Things just seem to go from bad to worse for the beleaguered leader of the free world. This week’s omnishambles is the revelation that the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a moron. NBC news reports: President Donald Trump said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during more…
The Irish News reports today that plans for a Park & Ride for the new Casement Park at the old Maze site can’t be approved without a Stormont Executive. You might be thinking, hold on a minute, they want to put a Park & Ride where they originally wanted to build the stadium?? So you more…
Monday 23 October 2017 | 7:15PM | The Dark Horse Bar, Belfast Join us for a conversation with Tony MacAuley about his new book ‘Little House on the Peace Line’. Tony grew up in the 1970s at the top of the Shankill Road an experience that has shaped his life and inspired his writing. Following successful more…
How should the Spanish government have handled the Catalan independence referendum? Option A: Do nothing. Let it go ahead and when the result is announced condemn it as meaningless and undemocratic. The world’s media would give it a passing tweet at most. Option B: Go heavy-handed. Send in police to smash up printing presses, seizing more…
In the bar last night I was talking with a guy who lives in Belfast but works in Swords in North County Dublin. He commutes around 3 hours 10mins a day, nearly 16 hours a week. He is up at 6am leaves the house at 6:30am and is in work for around 8am. He leaves work at 4 more…
It is fair to say that things are going to get worse. A friend in the civil service says they have been told to implement 4% cuts this year, 8% next year and 4% the year after. Education has a 105 million black hole. Health is getting 70 million chopped off its budget. And all more…
The head honcho of the Department of Education says there is a rather big hole in the education budget, from the BBC: Derek Baker, the department’s permanent secretary and the man in charge of the department in the absence of a minister. Mr Baker said that the department had £24m less in cash than last year, more…
Monday the 18th September – 7:15pm – The Dark Horse Bar, Belfast. Join us for a conversation with journalist Malachi O’Doherty about his new biography of the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. Your host for the evening will be Alan Meban. ‘Loathed, loved, terrorist to some, brilliant political strategist to others – what do we make of more…
In an interview in today’s Sunday Business Post the writer Roddy Doyle discusses the homeless situation in Dublin: It is the thing I feel ashamed of, more than anything, as a citizen. Somehow or other in the 1950’s and 1960’s, in this awful priest ridden country that we used to live in, they still managed to more…
We are pleased to have Allison Morris from the Irish News guest host this edition of Slugger TV. Her guests are Sophie Long and Julia Paul. You can watch it below at it will also be on NVTV this Friday at 19:45, and repeated on Saturday at 19:45. You can watch it below at it more…
Great article by Seanín Graham in today’s Irish News about the ever expanding waiting list for medical operations in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland patients are waiting on average five years for routine operations. This compares to less than a year in England. From the article: It emerged that one million patients are now waiting more…
You get the feeling they must be tripping over camera crews in loyalist areas. The recent DUP/Conservative deal has turned the eyes of the UK media towards Northern Ireland. A steady stream of film crews has been making the trip recently. You know the format by now: lots of footage of explosions, the obligatory standing more…
Very slick video from The Guardian, well worth a watch. From The Guardian post: East Belfast is the heartland of Protestant, unionist politics and therefore, one would believe, the natural support for Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party. The Guardian travelled to East Belfast to meet the core support for the party – which has just more…
If you commute into Belfast by car, you will know it is a pretty hellish experience. Congestion is getting worse. At peak times the Westlink is like a car park. Trains are already at capacity, so the best option is to increase bus usage. The Guardian has this to say about the benefits of bus more…
Over the past few years, there has been a major issue with underage kids drinking in the Falls Park and City Cemetary. At weekends hundreds of children gather to drink, take drugs and do all the usual things that teenagers do. The problem is especially severe in the summer. Underage drinking is not exactly new, but more…
People in Northern Ireland really love their diesel vehicles. In fact, around 60% of vehicles on the road are diesel powered, and about 45% of private cars. Just one small issue, diesel pollution is killing people. If sitting in a traffic jam on the Westlink is not depressing enough, now you know that you are also more…
The BBC has released salary details of presenters and stars earning more than 150K. As expected Stephen Nolan is the highest locally paid presenter earning a salary of between £400,000 and £449,999 a year. Nolan is famously a workaholic: The Belfast-born broadcaster presents a number of radio and TV programmes for the BBC. He presents more…
This month we celebrated our 15th Birthday. Over 36,000 posts and nearly a million comments later Slugger is stronger than ever. In the last month alone we have had over 150,000 readers! For those of you who love a bit of sexy data visualisation, we have this funky interactive report for our June traffic. You more…
Slugger Deputy Editor David McCann discusses this years election results with Chris Donnelly and Nelson McCausland. The TV Show is new for us so do let us know in the comments what you think. You can watch the episode above and it will also be broadcast on NVTV tonight at 20.45 & 00.15, and tomorrow at more…
Speaking on today’s BBC TalkBack show former SDLP MLA Alban Maginness declared that “Politics in NI is dead, has descended into sectarian mud-wrestling”. Is he right? As the voters abandon the middle ground is our political system now just a straight sectarian headcount? People were quick to accuse the SDLP of sour grapes: It's the egotism more…
