Trump’s America is increasingly a case of America coming last
The very fact that Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, has resigned and has joined a long line of discarded Trump appointees raises the obvious question as to the fitness of Trump to remain in office. The churning in his cabinet appointments demonstrates without more that he is and was unsuitable for office and […]
The Democrats need a new face on their posters in 2020
To those of you who, like me, have a very low regard for Donald Trump, 2019 promises to be a year in which his mettle will be tested severely and hopefully exposed for the horror that it is. It isn’t yet clear whether his trade war with China was one of the major contributory factors […]
A recent visit to Belfast exposed a gulf in political perception
Having visited Belfast this week in the company of fellow independent members of Seanad Eireann with a view to engaging with a wide spectrum of civic society and political actors, I noticed an increasing gulf in political perception between those active in civil society and those temporarily inactive in political society as members of the […]
We do not need to feel too much sympathy for Theresa May
The penny is beginning to drop with many, many British voters. There is no prospect of a hard Brexit any more. Britain will, one way or another, have a very close economic and trading relationship with the EU. That means that the UK will not be able to negotiate free trade deals as it wishes […]
We would be naive to think we have seen the worst of Trump
In early October, Donald Trump informed one of his red-neck rallies that he had recently reminded the ageing Saudi king Salman that he and his dynasty wouldn’t last two weeks if it were not for American support. If his report of that conversation is true ( and unfortunately that is uncertain, given Trump’s panache for […]
The political and constitutional factors underlying the utterly dysfunctional state of UK politics
The crisis in Westminster is entirely the making of David Cameron’s folly in committing to hold a referendum on EU membership so as to see off the UKIP challenge to the Tory right flank. That particular strategy was adopted by Cameron because of their crude “first past the post” system which still remains as a […]