The Good Friday Agreement is in the frame for Theresa May’s challenge to the backstop

  In their renegotiation campaign the UK government are offering belated assurances that the proposals they’re about to make to replace or qualify their backstop involve no weakening of their commitment to the Good Friday Agreement. The attention-grabbing part of foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt’s BBC interview was his hint – subsequently denied by No 10 – that withdrawal might have to be delayed to after 29 March.  While he declined  to give details, the “ alternative arrangements include: a “trusted …

Read more…

DUP sending signals to the Conservative parliamentary party?

This morning the Conservatives launched in Northern Ireland [what, again? – Ed] Yes, they’re NI Conservatives now rather than Conservatives NI. Now, where was I? Oh yes. There were a few names there, many of them former (unelected) supporters of the UCU-NF. Yesterday however it was the DUP rather than the local Tories who caught the attention of Conservative Home when four of their number voted with Conservatives on a vote of no confidence (and against Labour and the Lib …

Read more…

“That’s the sort of “local” that these TV stations will be.”

Having scrapped plans for a syndicated Local TV network, last week the UK Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced a list of 65 areas across the UK identified by Ofcom as suitable for local TV services – including Belfast [and Lisburn], Londonderry, and Limavady [including parts of Ballymoney and Coleraine].  The list is expected to be further “narrowed down to about 20 contenders for the first set of licences before the end of the year.”  The local stations’ set-up costs will be subsidised from …

Read more…