There’s a certain notion in the air that an election is near inevitable now. And, in one sense hasn’t that always been the case. But, it is correct that the chances of an election this year are better now than they have been. So, with that in mind what are the rumours swirling about out [...]

In May 2007 a 25ft-high peace wall was erected through the grounds of an integrated primary school in North Belfast because houses in the adjacent housing estate had been attacked by youths of the ‘other’ religion. There are now 57 peace walls here, mostly in North and West Belfast but they can also be [...]

Adbelbaset al-Megrahi walked free yesterday, having been freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish executive. The US is outraged, as, understandably are many families of victims of the Lockerbie terrorist attack, and everyone, including Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, questioned the taste of the hero’s welcome afforded Megrahi in Tripoli. The Libyans have pointed out [...]

(The following is taken from an article by John Goodwillie which appeared in issue 9 of Gralton, Aug/Sep 1983. It was a supplement to a family tree of the Left which John created , and which I posted a couple of weeks ago here. Apologies in advance to John Goodwillie for copying and posting his [...]

The furore over Mahmoud Ahmajinedad’s apparent success in last months Iranian presidential elections tells us a few important things about how the dominant media feels democratic deficiencies, alleged or otherwise, should be reported.
According to the Irish Times Iran’s “suffocating theocracy”1 sustained a crisis of legitimacy “after it lost the trust of millions of Iranians”2 following [...]

Here’s the fourth and final programme in the Looking Left series, and the topic is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland, the Irish Socialist. Cedarlounge has a great post on the paper here.
The panel is made up of Dr. Ann Matthews, Tom Redmond, Mick O’Reilly, and myself, and is presented by Daniel [...]

Although the debate about the Lisbon Treaty is starting to hot up there is one matter that has not got that much attention, yet, perhaps because it is for an election which may or may not proceed. Should the Irish people vote yes in the Lisbon Treaty, however, the post of President of the European [...]

Gerry Adams outlined Sinn Féin’s new campaign for a united Ireland in the Guardian yesterday. The London launch of the campaign took place on Tuesday evening, following a similar event in New York. If I understand the strategy correctly, SF intends to build a broad campaign in Britain and the USA in order to change [...]

The Left has often been accused of not understanding economics properly. So it’s been no small pleasure over the last year to see the guardians of neo-liberal orthodoxy thrashing around helplessly in a bid to explain the financial meltdown, while radical critics like David Harvey and Robert Brenner have provided by far the best guide [...]

This article analyses the ‘assurances‘ in the specific area of security and defence that the government is persuading EU leaders to sign up to, ostensibly to allay concerns in Ireland about the Lisbon Treaty.  These ‘assurances’ are, in reality, simply political statements that, in themselves, have no legal status.  They are only legally valid if [...]