Mitchell McLaughlin

Of Speakers, yoghurt, murdering pensioners and hypocrisy

Turgon on January 17, 2015, 4:23 pm93 Comments | Readers 2436

This week saw Mitchell McLaughlin elected as Speaker of the Assembly. The News Letter pointed to his previous comments refusing to accept that the murder of Jean McConville was a crime. Leaving aside McLaughlin personally there is a certain symbolism in a Sinn Fein speaker being elected just a week before the 34th anniversary of the murder of the old Stormont speaker Sir Norman Stronge. Sir Norman was born in 1894 and fought at the Somme. His election as speaker …

“No one in this small, enclosed biosphere ever told them this project was never going to work in the first place…”

Pete Baker on August 17, 2010, 4:10 pm69 Comments | Readers 29

In the Belfast Telegraph, Henry McDonald analyses the logically consistent, if callous, recent comments by independent councillor Martin Connolly. From the Belfast Telegraph article No matter how repulsive you might find his response to what could have been a double-murder of a woman and a child, Connolly’s position reflects traditional republicanism and its attitude towards the security forces. It also, paradoxically, illuminates the central problem facing mainstream republicans, particularly Sinn Fein: the durability of ideology. Last Tuesday evening, the other …