Letter: NI politicians should note that getting solutions to the bigger problems makes ours easier to sort
A letter from Joshua Lowry:
The UK faces a series of problems that NI politicians fail to talk loudly or credibly on: an explosion in public debt, cratering state capacity, flatlined GDP growth and a housing crisis.
These are some of the biggest issues facing the country we want to be part of!
Yes we have our own issues in NI, but they're not necessarily unique when looking at the broader picture, and getting solutions to the bigger problems makes ours easier to sort.
Our only regular contribution to the debate is yet another delegation to the treasury to ask for yet more money.
Why are we so aghast then that leading figures in Westminster are less than interested in our issues when we've shown none in theirs.
There are over 4,000 victims of the grooming gangs, more than all deaths during the Troubles. It is not political point-scoring for unionists to support an inquiry, it's just the right thing to do.
We were once the world leader in nuclear energy, now we're ninth, and ever more reliant on gas imports, when we could easily drill our own.
Deindustrialisation has killed many northern towns, but did we protest the litany of the policy choices that obviously would lead to the end of British steel production?
Farage has been dismissive of NI, but many who've been dismissive of him or his supporters have regretted it (or soon will). He is here to stay and may achieve some success in fixing our ails.
The Conservatives have failed to conserve anything. Labour no longer stands for the working class. Reform may well be similarly miss-named but then again so might we.
Joshua Lowry, Belfast BT8