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.
Basic services – the NHS, policing, schools, road maintenance, refuse collection, you name it – have gone to rack and ruin. Life expectancy has fallen sharply. We still have, to our shame, by far the worst drug death levels in Europe.
Rename the whole project to reflect its truly unifying nature and let more of Britain, Scotland and Northern England be connected by the “steel threads”.
The shift to subsidies is more than the timely, targeted and temporary measures that we saw during the pandemic, and signifies a bigger change in global public policy.
At the heart of the controversy lies the concerns of many women’s groups that a policy of self-ID of gender will leave women and girls vulnerable to males abusing the system to gain access to spaces reserved to females.
“For too long, the political debate has been dominated by the argument about how we distribute a limited economic pie. Instead, we need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.”
“You can trust me to do what it takes. The status quo is not an option. That is why we can’t give in to the voices of decline.”
“David was not cold and uncaring. He cared more, loved more, than any politician I have ever known, but critically, like his religious faith, he rarely showed it.”
The contrast between those blithe campaigns and this appalling landscape is unnerving, and raises profound questions about politicians and truth.
Didn’t he forsee the marginalisation of his party that would follow the Agreement? And anticipate his own fall from office and power as well as his rise to both? The answers are veiled in mystery because so are his motivations.
I have tabled an amendment to place a “parliamentary lock” on the Bill, requiring the Government to obtain a specific vote in favour of bringing its provisions into force.
Unless Ministers get more grown-up in their rhetoric, they are going to set expectations at a level they cannot and should not meet.
This must be explained to US Democrats who do not understand the unionist position or the legal background.
As two thirds of people in Britain agreed, the monarchy might seem a strange system in this day and age, but it works.