement which set her reasoning to the public. Today I informed the party leader, Gavin …
The past in the present: exploring memory and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland
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The Memories, Narratives and Histories Research Collective (MNHRC) gathered online to launch Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland, by Professor Graham Dawson. Fifteen years in the making, the book draws on oral history, …
Jim Allister: Why is the Government hiding the Irish Sea border report?
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The Government has published no Independent Monitoring Panel report for more than 16 months, and the one report it did publish measured the wrong thing. Worse, the so-called Internal Market Guarantee was never an internal market guarantee at all, but an alternative trade border arrangement.
Donald Trump, the Israeli Defence Forces and the banality of evil…
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I don’t normally write in this blog about international affairs: about Donald Trump or Israel/Palestine or Ukraine. There are thousands of commentators far more qualified and knowledgeable than me to do that. But I am a simple person in many …
The Architecture of Tragedy: Hubris, Empire, and the 67 Words of Balfour…
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109 years ago today, on the 2nd of November 1917, as the mud-mired battle of Passchendaele dragged on, as bankruptcy beckoned, a 67-word declarative statement from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, was hand-delivered to the banking magnate Lord Rothschild. …