Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

In the 14th episode of PoliticalOD, we discuss a bill being fasttracked through Stormont that could give ministers sweeping new powers at the expense of collective responsibility. Why has the Executive (Committee) Functions Bill received so little scrutiny and why is Arlene Foster keen to wave it through? The former DUP Spad, Richard Bullick, who was one of the party's most influential strategists, has raised worrying suggestions that his former employers don't understand the potential consequences of this legislation, in this morning's News Letter. He urges MLAs to support amendments, tabled by the UUP's Doug Beattie, that 'remove the dangerous aspects of this bill.' The Dissenter raises an important point about infrastructure that he's encountered, almost be accident, as part of his day job. Some of the more ambitious plans to create growth in Northern Ireland could be compromised by the executive's failure to deliver reforms to fundamental service...

If it weren't clearly obvious before, the Bobby Storey funeral scandal shows exactly why parties in southern Ireland were wary of forming a coalition government with Sinn Fein. "Sinn Fein is different to other parties and not in a good way," the Republic's new deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, remaked when he was asked for his recation to republicans' flagrant flouting of social-distancing regulations. At TheArticle, I argue that the members of this movement, which murdered thousands, think they can do what they like. And, the way that the 'peace process' is structured, they're probably right. Daily, we discover new instances of poor governance in Northern Ireland. The chances of being able to do something about that are minimal, because one party will always stand in the way of reform. We also ask whether the new Republic of Ireland government, led by Micheal Martin, will be less confrontational to unionists than its predecessor. I wrote about...