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What you need to know SDLP warn that failure to agree Budget could cut public spending by almost £1 billion On Monday (22 June), the SDLP used an opposition day motion to highlight the potential costs of the Executive’s continued failure to agree a Budget, the Belfast Telegraph reports. If a Budget has not been agreed by 1 August, departments will be unable to spend more than 95% of the previous year’s total allocation. The SDLP claims that “research based on …

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The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

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In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

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I stare at the protruding wires of my brand new Honda Accord mirror lying smashed on the ground like the head of a Cobra. Nauseous, I phone the seller of the car, to be informed the mirror is unrepairable. A new one is £350 plus vat. Only authorised Honda dealerships could provide them. Nosy Stella, the receptionist who was eavesdropping the phone conversation informs me, You should go to a breakers yard and try there. There’s one in Upperlands, Quinns. …

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It must be twenty years ago now. My parents were in their mid-seventies so I took them holiday to France for a week while they were still healthy and mobile enough to do so. I rented a gite in St Valery-sur-Somme, a picturesque fishing village at the mouth of the Somme estuary. The town’s chief claim to fame is a tower where Joan of Arc was briefly imprisoned en route to meet her fate at Rouen. My father and I …

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Back in January, Sinn Féin minister John O’Dowd put his proposed three-year budget out for consultation. His statement on the consultation highlighted what he saw as a key issue in terms of the contributions from the British government and finished with a warning to his Executive colleagues… “There is no doubt the ongoing under investment in public services by the British Government means that both the Resource and Capital DEL funding position remain extremely constrained. Our public services are facing …

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Today, ten years ago, the loyal citizens of Her Majesty’s United Kingdom took to the polls and told that motley crew of French cheese-eating surrender monkeys, joyless German technocrats, lazy Spanish siesta lovers and over-sexed Italians and all the other godless heathens of continental Europe that they take their EU and shovel it up their big jam roll. Since in there has been nothing but sunny uplands, the UK economy has soared. There has been political stability and societal harmony …

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Croatia. I was 20 minutes late, having popped into Lidl for cat litter on the way to the pub; meanwhile, Harry Kane was purring for England, having put his country 1-0 up. My heart sank upon entering the hostillery and clocking the score, worried the jeopardy for the night was already over. Nobody wants a whitewash, do they? (Although, these days, you just can’t be sure…). A frothy pint in one hand, and, to my surprise, a raffle ticket placed …

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The economic cost of failing to invest in Northern Ireland’s future is becoming increasingly apparent. A new Ulster University Strategic Policy Unit report, Unlocking NI’s Potential: A Framework for Economic Transformation , provides a compelling analysis of the challenges facing the region and sets out a series of ambitious recommendations to unlock long-term growth. Below are some reflections on the key themes and recommendations contained within this important and valuable report. At a time when Northern Ireland faces mounting fiscal …

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The jury has made its decision in the Jeffrey Donaldson trial and they have found him guilty of all 18 sex abuse charges, including one charge of rape. His wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson, who faced five charges including four related to aiding and abetting, found to have done the acts. She cannot be found guilty as she is facing a trial of the facts after being declared unfit for a conventional trial. He has been sent to jail now and …

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The political grapevine is buzzing today with reports from The Guardian suggesting that Keir Starmer will announce his resignation timetable today. Word on the street is that he intends to stick around until the autumn. This feels like a bizarre move. Announcing a departure months in advance is the fastest way to turn a Prime Minister into a dead duck. The moment a leader puts an expiry date on their tenure, power immediately begins to evaporate. Politics relies heavily on …

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The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

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In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

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‘It’s a great album’ says Shaun, ‘a huge departure for Adamson. He’s better away from that troublemaker Jobson’. That was a reference to The Crossing, the debut album from Scottish band Big Country plus the acrimonious split from his previous band The Skids. I feign full knowledge of the internecine musical squabble, although with superficial knowledge of The Skids from my previous incarnation as a punk rocker at the turn of the previous decade, I never possessed anything near the …

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Warning: Contains middle aged male rants about derelict buildings, please walkaway now if you fear boredom I was in Bangor recently (ish) with the younglings. I had heard about the state of the town on previous rants about the state of Northern Irish towns. I parked at Asda and came on to a main street which seemed healthy enough (so, I’m still running with the theory that supermarkets should be placed in towns rather than outskirts, fyi). However, the closer …

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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, …

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From the Guardian: Andy Burnham has set up a potential showdown with Keir Starmer after convincingly winning the Makerfield byelection, paving the way for his return to Westminster and a likely tilt at the Labour leadership. The outgoing mayor of Greater Manchester promised change after winning the byelection in the early hours of Friday morning with 55% of the votes and a majority almost double the size of his predecessor, Josh Simons. The scale of the win has prompted talk …

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The DE has made equity the promise of its new knowledge-rich curriculum, and the case for clearer, sequenced content is real. But several of the elements that would actually deliver that equity, religious education, Irish-medium and special-needs provision, and the statutory assessment that should align with them, sit outside this consultation, and the equality assessment certifies the benefits of a system that has not yet been finished. The reform deserves engagement rather than rejection, but not a blank cheque for …

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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 …

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