Farmers have a point - if only they could make it more reasonablyNew rules introduced by the UK government bring a quarter of farms back within inheritance tax, after three decades of being fully exempt. They’re right to be annoyed, but sympathy is waningThu Nov 21 2024 - 06:00
Politicians need to decide if Northern Ireland is desperately poor or so rich it requires no helpWhat passes for debate on a united Ireland is endlessly derailed by absurd claims from activists, academics and politicians. At least Fianna Fáil has now begun putting flesh on the bones of its plansThu Nov 14 2024 - 06:00
Gavin Robinson and the DUP need to reach out with style as well as substanceThe DUP gives the impression of modernising at minimum speed, while being constantly tempted by conservative culture-war positionsThu Nov 07 2024 - 06:00
It is dangerous to compare the slave trade and British rule in IrelandRobert Jenrick’s suggestion that former colonies ‘owe a debt of gratitude’ to the British empire is one of the more robust responses to reparations debateThu Oct 31 2024 - 06:00
Stormont’s only ideology is to be a shadow of BritainAn almost total dearth of ideology, beyond unionism or nationalism, may be the deepest North-South political divideThu Oct 24 2024 - 06:00
Britain’s anti-obesity jab plan is the stuff of sci-fiDrastic action is considered essential, but this is part of a wider strategy that represents a looming calamity for StormontThu Oct 17 2024 - 06:00
Michael McMonagle scandal: Sinn Féin needs to get to grips with its troubled relationship with moneyNot every organisation passes its employees around like a pilfered stapler until nobody is quite sure what is going onThu Oct 10 2024 - 06:00
How Northern Ireland’s supermarket aisles have become another Brexit battlegroundBrexit and the sea border have dragged all aspects of trade with Northern Ireland into the zero-sum game of traditional politicsThu Oct 03 2024 - 06:00
Why Dublin, London and Stormont are still bankrolling loyalistsThroughout the negotiations of the 1990s, the British government and many others encouraged loyalism to develop a political project mirroring that of Sinn Féin. This briefly appeared realisticThu Sept 26 2024 - 06:00
Stop blaming unionists for the Casement Park debacleWhat remains of the Euros plan is rancour and paranoia, a sorry legacy for what was meant to be an inspiring cross-community projectThu Sept 19 2024 - 07:16
In their cosy new embrace, Starmer and Harris may be forgetting the Belfast AgreementConcerns are being raised by experts that north-south and east-west strands face being “hollowed out” by careless duplicationThu Sept 12 2024 - 06:00
If you want to know whether Sinn Féin’s housing policy will work, look at what it achieved in the NorthThere’s one unifying factor to the party’s entirely different strategies in the North and South: both approaches ultimately aim to secure power to advance a united IrelandThu Sept 05 2024 - 06:00
UUP needs to become the Progressive Democrats to the DUP’s Fianna FáilThe UUP could become unionism’s champion of centre-right or centrist good government, challenging the populism and incompetence of the DUP and Sinn FéinThu Aug 29 2024 - 06:00
Something weird is happening to the North’s economy, and for once Brexit is not responsibleThe public sector is crumbling as essential reforms fall prey to spineless politics. Yet the private sector is boomingThu Aug 22 2024 - 06:00
No major party has been as cynical on immigration as Fine GaelThe temptation for Sinn Féin will be to portray opposition to immigration as a unionist prejudice, while urging everyone else, North and South, to follow its example and do betterThu Aug 08 2024 - 06:00
Why the three main unionist parties are making a show of themselves over a GAA flagA classic failure of unionism is fear of being called a Lundy, an insult derived from the siege of Derry, meaning a traitor or appeaser. The entire unionist political system immediately Lundied itself over the GAA flagThu Aug 01 2024 - 06:00
Britain seemed to have turned a corner on immigration after Brexit. Then October 7th happenedThe scale and intensity of the protests that followed have caused a backlash against both immigration and the UK’s four million Muslim citizens. Tentative progress on understanding Islam in Britain has been thrown into reverseThu Jul 25 2024 - 06:00
How to talk about a united Ireland: Say little and set up a committeeNothing in the report by the latest all-party Oireachtas committee is contentious because avoiding contention is the pointThu Jul 18 2024 - 06:00
The difference between Simon Harris and Leo Varadkar on UK-Irish relations goes beyond tone And it works both ways. Harris’s warmth towards the UK is being rewarded with a softening of Keir Starmer’s stance on a Border pollThu Jul 11 2024 - 06:00
Unionism has welcomed Labour’s apparently inevitable win, but nationalists are already milking it The next UK government’s spending policy could lead to a boon for Stormont parties thanks to the oddities of devolutionary accountingThu Jul 04 2024 - 06:00
Northerners look on the Republic’s motorways with envy – but tolls are a bridge too farNewton Emerson: Toll roads and Northern Ireland: as so often at Stormont, everybody knows what should be done but nobody will step forward to do it.Thu Jun 27 2024 - 06:00
Larne gas cavern project a victim of green nimbyism and North’s administrative deadlockGas storage saga has been dragging on for years for facility that should have been operational in 2022 and which would have helped following Russia’s invasion of UkraineThu Jun 20 2024 - 06:00
Can Sinn Féin pull off its left-right, North-South balancing act?The party may move economically left and socially right in the Republic - but it needs to stay the course in Northern IrelandThu Jun 13 2024 - 06:00
Northern Ireland’s poultry industry must be forced to clean up its actA BBC investigation found Moy Park breached legal limits on effluent discharge hundreds of times since 2017 within the catchment of Lough NeaghThu Jun 06 2024 - 06:00
Some claims about the cost of a united Ireland don’t stack upThese are not harmless notions to drop into public discourse from the top of an ivory tower. Everyone involved should take more careThu May 30 2024 - 06:00
Why Caoimhe Archibald is the rising star of Northern politics Sinn Féin’s Minister of Finance is reinforcing a message the party wants to send to voters North and South — it can be trusted in officeThu May 23 2024 - 06:00
Northern Ireland is already a ‘sanctuary city’ in the UK – it could yet become one in EuropeIf Brussels were to allow Rwanda-type schemes elsewhere in the EU, London could say this permitted a similar scheme across the UK, yet a court in Belfast could disagreeThu May 16 2024 - 06:00
There’s an obvious solution to the migration row: compatible national identity cards for Ireland and BritainRights groups who raised valid objections to the intrusiveness of identity cards need to accept that ship has sailed - the alternative is Kafkaesque bureaucracy and racial profilingThu May 09 2024 - 06:00
Rwanda immigration law may turn out to be another BrexitThe destabilising impact on Irish politics looks like Brexit all over again, only with tides of humanity instead of shipments of baconTue Apr 30 2024 - 19:00
Battle lines are being drawn in the North over sex education and hate crimesAfter two years of dreary wrangling to restore devolution, most observers are glad of the diversionThu Apr 25 2024 - 06:00
Simon Harris was right. Many southerners know London or Paris better than BelfastFigures suggest a substantial share of the southern population may never have been north of the BorderThu Apr 18 2024 - 06:00
We need to talk about restricting overseas buyers snapping up homesThe Republic’s property market is one of the most open in the world, with effectively no limits on overseas buyersThu Apr 11 2024 - 06:00
Unionist parties are not about to merge – it’s hard enough holding them together individuallyA choice of parties may be essential for unionism’s long-term health; the implosion of the Scottish National Party is a warning about putting all your eggs in one basketWed Apr 03 2024 - 06:00
At some point it will become unmissable that on many issues Sinn Féin is on much same ground as DUPNorthern nationalism regards itself as left-wing, but on most issues its views are centre-rightThu Mar 28 2024 - 06:00
DUP’s best option is to say the Stormont brake has been tested and then move swiftly onDUP has never promised this test would block an EU law. The party has only said it will show Stormont has been given “democratic scrutiny” and “the ability to have a say”.Thu Mar 21 2024 - 06:00
In both the UK and Ireland, even the left is starting to turn rightThe true culture-war divide in the UK is public exasperation with the trivia that obsesses the political classThu Mar 14 2024 - 06:00
What’s Micheál Martin’s long game: a stronger North or a United Ireland?There was no chance of a tub-thumping republican speech at the Alliance Party conferenceThu Mar 07 2024 - 06:00
Upgrading the A5 and A8 is not only about safety - this is constitutional politics in concrete formShared Island initiative avoids gauche claims of literal nation-building but it was impossible to ignore the subtext: a road in a unionist area to balance a road in a nationalist areaThu Feb 22 2024 - 05:45
The best thing Varadkar could do for Stormont is to lay off Sinn FéinWhen Sinn Féin ducks difficult decisions in the north, southern rivals accuse it of populism. Meanwhile, business at Stormont suffersThu Feb 15 2024 - 06:00
Nationalism would have let the DUP baby have its bottle, except the SDLP threw the toys outThe Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is fortunate nationalism is not laughing openly at the party’s deal with the British governmentThu Feb 08 2024 - 05:00
Stormont now has no plausible excuse for failure. That doesn’t mean failure is impossibleWalking out of Stormont now would be a different proposition - any party quitting would be leaving everyone else to govern for six monthsThu Feb 01 2024 - 06:00
Is ‘British-only’ direct rule really direct rule if it needs consent from Ireland?Time has run out for indirect rule. There is no longer any defensible reason to keep Northern Ireland in limbo if devolution is not promptly restoredThu Jan 25 2024 - 06:00
Northern Ireland’s public sector strike may have been doomed before it beganThe trade union movement is avoiding direct criticism of the DUP. And Donaldson can’t be seen to give in on the sea border to avoid embarrassment over public sector payThu Jan 18 2024 - 06:00
Gerry Kelly’s mix of righteousness and victimhood fits the cry-bully culture of Sinn FéinThe Sinn Féin Assembly member often boasts of his crimes, yet feels wronged enough to turn to the law when others mention themThu Jan 11 2024 - 06:00
Dublin should have taken more care to avoid a public row with LondonThe Government could have warned London privately of its intentions to take an inter-state case against the Troubles Legacy Act - which raises the question of whether the subsequent argument was staged, or played up for certain audiencesThu Jan 04 2024 - 06:15
Britain wants to have its Swiss roll and eat it. Should Ireland stand in its way?Time is surprisingly short. Speculation is turning to a May election in the UK, after which Ireland will have to decide if it helps Labour government bring the UK into closer alignment with the EUThu Dec 28 2023 - 07:00
If you think dereliction in Dublin is bad, come to BelfastSituation is so dire Greens have asked Belfast City Council to compulsorily purchase an entire 12 acres of the cityThu Dec 21 2023 - 06:00
What does it really cost to run Northern Ireland? The answer isn’t straightforwardIreland has the fiscal space; Northern Ireland has a fiscal floor – the minimum spending per head. A bidding war has broken out over what that figure should beThu Dec 14 2023 - 06:00
Coalition trying to scare voters with spectre of Sinn Féin minister for justice If potential future coalition partners baulk at the prospect of handing Sinn Féin the Justice portfolio, they should look to Northern IrelandThu Dec 07 2023 - 06:00
Here’s what you might not know about ‘woke’ water cannons and their use in riotsIn response to human rights concerns, PSNI required operators to set water pressure to a minimum and fitted water tanks with heaters to spare the sprinkled from hypothermiaThu Nov 30 2023 - 06:00
