Owen Polley

​​In an Easter address, the Sinn Fein president, Mary-Lou McDonald, claimed that “Irish unity” would be achieved this decade.

​​Two news stories last week illustrated some of the best and worst things about Northern Ireland.

​People love to say that the DUP and Sinn Fein rarely agree, as if that’s a great pity. Let’s be honest, all the non-pro-Union ministers in the current executive are either hardcore republicans or increasingly radical ‘progressives’. It would be worrying if unionists found common cause with them.

Labour will use the Irish Sea border as an excuse to realign with the EU's rules

​​The Free Speech Union (FSU) has taken up the case of a local councillor, who was suspended for three months for suggesting that radical views about gay and trans issues are sometimes held in parallel with sympathy for Hamas.

​The Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 is regarded as an important staging post in the ‘peace process’, which eventually resulted in the Belfast Agreement.

​​Sir Keir Starmer has a lot to answer for. Last week’s elections on the mainland showed the extent to which he has let down his party and the entire country.

​Last week, the unionist parties at Stormont slammed the NI Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) and the Equality Commission (ECNI), following a Supreme Court ruling that limited how EU rights laws are imposed here through the Windsor Framework.

​​The prime minister suggested last week that the UK might rejoin the European Union, while a Downing Street spokesperson refused to rule out Labour putting that pledge in its next general election manifesto.

Nicola Sturgeon claimed last week she was ‘the victim’, after her husband was convicted of fraud. It was an unconvincing attempt to recast an incident that focused a fresh spotlight on the antics of the SNP.