Sammy Wilson – Slugger O'Toole

Sammy Wilson gets a frosty reception at Markethill rally…

Brian O'Neill on February 19, 2022, 9:54 am | Readers 7784

Normally a populist crowd-pleaser to the Unionist faithful, Sammy Wilson got a very bad reception at the Markethill Anti NI Protocol rally last night. More footage of Sammy Wilson DUP MP getting booed and jeered at Markethill…if this is anything to go by they are in for a rough election! Notable that Donaldson who app cancelled last min would have likely had an even worse reception over latest ‘betrayal’ of communities 😬 pic.twitter.com/FLieZIqmY2 — Carla Lang (@CarlaLangNI) February 19, 2022 …

And now the fate of the entire country could be placed in the hands of Sammy &Co

Brian Walker on March 27, 2019, 12:09 am | Readers 7020

I may have forecast the isolation of the DUP too quickly. First Boris – sidling backwards into it supporting Mrs May’s deal. And now Jacob Rees Mogg has had his Damascus moment and appears to have placed the fate of Theresa May’s deal in the DUP’s hands. But is there less to this than meets the eye? If anything the DUP’s position has hardened. It has dawned on them that the likely final settlement will take on the shape of …

Foster’s ‘blonde’ comment: only one piece of a bigger picture of sexism within DUP?

Soapbox on May 15, 2017, 6:30 am | Readers 3507

Instances of sexist remarks by DUP politicians are too frequent to be put down to an occasional badly worded comment. It is the job of a politician to say what they mean and there can be little room for ambiguity when it comes to an issue as important as a basic respect for women.

Soapbox: As a decent human being it is beholden upon Sammy Wilson to defy these views

Soapbox on March 1, 2016, 6:54 pm | Readers 3425

Chris Eisenstadt is a US citizen who has been living in Northern Ireland. He is also a member of the Ulster Unionist Party. Here he considers the controversy over Sammy Wilson’s engagement captured by BBC reporter, Conor Spackman. Northern Ireland isn’t a racist place. Sure, it has issues with racism, and a few racists live here, but fundamentally it isn’t a place where racism is part of the fabric of society. It isn’t a place where causal, ignorant and lazy …

Has the DUP taken their first public steps to back a Brexit?

David McCann on November 25, 2015, 12:29 pm | Readers 1226

IN OR OUT: Sammy Wilson issued an interesting press release today highlighting his attendance at Leave EU event and even had his picture taken with the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.

Wilson: The Lords Yell ‘Up The Workers’

Soapbox on October 29, 2015, 12:07 pm | Readers 1313

The recent Tax Credit vote in the House of Lords has caused some controversy. Writing for Slugger, the DUP MP, Sammy Wilson talks about the vote and how other parties in Northern Ireland have approached this issue. Following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour Leader you’d have expected the cries of ‘Up the Workers’ to be ringing through parliament from the Commons. Yet this week it was the lords, ladies, barons, earls and bishops in the upper chamber raised the workers …

Sammy Wilson steps down from the Assembly

David McCann on August 3, 2015, 9:23 pm | Readers 1736

One of our most colourful MLAs has stepped down from the Assembly. Former Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson has resigned as an MLA for East Antrim in order to concentrate on Westminster. Speaking about his decision he said; Having served as Finance Minister for four years it is deeply disappointing that I leave the Assembly at a time of such uncertainty caused because of the economic illiteracy of both Sinn Fein and the SDLP. Their refusal to live up to the …

The Key Players in Nama/Tughans Deal – who the DFP Committee want to hear from

Patricia MacBride on July 7, 2015, 11:56 am | Readers 4964

The Department of Finance and Personnel Committee met today to schedule hearings to investigate the Project Eagle sale of Nama’s Loan Book in the north. The first of the hearings have been provisionally scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday the 15th and 16th of July The Assembly Research Team have been tasked with providing a draft of questions and timeline of events to the Committee. There was widespread support for early hearings across all the parties attending, given the level of …

Stewart Dickson: Comprendre t-il?

Turgon on January 23, 2015, 6:45 pm | Readers 656

A scant few days ago many in the world were united in saying “Je suis Charlie” to identify with the journalists at Charlie Hebdo. Many may regard Charlie Hebdo as frequently insulting, tasteless and at times unpleasant. However, the point was that freedom of speech to say (or write or draw) insulting, tasteless and unpleasant views is a vital tenant of democracy. Unfortunately Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson seems not to have understood the principle. He has now complained to the …

Sammy Wilson … Reason 254 why local politicians need Atlantic Philanthropies’ money & initiatives like PoliticsPlus

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 16, 2015, 2:34 pm | Readers 1624

A little over an hour ago and about half way through a response to the rhetorical question “What has new or social media ever done for the peace process?” I suggested to the Critical Approaches to the Northern Ireland Peace Process symposium in Liverpool’s Edge Hill University that it has made it harder for politicians to recover their balance when they slip on banana skins. You can follow conference updates on the #CritAppEH hashtag. And then I spotted a Facebook …

Brimstone evasive in face of DSD questions re Red Sky and Palmer

The Firemen on January 15, 2015, 3:08 pm | Readers 3802

UPDATED – Now with video DUP SPAD Stephen Brimstone had a stock answer (“I’m not prepared to answer questions in relation to internal party matters) for most questions put to him by the DSD Committee Hearing today in light of allegations made in BBCNI’s Spotlight programme into Red Sky, Nelson Mc Causland and Cllr Jenny Palmer. Ably put on the hook by the TUV’s Jim Allister, Brimstone looked more than evasive as he paused …

Noisy DUP conference focuses on election and a one-sided understanding of respect and tolerance #dup14

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 22, 2014, 9:21 pm | Readers 3479

The DUP were in election mode at their annual conference this year. Gone was any outreach to soft unionist voters. Faced with a first-past-the-post election in May 2015, the DUP reverted to core values for core voters. Attendance in the main hall of La Mon Hotel for Peter Robinson’s address was a little down on the previous couple of years: the seats were all taken but there were fewer people standing at the back. New members I’d noticed a few …

Cartoon – The judge and fury

Brian Spencer on October 17, 2014, 1:04 am | Readers 575

Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/

The Nasty Face Of Nationalism

The Firemen on September 24, 2014, 7:01 pm | Readers 3772

A PERSONAL VIEW by Derec Thompson Derec Thompson is a self-employed web designer originally from Belfast who now lives in Cambuslang just outside Glasgow. He was recently involved as a campaigner for a Yes outcome in the Scottish independence referendum and has consequently joined the Scottish National Party. Follow Derec on Twitter I’ve just emerged from the first political campaign I’ve ever been involved in. The Scottish independence referendum campaign has possibly been the longest in living memory. As …

Corporation Tax powers finally set to be devolved?

Turgon on August 18, 2014, 3:27 pm | Readers 1141

The Belfast Telegraph has a number of articles about the devolution of control over Corporation Tax: with a timeline here. From the Belfast Telegraph: Finance Minister Simon Hamilton said: “I am optimistic that we will get a positive answer from the Prime Minister. “I think that the Government wants to do this and we have made a very robust case to them.” A senior Tory source concurred with this assessment. However, the cost of cutting the tax is likely to …

Silk Commission, Sammy Wilson and the DUP’s impromptu dismissal of tax varying powers…

Mick Fealty on November 7, 2013, 6:08 pm | Readers 65

Newton Emerson today usefully points at Wales and the recent work of the Silk Commission on the devolution of further powers to raise and lower taxes. It’s worth looking more closely at Wales. For a country that only just squeaked devolution (there was about 7k votes majority in favour in a voting electorate of just over a million), the levels of trust in the Senedd seem remarkably high: 62% of the respondents would like to see increased powers for the …

DUP illustrate unionist leadership as #RuthPatterson is in court

John Ó Néill on August 23, 2013, 12:57 pm | Readers 301

Yesterday Ruth Patterson attended court for her Facebook post and provided an interesting piece of optics for the television cameras. In a considered move, a variety of DUP ministers and other public representatives, including Edwin Poots, Sammy Wilson, Jonathan Bell and Guy Spence (to name a few), attended the court hearing or accompanied her to and from the court, clearly with an eye on the cameras. Other unionist glitterati in attendance included Willie Frazer and others taunting Patterson to get …

Is Peter Robinson’s leadership goose cooked?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 22, 2013, 11:30 am | Readers 177

In his annual self-imposed Florida exile, Peter Robinson must be increasingly frustrated as he reads newspaper articles and blog posts on his iPad, and listens to radio clips discussing the expected end of his political career up on the hill. So far he’s shown self-control and avoided stabbing at his Twitter app to respond. It’s been a long summer for the First Minister at home in Northern Ireland, with two recalls of the Assembly, trouble flaring up in North and …

Sinn Fein decides to bin Mr Wilson’s dodgy estimates (and one of its key pro #borderpoll arguments)…

Mick Fealty on July 3, 2013, 3:35 pm | Readers 68

Just in passing… Absentee Westminster MP Conor Murphy on the unreliability of Sammy Wilson’s estimates: “Mr Wilson insists that the methodology used to produce his figures is identical to those used for Scotland and that they are international standards for the compiling of statistics and have to be adhered to and are subject to a degree of rigour and international scrutiny. He fails to add that when Scotland launched a robust challenge to this methodology it was admitted by British …

G8 Summit: “Of course, the event did not come for free…”

Pete Baker on July 2, 2013, 4:09 pm | Readers 68

As the BBC reports, the Northern Ireland Finance Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, has revised, upwards, his estimate of the cost of the recent G8 Summit in Fermanagh. Here’s the relevant extract from Hansard There has been much focus on the cost of the G8 event. The most important thing is that we successfully delivered a safe and secure event, and, for that, I give my sincere thanks to the PSNI. Of course, the event did not come for free, and, …