Wednesday 28 December 2016

Bumper Year For Irish Passport Applications

More than 65,000 people from Northern Ireland applied for an Irish passport in what has been a bumper year for the Republic's passport office.

Demand for Irish passports soared to a record high in 2016 -and the peak surge came in May following the UK's vote to leave the European Union.

Sunday 18 December 2016

jonathan Bell Suspended From The DUP

Strangford MLA Jonathan Bell has been suspended from the DUP. 

The party's officers discussed what action to take against the former enterprise minister this weekend.

Wednesday 14 December 2016

Donald Trumps Business Interests

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/5850029c1200009509eef015.jpeg

Friday 9 December 2016

Increase In Irish Passport Applications

More than twice the number of Irish passports were issued to people in Great Britain last month than in November 2015. 

The number issued to people in the North of Ireland  also  doubled, in the largest monthly increase since the Brexit vote.

June's result has sparked a marked rise in the number of people applying for Irish and European Union passports. 

November is normally one of the quietest months of the year for passport applications.

But the total number from the Six Counties - 4,569 - was up by more than 600 from October.

Some 6,855 people people in Great Britain applied for an Irish passport in November 2016, a significant jump from 3,133 last year.

Applications from the North went up from 2,267 in November last year to 4,569 last month.

Saturday 12 November 2016

Stop Funding Hate

Lego the toy company is to end its business with the Daily Mail newspaper. This is following a campaign by Stop Funding Hate.

Sunday 6 November 2016

I Predict A Riot

Nigel Farage has predicted trouble in the streets over Brexit. Mr Farage said: 'We may have seen Bob Geldof and 40,000 people in Parliament Square moaning about Brexit,' he said.

'But believe you me if people in this country think that they're going to be cheated, they're going to be betrayed, then we will see political anger the likes of which none of us in our lifetimes have ever witnessed in this country.

Thursday 3 November 2016

Brexit Backlash

Liam Fox: “The government is disappointed by the court’s judgement. The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by an Act of Parliament. The government is determined to respect the result of the referendum.”

Nigel Farage: “I worry that a betrayal may be near at hand. I now fear that every attempt will be made to block or delay the triggering of Article 50. If this is so, they have no idea of the level of public anger they will provoke.”

Dominic Raab: “This case is a plain attempt to block Brexit by people who are out of touch with the country and refuse to accept the result. However, the vote to leave the EU was clear and they should not seek to obstruct it.”

Suzanne Evans: “How dare these activist judges attempt to overturn our will? It’s a power grab and undermines democracy… The government must appeal. People power must win. Predictably, the same people now quoting ‘parliamentary sovereignty’ are the very same people who were happy to give it away for last 40 years.”

Policy Exchange: The High Court has made a bad mistake.  It has wrongly lent its authority to a claim that undermines both democratic self-government and the rule of law. The basic point of this litigation has not been to defend parliamentary democracy.  Rather, the aim has been to introduce a new stumbling block to Brexit”

High Court Throws Brexit Into Doubt

Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the European Union, the High Court has ruled.

This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal discussions with the EU - on their own.

Theresa May says the referendum - and existing ministerial powers - mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional.

The government is appealing.

Monday 4 July 2016

Monday 6 June 2016

NIPSA Back UK Exit From EU

The Norths public service Union has backed a UK exit from the EU. NIPSA voted at its conference this weekend.

Wednesday 25 May 2016

New Poll Says The North Will Vote To Stay In EU

A new poll by Lucid Talk published in The Sun suggests 54% of voters in Northern Ireland will choose to remain in the EU.

The poll, of 1,090 people on a demographically balanced panel, suggested 35% will vote to leave with a further 9% undecided.

The poll was carried out last week and has a margin of error of +/- 3%.

The referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU will be held on 23 June.

Thursday 19 May 2016

SDLP Go Into Opposition

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has announced that the party will go into opposition.

Earlier, the First and Deputy First Minister accused the SDLP of being "dishonest" during Stormont's programme for government negotiations.

It followed Colum Eastwood saying he was "very disappointed" over the talks.

The various parties have been meeting for talks that could decide the fate of the next Northern Ireland Executive.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

New Babes

Reasons To Be Cheerful


Economist David McWilliams has suggested that a United Kingdom exit from the EU could lead to a united Ireland

A LEADING Irish economist has suggested that a UK exit from the European Union could lead to a united Ireland.

David McWilliams said if the United Kingdom votes to leave the EU next month "it could start a domino effect - at the end of which is a united Ireland".

Mr McWilliams also said he believed "unionists have now an economic incentive to join a united Ireland because the union is impoverishing them".

Writing in the Sunday Business Post, Mr McWilliams: "Here is the possible scenario that will unfold if there’s a break-up of the UK. The English lead the British out of Europe.

"The Scottish then go to the polls again, wanting to stay in Europe.

"They have to leave the UK to stay in the EU, and by a small margin they vote to stay in Europe but leave the English. Not unfeasible.

"The rump UK becomes an entity involving a eurosceptic England, a modestly pro-European but compliant Wales and an ever-divided Northern Ireland.

"However it is a Northern Ireland shorn of its fraternal brothers, the Scots – in a union with the ambivalent English. There has never been the same cultural affinity between the English and the Northern Unionists.

"Unlike many Southerners, my bonds with that part of the world are strong. Ethnically, without Scotland, the union of Northern Ireland and a multicultural but nationalistic little England is not particularly coherent.

"All the while, the demographic forces are on the side of nationalism."

The economist and broadcaster suggested that "the union has been an economic calamity for everyone in the North".

"Well, in the distant past, there was good reason to believe that the union preserved living standards in the north, but this is a myth and has not been the case since 1990," he wrote.

"Indeed, the end of the Troubles, which should have marked the resurgence of the relative performance of the north, has actually delivered the opposite.

"Relative to the south, the northern economy has fallen backwards since the guns were silenced. If there was an economic peace dividend, it went south.

"Now with Brexit looming and the concrete and more profound underlying changes in demography, the issue of a united Ireland may be back on the table quicker than most of us imagined - or cared to dread."

He added: "Interestingly, unionists have now an economic incentive to join a united Ireland because the union is impoverishing them, but I suspect they'd prefer to get poor in a semi-detached UK rather than join a much more coherent all-Ireland economic endeavour."

Friday 29 April 2016

Could The Irish Keep The UK In The EU

Citizens from the Republic of Ireland living in Britain are allowed to vote in June's referendum - the only EU country other than Commonwealth nations Malta and Cyprus granted this privilege - and experts have warned that their impact could win the fight for the Remain campaign. 

A RECENT OPINION POLL HAS SHOWN THAT THE IRISH LIVING IN UK ARE VERY PRO EUROPE.

Wednesday 27 April 2016

Donald Trump Declares Victory

Trump romped across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut. "I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely," the real estate mogul said in his victory speech at Trump Tower in New York. “As far as I am concerned, it’s over,” he declared.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Forbes Top Twenty Billionaires

BILLIONAIRE

1. Bill Gates

2. Amancio Ortega

3. Warren Buffett

4. Carlos Slim Helu

5. Jeff Bezos

6. Mark Zuckerberg

7. Larry Ellison

8. Michael Bloomberg

9. Charles Koch

9. David Koch

11. Liliane Bettencourt

12. Larry Page

13. Sergey Brin

14. Bernard Arnault

15. Jim Walton

16. Alice Walton

17. S Robson Walton

18. Wang Jianlin

19. Jorge Paulo Lemann

20. Li Ka-shing 

WORTH 

$75billion

$67billion 

$60.8billion 

$50billion 

$45.2billion 

$44.6billion

$43.6billion

$40billion 

$39.6billion 

$39.6billion 

$36.1billion 

$35.2billion 

$34.4billion 

$34billion 

$33.6billion 

$32.3billion 

$31.9billion 

$28.7billion

$27.8billion 

$27.1billion 

 COMPANY 

Microsoft

Zara 

Berkshire Hathaway

telecom

Amazon.com

Favebook

Oracle

Bloomberg LP

diversified

diversified

L'Oreal

Google

Google

LVMH

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

real estate

beer

diversified 

Saturday 13 February 2016

Page Views By Country 2011-2016

United Kingdom

58900

United States

21130

Germany

10572

France

5608

Russia

4640

Ireland

3582

Turkey

1416

China

1072

Ukraine

684

India

619

Tuesday 2 February 2016

Phew What A Caucus Part Two

Democratic Iowa Caucus 2016

Clinton 701
49.923
Sanders 697
49.62

Phew What A Caucus Part One

GOP Iowa Caucus 2016

Cruz 51,666
Trump 45,427
Rubio 43,165
Carson 17,395
Paul 8,481
Bush 5,238
Fiorina 3,485
Kasich 3,474
Huckabee 3,345
Christie 3,284
Santorum 1,783
Gilmore 12

Wednesday 13 January 2016

Economic Disaster Ahead In 2016

Royal Bank Of Scotland tells its investors to sell everything.Morgan Stanley predicts that oil will fall to $20 a barrel. Standard Chartered say it could fall to $10 a barrel.

Sunday 10 January 2016

Demographic Destiny

According to recently released data under government Freedom of Information laws Bill Clinton thought Unionists would do a deal.

Bill Clinton said: “I think they’re worried about being rendered irrelevant in 20 years, given the way the demographics are going, it’s better to make a deal now rather than later... If you look at it, their popular majority is eroding over time with the increasing birth rates, so now is the time.

“You’ll have to come up with some sort of creative dual relationship.”

According to figures published on the University of Ulster-run CAIN website, the proportion of Catholics in Northern Ireland had risen from 33.5 per cent in 1926, to 38.4 per cent by 1991.

Meanwhile, those belonging to the three main Protestant denominations (Presbyterian, CoI and Methodist) dropped from 62.2 per cent to 42.8 per cent in the same period.

The recent NI Census shows 45% of Northern Ireland's population were Catholic or brought up Catholic, 48% were Protestant or brought up Protestant or other Christian and 5.6% neither belonged to nor had been brought up in a religion.



Saturday 9 January 2016