Conversation, politics and stray insights
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Mike Nesbitt’s sudden resignation goes to the heart of what’s wrong with how Northern Ireland is governed. Modest hopes for limited success have been dashed. If systems and attitudes don’t change, the crisis in the health service and others like it will never significantly improve. Independent report after expert report has spelt out loud and clear that if every hospital retains its present range…
UN negotiators have until the end of this year to agree a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons, built around the principle that humans must stay in control of lethal decisions. In southern Ukraine, human operators use that control to hunt civilians. On 4 August, a Russian drone hunted a street trader through a market in Kherson. Yuriy, 52, had begun laying out crates of tomatoes,…
Something which may have slipped under people’s radars recently is the announcement by the Northern Ireland exams board, CCEA, that a number of subjects are to be discontinued. German, Economics and Engineering are to be scrapped along with Leisure Travel and Tourism, Learning for Life and Work and Contemporary Crafts. CCEA said it had made the decision based on factors such as “candidate entry…
How can a new Ireland maintain and deepen its values, sustained for a century, while achieving the inclusion of unionists and immigrant communities within an all-Ireland culture? Fascinating debate and discussion are anticipated at the 2026 Darcy Magee Summer School in Carlingford when the battle against racism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration violence is examined under the timely theme of…
In a previous article, I investigated attitudes towards minorities in Northern Ireland, examining how those attitudes varied by political party support. With a double-header election to Stormont and local councils now less than 9 months away, and LucidTalk’s latest voting intention poll suggesting that allegiances may be shifting in the wake of Jeffrey Donaldson’s conviction, this article…
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt dramatically resigned yesterday amidst a policy clash with his party leader Jon Burrows. As per the Belfast Telegraph Confirming his departure tonight, the UUP said Mr Nesbitt “leaves a significant legacy”. His decision to quit comes amidst a clash with party leader Jon Burrows over retaining emergency general surgery (EGS) at Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, a senior…
A big thank you to all the people here who have read and sometimes commented on my series of rugby articles here. A question everybody is (very kindly) not asking, is “what the hell qualifies me to write about rugby?” And the truth is, not very much. But I have been at it for quite a long time, and, unlike many fans, I can remember the dark days in the dim and dusky past when Ireland struggled to…
We had a small suckler herd on our farm when I was growing up. Some of our cows, bought as heifers when I was very young, stayed with us for many years and had names. They were docile and enjoyed a good back scratch. Daisy, rather unusually for a suckler herd, was a Friesian and the first cow I can remember. There was also Bluebell, a Belgian Blue cross, Buttercup the Charolais, Primrose, a…
From the FT: Israel should be killing “30 to 40” people each night in Gaza and should build Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave, the country’s far-right national security minister has said in an interview. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hardline settler previously convicted of incitement to racism, made the comments on a podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, who was taken hostage by the Palestinian…
The PSNI seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, don’t they? With police numbers falling and budgets squeezed year on year, they are increasingly being called upon to do more with less and, more often than not, being perceived as doing fairly badly at it. Compounding their problems, they are expected to police a post-conflict divided society wherein their support from one section of the…
