“Sinn Féin’s purported defence of social welfare recipients will play well to their galleries”

Noel Whelan in his Irish Times column notes a cooling in Washington towards the leader of the Sinn Fein this week: …there was a sense that Gerry Adams was feted and focused on less during this year’s St Patrick’s festivities and exchanges than in previous years. The situation with his on/off/on again meeting with the US state department reflects not so much a wariness about engaging with him in light of recent events but rather a weariness with Northern Ireland politics in …

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“It would be somewhat hypocritical to turn round and support strike action…”

listen to ‘Sinn Fein Flip Flop ’ on audioBoom On Talkback today, Will Crawley played this recording of Sinn Fein Education Minister John O’Dowd to remind Declan Kearney of his party’s disapproving stance of the strikes today, just last week: But this [strike] is part of an opposition to the Stormont House Agreement, and I think that’s a mistake. There is a fundamental mistake in the strategy of the unions that are being opposed to the Stormont House Agreement. I …

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Sinn Fein pull another ‘reverse ferret’ on welfare reform (oh yeah, and Syriza)…

So what have Gerry Adams and the megalomaniacal (and, let it be said, commercially successful) demagogically simplifying former editor of The Sun Kelvin McKenzie got in common? They are/were both aficionados of the Reverse Ferret. Wikipedia describes it thusly: …used predominantly within the British media to describe a sudden reversal in an organisation’s editorial line on a certain issue. Generally, this will involve no acknowledgement of the previous position. In today’s Irish News, Tom Kelly filed a column on a parallel reverse …

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