Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The focus should be on the achievements on Michael O'Neill and his team. This evening Belfast City Council will vote on a motion proposing to invite both the Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland football teams to a civic reception at the City Hall.  The joint event is a mischievous idea, conceived by SDLP councillor, Declan Boyle, which masquerades as an attempt to encourage reconciliation, but actually undermines efforts to ensure our national football team remains an inclusive, cross-community organisation, representing everyone here. Northern Ireland’s footballers and their committed supporters, the Green and White Army, can look forward to 2016 with enormous optimism.  Under the leadership of Michael O’Neill, our team last year qualified for a major championship for the first time since 1986, topping its group in the process.  In June the squad travels to France to play Poland, the Ukraine and world champions Germany, in the European Championships - a...

" Martin McGuinness 2009 " by Jaqian - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . The threat of Martin McGuinness as First Minister has trapped unionists in a self-destructive cycle. The news from Stormont in 2015 was dominated by the DUP and Sinn Féin finally cobbling together a deal, but in 2016 preparations begin for an Assembly election.  The two parties concentrated on attacking their smaller rivals, after the announcement of the ‘Fresh Start’ document.   They talk up their shared achievements and claim they’ve taken hard decisions in order to make progress for people in Northern Ireland.   However, the spirit of cooperation is unlikely to last very long, before we’re plunged into another bitter campaign, which will revolve around whether Sinn Féin becomes the largest party in the Assembly. The threat of Martin McGuinness as Northern Ireland’s First Minister remains the Democratic Unionists’ electoral ‘trump card’.  Af...

The story of Northern Ireland’s violent past continues to be redrawn, as the republican movement seeks to cast the British state as an aggressor and campaigns to incriminate soldiers and policemen, while obscuring the deadly role played by the IRA and other terrorists.  It’s a process achieved by describing counter-terrorism and intelligence operations as ‘collusion’ and focussing on the proportionally small number of incidents during the Troubles perpetrated, or allegedly perpetrated, by members of the security forces. In November, the DUP and Sinn Fein agreed the Fresh Start document at Stormont, following ten weeks of negotiations.  It became easy to forget, after all the ensuing self-congratulations, that the crisis which prompted those talks was created by the IRA’s suspected involvement in a murder and Sinn Fein’s links to its Army Council. Some passages of the Fresh Start agreement addressed paramilitarism in Northern Ireland, committing resources to fight...

Nato missile system in Turkey. A multitude of conflicting details, accusations and counter-accusations followed news today that a Russian warplane was shot down, close to the border between Syria and Turkey.  Russia and Turkey dispute whether the incident took place over Turkish airspace.   There is also some suggestion from the Russian side that the plane was shot down from the ground, rather than the air.  It seems that the aircraft fell inside Syria, possibly about 4km from the border.  At a press conference, President Putin responded with strong words, accusing Turkey of acting as ‘accomplices of terrorists’ .  Meanwhile, Ankara has claimed that Russia violated its airspace and the plane was shot down in accordance with standard practices, after multiple warnings were issued first.  It’s impossible, so far, to know what happened with any accuracy, but it may be helpful to place the events in a little context. Firstly, sensitivities ...

In a 'news analysis' article for Tuesday’s Belfast Telegraph, I examined the tensions which can exist between identity politics and free speech.  It focussed mostly on arguments around gender identity, and speakers being banned from university debates, but it also touched upon the issue of same-sex marriage, which is so topical and incendiary in Northern Ireland. Maybe the timing of the piece was unfortunate, because there was a lot of anger around on Tuesday morning and justifiably so.  On Monday, in spite of a majority of MLAs in the Stormont Assembly backing a motion to introduce same-sex marriage here, it was defeated, because the DUP tabled a ‘petition of concern’.   This mechanism requires a majority from both designations in the Assembly to vote in favour of a measure, if it’s to pass.  Petitions of concern were intended to protect minority rights, but they have been used instead as vetoes on any matters which cause disagreement.   My ar...

Traditionally, medicine is not a particularly militant profession.   However, last Saturday, hundreds of doctors and their supporters were angry enough to congregate outside Belfast City Hall, to protest against a new contract for junior doctors, proposed by the government. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is determined to drive through changes he claims are necessary to deliver the ‘seven day NHS’ that Conservatives pledged in their general election manifesto.  The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents doctors across the UK, opposes the new contract, on the grounds that it will compromise patient safety and force its members to work exhaustingly long hours.  Currently junior doctors are paid at a standard rate for working between 7am and 7pm, on weekdays.  They receive a higher rate of pay, or ‘banding’, when they work nights, weekends or beyond 7pm in the evening.  Legally, junior doctors can be asked to work up to 91 hours ...

Over the past six weeks, Northern Ireland’s Executive has not operated properly, even by its own fitful standards.  After revelations that IRA members were involved in a murder in Belfast , and the subsequent resignation of the Ulster Unionists’ only minister , the Democratic Unionists devised a bizarre ‘go slow’ to prove that it was not ‘business as usual’ at Stormont.  Almost all the DUP's ministers, including the party’s leader and Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, resigned from the Executive.  However, finance minister, Arlene Foster, was nominated to replace Mr Robinson in a temporary capacity, supposedly to prevent nationalist parties from running amok in government.  Meanwhile, the party’s remaining three ministers, whose portfolios include health, enterprise and social development, were continually re-nominated to their positions, from which they then resigned again, on a weekly basis.  Confusing?  Absolutely.  Inexp...