To last throughout the years 319
Posted on
July 12, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re not often genuinely shocked, readers.
But then we switched on BBC1 Northern Ireland today.
Archive for the ‘uk politics’
Towers of hate 159
Posted on
July 12, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s a sleepy Wednesday in July, so let’s celebrate some proud British culture!
Bonfire Of The Sanities 180
Posted on
July 01, 2017 by
Lorna Miller
The next five years of UK politics:
The unsurprising twist 230
Posted on
June 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This was David Mundell on Sunday, guaranteeing that any extra money produced for Northern Ireland to secure DUP backing for the Tory government would be matched by more funding for Scotland (as much as £4.5bn under normal Barnett Formula rules, because Scotland has nearly three times the population of the province):
And here’s the truth 24 hours later:
Who could ever have etc?
Where you stand 211
Posted on
June 22, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The media is aflame today with some rather woolly “news” to the effect that Theresa May might possibly, in some unspecified manner, have conceded a veto over Brexit to the Scottish Parliament.
We can see no evidence suggesting such a thing has happened or will happen, and would instead direct readers to a report published yesterday by Unlock Democracy. We strongly advise taking five minutes out of your day to read pages 26-33 of it, but if you’re really in a rush this paragraph will give you the basic conclusion:
Remember your place, lesser nations of the UK.
Happy Brexit Day 252
Posted on
June 19, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This map probably correlates quite closely with one of the strength of Leave vote.
It seems somehow appropriate that on the day negotiations begin (with the UK having no government, no mandate and no idea what it actually wants), large parts of the country are essentially already on fire.
At the bus stop #1 209
Posted on
June 14, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We know that people like to chat generally about issues of the day (and more) in the comments, so while we’re taking a break we’ll probably put up stuff like this now and again just so that we don’t end up with a single post with thousands of comments in it. (And so you know we haven’t been killed by bears.)
They probably won’t all be about politics. Call them conversation starters.
The knife-edgers 526
Posted on
June 10, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This was the revealing reaction of the Question Time audience and panel last night when right-wing Daily Mail/Times journalist Isabel Oakeshott and Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti debated who’d “won” the election:
On Thursday Jeremy Corbyn got 40% of the vote, 40% of the seats and lost by 2%.
In Scotland, Ruth Davidson got 28% of the vote, 22% of the seats and lost by 9%.
(Corbyn was also a thumping 33 points clear of the 3rd-place party in terms of vote share. Davidson’s margin over the party below was just 1.5 points.)
Yet the entire media, across both Scotland and the UK, has presented Davidson as the undisputed and triumphant victor, and nobody laughs.
The Coalition Of Chaos 385
Posted on
June 09, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Not 36 hours after a campaign which focused relentlessly on the idea that a minority Labour government propped up by the SNP and the Liberal Democrats would be an unconscionable democratic outrage, the Prime Minister is as we write en route to 10 Downing Street to inform the Queen of her intention, despite having lost 13 seats and her majority, to form a minority government propped up by the most extremist party in the UK Parliament.
The DUP opposes equal marriage, opposes basic abortion rights, rejects the concept of evolution, wants the death penalty back and intends to demand as part of its price a rock-hard Brexit, including a hard border with Ireland that pretty much everyone on all sides agrees risks the return of widespread terrorist violence to the province.
(NB The party actually says that it doesn’t want a hard Brexit, but there’s no possible way that can be done without NI having special status, which the DUP flatly opposes.)
But what would have been “the worst crisis since abdication” had it been the SNP and Labour is apparently all just tickety-boo if it’s the DUP and Tories.
So that’s going to be fun for the next wee while.
