Also: Scottish Government urged to accelerate public sector reforms and overhaul council tax.
Also: Scottish Government’s legal regulation reforms denounced by judges and lawyers; Ross offers to work with Nationalist rebels to break Greens’ grip on government; new scandal for PSNI as High Court finds it illegally disciplined officers.
The role of the presidency has changed dramatically in the last three decades, and what had previously been considered fairly dull elections have been enlivened in recent years with a range of different candidates and visions for the office.
Also: DUP and Heaton-Harris in staring match over extra funding as Rishi Sunak rules out coalition with the Unionists at Westminster.
The Belfast Agreement decoupled Northern Ireland’s constitutional future from day-to-day elected politics, but the pro-UK parties failed to adapt.
With Sinn Féin riding high on the back of voters’ dissatisfaction with the economy, the temptation to cash in Dublin’s corporation tax bounty will be great.
Statistics suggest that rents have increased by an average of 63 per cent since 2015. Demand for housing outstrips supply, and house prices continue to rise year on year.
If Sunak reaches a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol, he will need it endorsed by DUP politicians with whom he has almost nothing in common.
The Foreign Secretary might be inclined to roll over, as he is on the British Indian Ocean Territory, but he can’t order Stormont back to its feet.
It was made at the same time that the police were opening a fraud investigation into the party over alleged misuse of its referendum fighting fund.
A recent brawl at the National Party conference highlights how totally marginalised it remains in Dublin politics.
Chris Heaton-Harris will probably call elections sooner rather than later, but another share of his department’s dwindling stock of credibility is lost.
Why has neither he nor Heaton-Harris pushed back against Sinn Fein’s nonsensical claims about ‘joint authority’ with Dublin?
As Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil prepare for an unprecedented game of musical chairs, the republicans are riding high in the polls.
Why has the Government signed off a safeguard which Sinn Féin can disable by collapsing Northern Ireland’s devolved institutions again?