Columnists

Protect our health service

Last week, politicians were camped at Hillsborough discussing policing and justice.  Whilst this issue is important, I believe policing and justice are certainly not as critical an issue as health and education, at this time.  For my part I share your concerns. Time and again, everyone agrees health is the number one priority. That is why I went to the health committee last week to ask my fellow MLAs for their support in not cutting the health budget next year....

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In the wee small hours of the morning

AS the talks at Hillsborough dragged on deep into the night,  there were suggestions that the participants were so tired that the quality of engagement – and indeed the durability of any resultant agreement – have been thrown into serious doubt. But a Hillsborough source has supplied Squinter with this transcript of last night’s negotiations, which proved beyond doubt that lack of sleep isn’t an issue up at the castle. Friday, 4.20am. Peter Robinson: Let’s get on with things, ladies and...

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And now with the benefit of all this moral superiority

  Angry voices raised in our text pages in recent weeks, with all manner of holier-than-thou correspondents venting their spleen on the single greatest threat to civilisation in the 21st century – single mothers. Squinter never knew there were so many good-living blokes out there living lives of such blameless propriety that they can find the time and the justification to text in and give off about young women who have the gall to have babies and claim benefit. Just...

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The good old bad old days

PINING for the good old days seems to be something of a national obsession at the moment. As the economy continues to struggle and people in West Belfast continue to wish they had 800 manufacturing jobs to lose at two locations like East Belfast had, it seems all you’re hearing is about how awful the 21st century is and how things used to be so much better…  • Curly Wurlys used to be bigger • When you think about it,...

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Cold house for Catholic unionists

Here is a naïve view of local politics. Years ago, in the nineteen sixties, some prominent Catholics tried to join the Ulster Unionist Party – the main unionist party at the time. One was a  solicitor, one a lecturer, the third  a businessman. They were refused. The Unionist Party  rule at the time was clear, Catholics need not apply. Some people believed  that out there somewhere there were Catholics who were unionists, but  had no place to go. So the...

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