Originally published at SpinWatch and OurKingdom. There's no doubt that the Queen's meeting with Martin McGuinness this week was gesture politics, and even if the historic handshake was a profoundly meaningful gesture, a certain weary cynicism is understandable after two... Continue reading

Originally published at Middle East Monitor. Lorna Fitzsimons believes that Israel's lurch to the right is just one facet of a global democratic crisis, but I would argue that the Israeli rejectionism that she defended during her time as head... Continue reading

Originally posted at OurKingdom: Last week, Britain's defence secretary resigned following the revelation that he was using a friend with close links to right-wing lobbyists as an unofficial foreign envoy. While the government attempts to bury the story, Opposition leader... Continue reading

Ths post is part of the Peer 2 Peer University Webmaking 101 challenge. The crisis of the university was a key theme of social struggles in the 1960s, one that has returned in recent years with debt-burdened students driving many... Continue reading

A recent OurKingdom piece: Was there state collusion in the killing of Rosemary Nelson, the solicitor who was blown up by loyalists at her home in Lurgan in 1999? Two very different answers to that question were put forward in... Continue reading

My latest OurKingdom piece: I learned of the London riots last week when I got back from a night out in Belfast only to be greeted by scenes of riot police and burning buses in Tottenham on the TV news.... Continue reading

My latest SpinWatch post: In the wake of the Utoeya massacre in Norway, it is no longer possible to ignore the dangers of the growth in far right, Islamophobic counterjihad ideology. So a new report published by the Center for... Continue reading

I have been doing a lot of reading lately about the potential of networked information technology to empower ordinary people, partly inspired by Guy Aitchison and Aaron John Peters' essay in the Fight Back! reader on the student protests. There... Continue reading

Does Cameron have a problem with his manner at Prime Minister's Questions? Here's a look back over some of the evidence: 5 June 2008 In opposition, Cameron's facility for insulting his opponents won him some plaudits: David Cameron is able... Continue reading

From my latest post over at OurKingdom: For the Orange Bookers, as with their Cameronian counterparts, the coalition provided the opportunity to carry out their plans despite a relatively poor electoral performance. That weak legitimacy has induced urgency rather than... Continue reading

Newsnight's Paul Mason is, by common consent, one of the most switched-on commentators on the global wave of social unrest that has emerged in the wake of the financial crisis. His recent blogpost, Twenty reasons why its kicking off everywhere,... Continue reading

General Frank Kitson's 1971 counter-insurgency manual Low Intensity Operations has long been of interest to students of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Within months of its publication, its author was commanding 39 Brigade in Belfast where he pioneered the use of... Continue reading

An anonymous post on Harry's Place has alleged that I am responsible for posting anti-semitic material by Kevin McDonald on the Neocon Europe website. This allegation is false and I demand that Harry's Place retract it. Harry’s place should already... Continue reading

Out of idle curiosity as much as anything I have been taking a look at how individual Lib Dem MPs are likely to vote on tuition fees next Thursday. A full list follows at the end of this post. The best source on this is the blog of Tim Starkey, a Lib Dem councillor who is co-ordinating the rebels. Continue reading

Lord Saville's Report into Bloody Sunday will be debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday. No doubt the length and cost of the inquiry will feature prominently in the debate. The process might arguably have been less protracted had it not had to overcome a Ministry of Defence campaign to obscure the truth. Central to this campaign was 'The Knocking Game' an army document produced within three months of the 1972 massacre, which claimed that the victims were 'amateur gunmen'. Former army information officer Colin Wallace testified to the inquiry that this document was used to brief the press. In contrast, the former head of the Information Policy Unit at Headquarters Northern Ireland, Colonel Maurice Tugwell, claimed that the document was intended for circulation within the army. Faced with these conflicting accounts, Lord Saville concluded that there was no "evidence that anyone involved in military information disseminated to the public anything about Bloody Sunday, knowing or believing that information to be untrue." However, evidence found by SpinWatch, but apparently withheld from the inquiry, shows that 'The Knocking Game' was intended for unattributable briefings, and was shown to at least one journalist, confirming Wallace's version of events. Continue reading

A cross post which originally appeared on OurKingdom on 23 January 2010. It has been a strange month in the politics of Northern Ireland, and last week was no exception. On Monday, there was optimism that a breakthrough on the... Continue reading

Events in London in recent weeks have highlighted the growing collusion between American neoconservatives and the European far right in stirring up hatred of Muslims. Richard Bartholomew has details of a meeting at the George Restaurant in east London in... Continue reading