Budget day has lost all excitement. It is now an attritional struggle between ministers
Bearing in mind the political reality that the Government is facing the prospect of a national wage agreement which is expected to increase nominal wages by 5 per cent at least, the structure of our income tax system means that tax bands and credits would have had to increase proportionally just to leave people where […]
Drumcree row is a useful smokescreen for dysfunctional relationship between Sinn Féin and DUP
You can’t have a proper grasp of the Drumcree standoff until you have read the masterly account of the background in the book by eminent journalist and social historian, Susan McKay, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. Without it, you are seeing the issue as through a glass darkly to borrow a biblical phrase. Her chapter […]
There is every reason to fear what despotic Trump may do in the next two years
In yet another lie, US president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, that he had “very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers”. He continued: “The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus. The pricing would be substantially less than we […]
Citizenship is more than a residence right and our laws are not racist
Contrary to what some people assert, there is nothing racist in Ireland’s law of nationality and citizenship. When the independent Irish State was created in 1922, its Constitution provided at Article 3 that the citizens of the Irish Free State were those born in Ireland or either of whose parents was born in Ireland, or […]
A Failed Border Poll Is Worse Than Futile
British prime minister Andy Burnham caused a flap when he said holding a poll on Irish unity was “off the table”. To some, his words seemed categorical, dismissive and at variance with the Belfast Agreement, which provides for a poll on Irish unity to ascertain the wishes of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. It obliges the […]
Ireland is hopelessly undefended and radical review is required
One lesson we can learn from the war in Ukraine is that warfare itself is constantly evolving. When Putin’s invasion started we witnessed his armoured columns driving towards Kyiv and ending in smouldering ruins. Presumably Putin envisaged his tanks rolling into Kyiv utterly unscathed, just as Soviet tanks rolled in to Dubcek’s Prague in 1968 […]