Page 39 - Sam Mcbride News Today

Just hours before PSNI officer John Caldwell was shot multiple times in front of his young son last Wednesday night, I happened to have been talking to someone whose policeman father died when she was young.

Two months ago I received an email I initially thought was spam, and then thought was a leak from within government.

The DUP’s refusal to rapidly sign up to a deal on the NI Protocol seems to have astonished Downing Street, but that very fact demonstrates the astonishing ignorance of the party at the top of Rishi Sunak’s government.

Had her ambitions not been far loftier, what Nicola Sturgeon achieved would have been monumental. Yet by her own admission she failed in securing — or even securing a clear path towards — her central goal: Scottish independence.

A decade ago this week, two charismatic MLAs quit the Ulster Unionists to set up a new political party.

Three years ago, a cover-up began inside a decaying Northern Ireland council. Now, as an election looms, that cover-up has been covered up — despite a devastating verdict by the council’s own internal auditors.

Two days after the Omagh bomb tore the heart out of the Co Tyrone market town in 1998, Northern Ireland’s Department of Health was privately warned that the health service may have to draft in external staff because so many medics may want to attend the funerals of those they had known.

Irish unity would now be far more achievable if Sinn Féin didn’t exist, the author of a book arguing in favour of reunification has claimed.

At midnight a year ago today, Paul Givan’s resignation as First Minister collapsed devolution.

At midnight a year ago today, Paul Givan’s resignation as First Minister collapsed devolution.