Trump – Telling it Like it Is?

man in black suit jacket

In the past I have rejected labels like ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’ or moderate, partly because they are so vague but also because I detest the way some, who do go under these banners, try to claim an unwarranted moral superiority. The reaction of some to the re-election of President Donald Trump is one example. Online I have engaged with liberals who argue that the defeat of Kamila Harris is good because it shows that people get punished for supporting genocide.  The …

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Can Women Save the USA?

woman standing leaning on brick wall wrapping body with U.S. flag near body of water

As I write on Saturday afternoon, we have no idea whether Harris/Walz or the Vance/Trump team will win the US presidency, but if Harris wins, it seems that it will be the women of America who have saved the USA. Polling indicates that men, especially white non-college-educated men tend to support the Trump/Vance team, with Trump also appearing to attract more Black & Latino men than ever before. By contrast, a majority of women appear to be about to give …

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A Country has a Right to Defend Itself?

Forty years ago on Saturday, the IRA came close to wiping out the entire British Cabinet in the Brighton Bomb (Oct 12th 1984). Through luck, only 5 people were killed, but many members of the government were injured, some seriously. This was a serious attack on Britain by the IRA and just one of many. Currently, we keep hearing the mantra ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ being used to silence criticism of the carpet bombing of Gaza and …

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Should the Israeli Military Campaign Continue?

a group of people standing next to a collapsed building

One year after the Oct 7th atrocity, the horror continues, Palestinian civilians and young Israeli soldiers continue to die and a much wider conflict appears to be on the way. After a year of peace marches, letters to the press, discussions on radio and a death toll of between 40 and 100 thousand there are still a surprising number in the West who believe in the need for Israel to continue with its military campaign Other people (such as myself) …

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History is not Simple…

maps lying on the floor

There are many simplistic ways of looking at the problem of Palestine and Israel. According to some, Palestine belongs to the Jews, they were present in that land over 3000 years ago. OK, so their numbers declined in the Middle Ages with the Jewish diaspora spreading across Europe while Arabs became the dominant group in Palestine, but the territory still belongs to the Jews who were there first and have continued to regard it as their Promised Land through centuries …

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American Freedom?

The American Library of Congress has an engraving entitled: “Pulling Down the Statue of George III by the Sons of Freedom” which commemorates part of the battle to win freedom from Britain in the War of Independence. What that engraving, or the earlier painting do not show is that the statue was actually pulled down by African slaves who were certainly not free and were acting under instructions from the ‘sons of freedom’. (Listen to BBC podcast How to Invent …

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Education for Mutual Understanding…

love to learn pencil signage on wall near walking man

When I started teaching back in 1991 there was a cross-curricular policy where all teachers had to try to introduce Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) in our lessons.  In brief we were required to use some of our lessons to remove suspicion, mistrust and hatred between our divided communities.  Back then for someone like myself teaching in a largely Protestant and Unionist school that meant trying to increase understanding towards our Republican/Nationalist and Catholic communities. In all honesty, delivery was …

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‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and parallels with N. Ireland’s working class Protestant community…

JD Vance has been in the news since Donald Trump selected him as his choice for VP. Vance has been surprisingly popular among unionists in N. Ireland over recent weeks with Ruth Dudley Edwards writing on 18/7/24, in the Belfast Newsletter, citing the choice of Vance as being the reason she now backs Trump for President. She interprets Vance’s memoir ‘A Hillbilly Elegy’ as a tale of how loyal, working-class, Protestant Scots-Irish Americans were betrayed and mocked as white trash …

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Northern Ireland. A Two-Party State?

gray framed 1 and 2 elevator signage

Last week on Twitter, there was a debate about whether or not the SDLP should have run a candidate in East Londonderry? SF supporters argued that their candidate would have won the seat, if only the SDLP had dropped out; this ignores the fact that the constituency has a clear Unionist majority and if nationalists were running only one candidate, it is likely that unionists would do something similar and still win the seat.   Perhaps I should keep out …

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Income Tax is the Best Way to Fund Public Services…

a red wall with a white sticker on it

How we fund our services has always been discussed in elections. Even in N. Ireland where border politics tends to dominate, every one of us knows that we need to pay more if our NHS is to function properly and be able to look after our sick and our elderly properly. However, in this election both of the UK parties of government – Labour and Tory – are rushing to reassure the electorate that income tax will not go up …

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The Best Background for a PM?

Very many people will have thought Rishi Sunak had an excellent background for a future PM. He had studied PPE at Oxford and then for an MBA at Stanford in the USA before working in investment banking and helping to set up a successful ‘hedge fund’. He was bright, well-educated and had skills in banking & finance, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, when you see him interviewed you get a real sense that he considers himself perfectly qualified for the …

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Antisemitism – a Shield to Protect Israel?

silhouette of man

I cannot prove that I am not anti-German, or that I am not anti-Muslim. Such accusations are almost impossible to disprove. Even uttering the phrase, ‘I am not anti-Muslim’, invites people to consider, ‘Is he being truthful, or is he in denial. So how should I respond when I, like anyone who has criticised Israel, am invited to take steps to prove that I am not antisemitic. (See attached picture of sample tweets.) What is antisemitism? Even though the word …

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Memories of UWC Strike of May 1974…

UWC strike 1974 paisley

In May 1974, I was a 13-year-old schoolboy who would return home from school each day for the usual glass of milk and sandwich with my mother at the kitchen table. On 14th May I did not realise the significance when my mother slapped down a copy of the Newsletter on the table in front of me and asked ‘Well what do you think of that?’ The page in question outlined the intention of the Ulster Workers Council (UWC) to …

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Atonement and Scapegoats…

grayscale photography of praying hands

European Christians and Jews both share the idea that the sins of the community can be paid for by another being – for Christians it is Jesus who died for our sins.  In English we call it ‘scapegoating’ when a community blames someone else and they suffer in our place. This concept first appears in Leviticus 6 verses 5-10 which outline the Jewish ritual which takes place on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where the slaughter of a bull and two male goats …

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Why Unionists tend to Support Israel…

No-one can have missed the Israeli flags that have been flying over Loyalist areas of N. Ireland in recent months. On Slugger at the weekend there were comments on this issue. Over the past few months, on Twitter and on Slugger, I have been asked to explain why unionists predominantly side with Israel despite the horror that is being inflicted on Gaza. I have previously tried to answer this question briefly, but it deserves a longer response. Unionists are not …

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Who Owns our Government?

5 pieces of banknotes on yellow and white textile

Your first though might be ‘We the people’ as we vote every 5 years for a new government, but the person who pays for something usually owns it. Running a political party is not cheap, you can spend up to £54,000 per seat when you run candidates for Westminster[1] so for the whole of Britain the cost could be £33million. Running for council seats or for devolved administrations is slightly cheaper, but large political parties such as Labour or the …

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It’s not antisemitic to demand an end to mass murder…

a building that has a bunch of debris in front of it

As a law-abiding, retired school teacher, it came as a surprise to discover last week that I was part of the ‘mob’ that is threatening democracy – if you can believe our PM, Rishi Sunak. His Friday night condemnation of those of us who refuse to sit quietly as the children of Gaza are murdered is mainly based on the claim that marchers intimidate the country’s Jewish population by using the slogan ‘From Gaza to the Sea, Palestine will be …

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Imperfect Politicians…

london, westminster, bridge

Have you ever wondered how some politicians get away with everything while others have their careers blighted by seemingly small actions that upset the wrong people? When the tape of Trump bragging about grabbing women by their pussies first leaked, many of us thought he was finished, but he won that election, and even now, he is more popular than Biden. This is despite being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation with $83 million in damages awarded against him, …

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Valentine Fails…

On Sunday a small Valentine’s Day gift arrived from my wife. As you will see from the picture below, while romance may not be dead after 30 years of marriage, it is more spiky than soft and sweet. This got me thinking about what I will get my wife this year (any suggestions of a suitable response are welcome) and reminded me of the too frequent occasions when we men do not live up to our wife/girlfriend’s expectations of the …

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Is there anything to be said for the John Major Option?

I have been critical of the DUP in the past but Jeffrey Donaldson has my sympathy. By failing to push through a vote on his deal over the Windsor Framework last Friday, Jeffrey Donaldson seems to have damaged his reputation and his authority in the DUP. His indecisiveness does not look good but decisions always look easier from the outside, or in retrospect. He has 3 obvious options left, but I will suggest a 4th option which is risky and …

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