It would truly be a very brittle heart that was not moved to sympathy for the relatives of all those who died on the Malaysian flight which plummeted to earth on the sunflower fields around Donetsk . That emotion will be felt deeply too by the Russian people and by
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The Tory spin machine has been in overdrive, trying to convince us that women have arrived and in future will be treated as equals to male colleagues and receive promotion on merit. We know in reality that the cabinet re-shuffle was about presentation for the next election.
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There was a news-clip last week of a young Prince George taking a few stumbling steps in a polo field with his mother watching carefully over him. His father and uncle were , presumably, actively engaged in a chukka. A good part of my childhood was spent
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Ian Paisley perfected the tactic of the counter demonstration as a political spoiler during the sixties in Northern Ireland. Whenever a Civil Rights event was announced, he organised some ad hoc group to stage a protest at the same location. The RUC would inform Stormont that there
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David Cameron has warned that the UK may be at risk from ‘radicalised’ jihadist Britons, currently operating in support of opposition forces in Iraq and Syria. The numbers are small, three to five hundred at best, and he offered no proof to the Commons but Cressida Dick,
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Clackmannanshire has just about 30 000 people on the Electoral Roll and, in a 30% turn-out last Thursday, 1200 of them voted for the UKIP candidate, David Coburn. That’s something over 1 2% – modest but significant and worrying. I have lived and worked in this area for nearly
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Lord Trimble has warned that a YES vote for Independence in Scotland could destabilise the peace process in Northern Ireland as it may increase pressure for a similar referendum to be held there also. He did concede that the democratic movement for constitutional change in Scotland was a
Read more →It was always going to be a daunting, political problem to construct a coalition, capable of defending the Union in the Scottish Referendum. That it has failed so comprehensively, does not surprise many. I grew up in the cockpit of Northern Ireland politics but the vitriol there
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Peaches Geldoff ‘s funeral will be held tomorrow at the little, village church with which the family has tragic and joyful association, two marriage and funeral services. In this digital age, her death at the age of 25 has provoked expressions of grief from people whose only
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I bought my first record in 1958 when I was sixteen; it was ‘Rave On’ by Buddy Holly, a 45rpm single which I think cost six shillings (30p). I played it on a Dansette with a record changer, as they were then known, made in Derry by
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