Eliot Wilson was a House of Commons clerk, including on the Defence Committee and Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee. He is contributing editor at Defence On The Brink and senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity
The appointment of a new executive by the Northern Ireland Assembly on Saturday was a hugely significant moment. There was no government at Stormont for exactly two years from 3 February 2022 until Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin accepted the assembly’s nomination to be first minister at the weekend. She is the first Republican leader
It has been nearly two years since the last elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Féin, for the first time, emerged as the largest party, with 27 of the 90 seats, two ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But the assembly has only met four times since then. Business cannot proceed until a
‘Up yours, Delors!’ It was the perfect headline for the Sun: crude, defiant, unambiguous and directed at a Frenchman. The paper’s front page on 1 November 1990 called on ‘its patriotic family of readers to tell the filthy French to FROG OFF!’ The tabloid was asking its readers to turn towards France at noon the following
When a nickname really hits its target, there is a satisfying beauty about it: a quippy sobriquet that catches the attention and goes to the heart of some aspect of a person’s character. It is a measure of the Conservative party’s inability to get a convincing hold on Sir Keir Starmer that they have tried
Christmas is a time when those who are closest to each other fight most bitterly. Ireland, which is bringing a legal case against the UK under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), appears to be acting in the spirit of the season. The country’s deputy prime minister Micheál Martin announced yesterday that his government
It’s a pity that Dominic Cummings’s rude WhatsApp messages dominated the headlines following his appearance at the Covid inquiry this week. Boris Johnson’s estranged consigliere had plenty to say about the problems with Whitehall – much of which risks getting ignored because of the focus on leaked messages. One of his targets was the cabinet,
Is there really room in the crowded market for a new podcast about politics, presented by two male Oxbridge graduates? The BBC thinks so: the team behind Radio 4’s Today programme is launching a new weekly podcast hosted by Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan. This is a ‘bold commitment from the BBC to continue to
Former Tory leaders are queuing up to take a pop at the government’s response to the Westminster spy story. Liz Truss has labelled China the ‘largest threat’ to ‘democracy and freedom’ after it emerged that a parliamentary researcher had been arrested on suspicion of spying for the Chinese government. Iain Duncan Smith suggested that ‘the
Old soldiers never die, the song goes, they just fade away. Next year, General Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff and the professional head of the British Army, will step down after less than two years in post. He is 57, and will have served for 40 years. But he is not fading
