BBCNI Spotlight

Spotlight on Donaldson shows much of the public narrative around dealing with the past is utterly fake

| Readers 3434

https://youtu.be/apBLMtOtI9Q Every time a new story comes out of the spy woodwork it is like a walk 0n the weird side. What was interesting about last night’s Spotlight was how calmly it was received on social media.  You quickly get to understand why everyone chooses to believe the version they want to hear. I still struggle to believe that Alan McQuillan didn’t know his cops would turn up in force that day, or that Hugh Orde (a politicians cop if ever …

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“If a member of any branch of Fine Gael around the country was exiled, I would find him or her in 10 minutes.”

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Okay, on the basis that most of the outputs around the Paudie McGahan story are repetitive and, frankly, depressing, let’s turn to Miriam Lord (€)… Why is Sinn Féin being singled out here? It’s most unfair. You can’t expect a political party/republican movement the size of Sinn Fein to know about every senior IRA operative who’s been accused of sex abuse. And you certainly can’t expect the party leader to know, particularly as he was never in the IRA. The …

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#ShinnersList: Government had to trust Sinn Fein not to use this private arrangement to their own narrow advantage

| Readers 45

I was on the Irish Times Inside Politics with Hugh Linihan and Martin Mansergh. The OTR section starts with an interview with Finola Meredith at about 31 minutes in. I kick off my own remarks with the suggestion that if any political party in the south had been caught striking the kind of clandestine arrangement the #ShinnersList appears to be (jury is still out on just what it was in its fullest extent, the government would have fallen. Why? Exhibit …

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#Gay Marriage: Who says you can’t have religious symbols? The Law

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Oh dear. When Stephen told Arlene the truth about Gay Marriage. [She needs to get an upgrade for that religion as civil law App – Ed] Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Spotlight Poll: A ‘crisis’ of widespread political mislabelling?

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It says something about how little parties in Northern Ireland spend talking to their voters that last night’s findings (full data here) seem to have knocked all of the parties back on their heels last night. It was a bit like an old fashioned Dimbleby election night show only one where every single party had to spin some form of bad news as good. There were two facts that demonstrate that what we’ve been witnessing since early December is non …

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