It has been a grey July 4 in Northern Ireland, but the United States is celebrating its 250th birthday in a heatwave. We are one of the few newspapers still in publication that reported the declaration of independence. I write here about the charming myth that we were first in Europe to do so, yet our overall coverage of early America is even better than the myth! Ten years after the Brexit vote Owen Polley writes about how Northern Ireland was left behind in the EU. I look back at an essay I wrote before the 2016 referendum saying that leaving could blow the UK apart. What did I get right and wrong then?
Jim Allister MP and Lord Dodds write that a supposed safeguard for internal UK trade, established in the Donaldson Stormont return deal, has been misleading.
On the 110th anniversary of the Somme, UTV's Paul Clark wrote about his recent trip to France and his fascination with the Great War. Extraordinarily, the Noah Donohue inquest, which has run for months with large numbers of lawyers at vast expense has been adjourned until the autumn. Talking about vast expense, Stormont financial mismanagement is being bailed out again by ever generous London. Enjoy your weekend and your reading, Ben |
