New rules needed to curb power of corporate lobbyists in the European Parliament
Unleashing one of the biggest lobbying scandals in EU history, the Sunday Times has in the last two weeks exposed four MEPs who had agreed to table amendments to change an EU law in return for promised payments. In a sting operation, undercover [...]

I’m updating this article which was first published on November 22nd 2008 and reposting it after the publishing of the final report of the Moriarty Tribunal. I felt it was necessary to complete Denis O’Brien’s story as related here, particularly as this article is getting a bit of attention today due to google searches for [...]

As I started to read Fintan O’Toole’s “Ship of Fools” I grabbed a stack of Post-it notes to mark interesting passages and key points for easy reference later. The trouble is, after 40 pages it became clear that marking ever page, or every other page, was not a good way to go back to reading [...]

One is an unpleasant demagogue contemptuous of the masses and who always wear black. The other is the former leader of the British Union of Fascists!!
I am reading all about the disarray in the British government and the big spanking that Gordon Brown is getting from the idiot British electorate and also from his party [...]

“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”
Nancy Mitford

Amidst the collapse of the Irish economy, the inhabitants of a rural hinterland begin to feel the touch of the dead hand of the housing market.
This [...]