Obelisk 
Normally when I write a post for Slugger it is because I want to articulate a point of view on a given topic, but sometimes something comes up which wasn’t on my radar yet I still feel is worth talking about. I want to emphasise I am not an expert on this, I merely wish to highlight it. According to Paul Ainsworth, writing in ‘The Irish News‘, there are twice as many Catholics than Protestants on remand in Northern Ireland …
A year ago, President Trump addressed the United Nations for the first time in his second term. As I chronicled at the time, it appeared to mark the passing of something profound in the intangible concept of American exceptionalism, the ‘shining city on a hill’ as Ronald Reagan put it. The belief that America was something special. Yes, I know this was for many a useful hypocrisy but the point was a lot of Americans genuinely believed it and a …
On October 30th 1974, the world was treated to a boxing spectacle for the ages in Kinshasa. The legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle ’ saw Muhammad Ali turn the strengths of the formidable George Foreman back against the reigning champion. You see, Ali leant back into the ropes of the ring to absorb his stronger opponent’s blows to tire him out before going on the offensive himself. As Ali approached the moment in which he delivered the coup de grâce, …
The PSNI seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, don’t they? With police numbers falling and budgets squeezed year on year, they are increasingly being called upon to do more with less and, more often than not, being perceived as doing fairly badly at it. Compounding their problems, they are expected to police a post-conflict divided society wherein their support from one section of the community is reserved at best and often non-existent at worst, creating …
I wasn’t immune to the recent World Cup. Even though the Republic failed to qualify and so I had nobody to root for, it was still the biggest spectacle on the planet for a few heady weeks this summer. But for me the real drama in the sport of football is not on the field but in the boardrooms and offices in which the sport is managed. Who needs to watch Messi when you can observe the manoeuvrings and fumbles …
So, I have a theory. My theory is that when D’hondt was run following the restoration of the institutions over two years ago, the DUP deliberately avoided picking up the Finance portfolio (they chose Education after Sinn Féin chose Economy) because they figured it would cause them to share in taking it in the neck from a public who despair of anything being done to improve our local circumstances. Sinn Féin on their second choice chose Finance, allowing the DUP …
It has been over three months now since Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was swept out of power in Hungary and two months since Péter Magyar, the man who vanquished him, officially took over. It was an ignominious end for a man who openly boasted about turning Hungary into an illiberal democracy. As he said in his infamous speech announcing this intention back in 2014… …the Hungarian nation is not simply a group of individuals but a community that must be …
In a few weeks the United States will be celebrating its 250th birthday. By any standards, its existence has been nothing short of remarkable. What was a quarter of a millennium ago a backwards, agrarian state conducting a novel experiment with a limited form of democracy matured into a planet-bestriding juggernaut that has dominated global affairs for the guts of the past century. An American century. Yet if history teaches us one thing it is in the impermanence of power, …
It’s not often we can accuse our legislators of being efficient but on Monday night they actually managed it when the rejection of an amendment designed to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 failed with the deployment of a petition of concern. There are three stories in one here and you can’t really get more efficient than that. Firstly, there was the amendment itself… Alliance MLA Sian Mulholland proposed the amendment to the (Justice)Bill, which would …
Earlier this year, Westminster began rolling out new rights for workers which include such things as changes to statutory sick pay, day one family leave, whistle-blowing protections and measures aimed at strengthening the rights of Trade Unions. This is reversal of trends that had been dominant under the previous Conservative government which had sought to curtail Trade Union rights as it could such as with the Trade Union Act of 2016 (which imposed more onerous requirements on organising a strike). …
Earlier this month former Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting and future long-shot party leader candidate Wes Streeting caused a bit of a stir when he not only declared that the United Kingdom leaving the European Union was a ‘catastrophic mistake’ but he advocated the country should actually rejoin. Sure enough, the English right spun into action, spurred by their indignation, with the BBC reporting that… Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake seized on Streeting’s comment, saying “whilst Labour relitigate Brexit, Britain …
In the wake of the ceasefire last Autumn and the eruption of the war with Iran at the end of February, Gaza has faded from the headlines somewhat. However, the consequences of a conflict that has been labelled a genocide by the United Nations have not gone away. The population of Gaza remains hemmed within the ‘Yellow Line‘, the ceasefire line that separates the 47% of Gaza that remains under Palestinian control from the 53% of the remainder that Israel …
As I write this, British cabinet ministers are gathering in Downing Street for what is surely the most fateful moment of Keir Starmer’s premiership. Yesterday, over 60 Labour backbencher MPs AND the Home Secretary publicly called on him to quit in the wake of Labour’s disastrous performance at the local elections, the culmination of a torrid period of missteps and mistakes defined by his cataclysmic error of judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson to be US ambassador. There are roughly three …
When unresolved tensions and collapsing relationships in the Executive reached boiling point, the very last thing that was needed was for the DUP Communities Minister Paul Givan to push things over the edge by withdrawing funding related to the the Líofa bursary, a scheme designed to support young people study the Irish Language at the Gaeltacht. Whilst not the sole cause of what was to follow, that single petty act proved to be the point of no return as the …
The American relationship with Cuba over the past century and a bit could charitably be described as complicated. The island was ‘liberated’ from Spanish control following the Spanish-American War of 1898 though in reality the United States heavily circumscribed Cuban independence under the terms of the Platt Amendments (which allowed the US to intervene in Cuba if it so chose), turning the island into a de facto vassal. All of this was in keeping with the Monroe Doctrine and the …
I was expecting to write this post later tonight rather than you seeing it this Monday morning. Whilst all the polling had suggested that Viktor Orbán was heading for a massive defeat, there was a possibility that his Fidesz party was laying the groundwork to contest the election and that the end result would be exceptionally messy. So whilst I was pretty sure, based on reporting, that he was going to lose, I was surprised to see that late last …
A few hours ago, President Donald Trump posted the following message on his Truth Social website. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex …
Nothing stands still. The best statecraft is not about attempting to freeze society at a specific moment in time you deem ideal or about trying to return to a lost perfection that has been swept away by events. The best statecraft is about navigating the tides and eddies of history to achieve the optimal results for as many people as possible at any given moment, even if various leaders aim for certain outcomes along the way. The future thus belongs …
We are now in week three of the ongoing conflict between the United States (and Israel) and Iran. The fog of war means 100% certainty on what is happening on the ground is impossible, but we do have the social media equivalent of a foghorn to guide us partially through the miasma. Namely, the American President, though what he has said has often been contradictory. Trump has at times claimed the war has been ‘won’ and that the Americans don’t …
Keir Starmer may not want to admit it, but the general belief at this moment in time is that he is entering the twilight of his premiership. His political capital has been depleted by his many missteps with each one cascading into the next. His multiple U-turns. His decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in a by-election in a transparent political move to head off a potential leadership challenge by strangling it in the crib. Labour’s subsequent catastrophic loss …
