Politics

The idea of a Blitz memorial statue in Belfast has a tortured history.

The SDLP group leader on Belfast City Council has said that he respects the decision of the council to proceed on a stand-alone basis with a memorial to the Belfast Blitz, which killed roughly 1,000 people.

To get a glimpse of the agonising political dilemma facing the DUP, consider something that took place yesterday on Twitter, the phone and online forum in which people express short snippets of their opinions.

The fate of two policemen slain exactly 100 years ago this Monday is to be remembered amid commemorations of Ireland’s first independent parliament.

Community leaders have told of their shock after a young man was killed and another injured in a shooting in Dublin.

DUP leader Arlene Foster has attempted to rubbish claims that her party would be open to a soft Brexit that kept the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU.

All eyes this week have been on machinations in Westminster.

Raymond Stewart has been selected by UKIP to stand in May’s Local Government Elections in the Three Mile Water DEA of Newtownabbey.

Tory big beast Ken Clarke has denounced the DUP as a “sectarian Protestant party in Ireland” and lamented the time which the prime minister is spending courting Arlene Foster and her colleagues.

Unionists have questioned the motives of those organising a major Brexit conference in Belfast after they decided to only invite nationalist and republican politicians to speak at the event.

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister has said a no-deal Brexit would become an exercise in damage limitation for the country.

Jeremy Corbyn has misrepresented the DUP’s Brexit stance, claiming that the party wants no deal taken off the table when in fact the DUP wants the opposite.

Unionists have slammed Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson after she quoted Irish republican James Connolly in the European Parliament, stating “the British government has no right in Ireland”.

A DUP MP has labelled Chancellor Philip Hammond as “totally bonkers” after he reportedly told business leaders that a no-deal Brexit could be “taken off the table” and Article 50 “rescinded”.

A UUP lord has said that, contrary to fears about the safety of the Union, Brexit has meant that Northern Ireland’s link with Great Britain “rarely been more secure”.

It is “remarkable” that Jeremy Corbyn would speak to terrorist groups such as the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah without preconditions, but set a red line on the dialogue with the UK’s Prime Minister, TUV leader Jim Allister has said.

Sinn Fein’s seven MPs were the only voluntary abstentions in Tuesday’s key vote on the Withdrawal Agreement, and were among the only voluntary abstentions the following day, in the confidence motion.

The Irish government, instead of working closely with the UK, contributed to the negotiation of the backstop which ultimately brought down the Withdrawal Agreement and left us facing the prospect of a departure from the EU in a matter of weeks, with no deal.