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Peter Weir is hitting the campaign trail earlier than most. Last week he was spotted on the streets of Holywood with a number of young DUP worthies preparing to leaflet unsuspecting constituents of a key area in the relatively affluent North Down constituency. Today he is turning his attention to his former UUP colleagues, Burnside and Donaldson. The Belfast Telegraph suggests four options the Ulster Unionists might take. Durkan warns Trimble not to mess with the devolved institutions. Update: Pre …

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Thanks to my friend and colleague Abi, we have a couple of improvements.. The archives are up and working – at last! Just go to the archive and click on a date. For instance if you want to know want the letter was saying around the 12th of July, click on the week beginning 7 Jul 2002 and it’ll take you to that page. To webloggers, the permalinks are now working – just hit the time of the post and …

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Ulster jockey Tony McCoy has spent the last 7 years breaking all time records on the UK horse racing circuit, with very few of us taking much notice. And he’s only 28! Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

David Trimble, presumably refreshed from holidays, has fed a media hungry for ‘real’ stories with plenty of copy. He is categorically not quitting, according to Alan Erwin. And according to Chris Thornton: “The heart seems to have gone out of the No struggle. Several of the most passionate anti-Agreement members have left for pastures oranger, joining the DUP. Many of those who remain prefer to be called Agreement sceptics rather than opponents. South Antrim MP David Burnside, so far the …

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After yesterday’s statement on policing, Mitchel McLaughlin turns his attention to the Mark Durkan speech in Co Cork, while in turn Unionist Fred Cobain threatens to walk out if Sinn Fein try ‘to ‘creep in the back door’. Durkan’s speech gets a more sympathetic hearing from Eric Waugh. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Since the Spanish government banned Batasuna, there has been a lot of coverage in British newspapers. The line taken by the Daily Telegraph (also taken says that that Blair should follow Aznar. However Unionist commentator Stephen King, suggests caution to hardliners, pointing to the fact that in the whilst the left in Spain is behind the ban, not much support is likely to come from the British left. David McKitterick in the Independent offers the Northern Ireland experience as an …

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The First Minister is due to meet police chiefs today – the first sign that he is back from Europe and back the saddle. The question is, for how long? Update: For those who thought he might give up with a whimper, it looks like he’s not planning to go just yet. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Aincheist mhorálta do Trimble, ‘s do chach. Loiteadh cuid de thaispeántas i Learpholl agus creidtear gur dílseoirí a rinne an damáiste. Chomdháil dhomhanda ar chúrsaí timpeallachta i Johannesburg in Afraic Theas. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

The First Minister will attend the Earth Summit at Johannesburg for the last three days of the Summit. Mark Devenport compares Northern Ireland’s performance on the environment with Scotland and the Republic; and finds it badly wanting. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Although David Trimble’s warning of a nightmare for Ulster has yet to come to fruition, David Burnside is one senior party member has backed the calling of another meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, effectively the only decision making body within the UUP. There is some speculation within Unionist circles that Burnside may first in line to succeed Trimble as party leader, were the crisis to precipitate a resignation. Meanwhile Trimble spells it out for many of his Unionist opponents, …

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Perhaps in an attempt to cool the waters before the crisis within Unionism recommences this Autumn, Mitchel McLaughlan told Radio Ulster this morning that Sinn Fein will join the policing board, when Tony Blair implements promised changes to current legislation. The policing board has been the subject of controversy ever since the publication of the blueprint document last year, with only the SDLP initially taking op their seats on it. After a summer in which the party has largely avoided …

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Despite all the coverage of recent weeks, it is hard to find anyone willing to sort out where the basic ground lies. There’s an interesting offering in the pipeline from the Cheif Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs, Jonathan Freedland reports in the Guardian. “The latest challenge is to construct a way for different cultures to get along in a globalised world. The old mechanisms were fine in their day, says Sacks: the principles of religious tolerance or separation of church and state …

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Jude Collins refutes the idea that everyone within the context of NI is per se a bigot. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Ciaran Irvine weighs up the prospects of a Fianna Fail /SDLP merger, but asks what will happen to Social Democracy in any new situation arising? Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

One Orangeman in Derry told me last week that the crunch for the Orange Order in the coming years would deciding whether they are an essentially religious organisation, or one dedicated entirely to politics. The Order he argued had got itself caught in all manner of impossible tangles because it had tried to carry forward two agendas at once. Malachy O’Doherty reports on some strange anomalies that defy many suppositions about the nature of loyalism. It has long been a …

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As Trimble confirms his attendence at the WSSD comment has been slow to gather about this major world event in Ireland, North or South. The Belfast Telegraph gave editorial space to it to today: “With Northern Ireland rapidly running out of landfill capacity such questions suddenly seem pertinent. The mountains of redundant fridges are the tip of an environmental iceberg.” Even those who are going to take a ringside at the biggest event since a similar summit in Rio ten …

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This story produced an extraordinary amount of journalism, and an equally extraordinary diversity of opinion. I don’t often express strong comment in the letter, but Tom Utley’s offering for Saturdy’s Daily Telegraph beats all comers for its utter vacuity Lennon is a big girl’s blouse. Tom McGurk’s normally faultless analysis is majorly undermined by two glaring inaccuracies pointed out by on-line readers at the end of the article. Amy Lawrence in the Observer quantifies the real cost of such incidents, …

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Cahal Milmo on the crisis within the new police service. David Pallister in the Guardian says: “With 10% of the force on sick leave, and more than 730 injured in the past year, Mr Cramphorn said: “The cumulative effect of this is to generate levels of fatigue and tiredness which diminish the effectiveness and the quality of the officers’ contributions when they are at work. Such levels of activity cannot be sustained.”” Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily …

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Brian Walker quotes Macauley with regard to the position of the loyalists of Derry: “The faults which are normally found in dominant castes have not seldom shown themselves without disguise at her festivities; and even with the expressions of pious gratitude which have resounded from her pulpits have too often been mingled words of wrath and defiance”. And he finishes: “The gerrymander was lifted long ago but its curse still lingers. Nowadays the lesson Protestant Londonderry has to teach the …

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The letters pages in any paper often throw up insights that are not picked up by journalists. There’s an interesting reaction to Steven King’s piece in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph from Christopher Lyttle: “Surely unionists have learnt from the past. The problem with the Sunningdale Agreement was that unionism destroyed it and then had no alternative in place. This is a mirror image of today with the DUP shouting from the rooftops about the “Dublin Agreement” but they have not told …

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