Sometimes I want to kick the TV. Last night was one of those times. On a British politics programme last night the great and the good were discussing Sunday’s surprise election of the Socialist Party’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as Spain’s new Prime Minister. The reaction of panellists to this turn of events was largely negative. The historian Timothy Garton-Ash lamented the fact that the Spanish electorate were marching to al-Qaida’s tune. Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portil...

Let’s all be humble about this and admit that, at this stage, we don’t know for sure why Madrid was attacked last Thursday. Al-Qaida are yet to enlighten us as to their reasoning. Until they do, we can only speculate. Nevertheless it is possible to draw conclusions about al-Qaida's rationale in general. Al-Qaida has launched attacks against many countries, some Muslim, some Christian, some with pro-war governments, some with anti-war administrations. Their attacks long pre-date the invasio...

It’s nearly a year since American tanks began rolling across the Iraq – Kuwait border. The first anniversary of an event is a common juncture to indulge in a little reflection. My intention in writing this blog is both to reflect and to challenge. Specifically, I want to challenge the hawks to defend their war with the benefit of hindsight. Are you proud of your conflict? Do you still think it was right? It’s my belief that the anti-war camp has essentially been vindicated by the course of ...

On their long journey from armed struggle to slight constitutionalism, Sinn Fein (SF) have repeatedly been challenged by journalists and other political parties to condemn continuing IRA violence, including punishment beatings and attacks on political opponents. In nearly every case, when presented with fresh evidence of IRA violence, the party's spokespeople refuse to use the word "condemn". Instead they try to deflect attention away from republican activities by placing them in a wider ...

"Shocked" is very much the word of the moment. Last week's exposure of US torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has caused shock all around the world that such treatment should be meted out by the Americans. Bush is shocked, Blair is shocked, the US army is shocked, the Arab world is shocked. Well, they shouldn't be. There are many emotions which one could reasonably feel when viewing the pictures of US soldiers torturing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Disgust would be one. Anger woul...

I find I have an ingrained deference to authority. It's a terible thing for a leftie to admit but, generally, I do what I'm told. If a man in a uniform tells me to do something, I do it. I may seethe at the injustice of the order but years of experience have taught me that following that order is the path of least resistance. So if someone with a cap and a badge says: "Get off the grass!", I will get off the grass. Not everyone is like me, some people are naturally rebellious. Instead of meek...

If there's one word I'd like to see removed from political discourse, it's "evil". I'm sick of hearing the e-word all the time, tired of reading it evrywhere. These days, it is most commonly used in reference to enemies of America - Saddam is evil, Bin Laden is evil etc etc My problem is not that the use of the word is innacurate. The aforementioned gentlemen have done more than enough to merit the description "evil". No argument there. But I do have an issue with the way that some on the ...

I was born in 1979. For some of you reading this, that makes me old enough to be, well, your big brother. In fact for two of you reading this I am your big brother. But most of you probably think that twenty-four is young, maybe even obscenely young. "Twenty-four! I wish I was twenty-four again, then I'd never have..." you may be thinking. Don't worry, I think the same way about people who are twenty. It struck me recently just how much our age influences our attitudes. Or I should say, ...

There can be no other part of the European Union (EU) which has benefited as much from the organisation as Northern Ireland (NI). Over the past thirty years, the Union has poured billions of pounds into community and infrastructure projects in the North, creating thousands of jobs. Through the "Peace 1" and "Peace 2" investment programmes, it has supported the process of conflict resolution from the outset. The EU has kept NI as an "Objective 1" area even though the North is technically t...

Well it had to happen eventually! The American president and the truth are not exactly good friends, in fact sometimes they're not even on speaking terms. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear Dubya at his press conference with Ariel Sharon yesterday saying the following on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status neg...

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are so closely linked in the consciousness that it’s easy to forget that these two parts of Palestine are very different. They are not adjacent to each other geographically. They are different religiously, topographically and socially. Their fates are linked through an accident of history which left them as the only parts of Mandate Palestine which weren’t conquered by Zionists during the 1948 war. Since 1967 the two places have had a common experience of ...

I use the first person plural very promiscuously in my blogs. In fact, I write the word “we” so often that it’s really starting to grate. Sometimes I use it to speak about humanity in general: “we all know…” and sometimes to talk more specifically about my own civilisation “we in the West…” I’m annoyed with myself for using the word so often because I know that it’s wrong. “We” isn’t as innocuous as it seems. When used in this way, the first person plural is actually a very subtle form of...

Since Bush did his “Top Gun” impression last May and declared an end to “major combat operations”, there have been very few British deaths in Iraq. For Americans, the famous “Mission Accomplished” banner has proven bitterly over-optimistic. Most days at least one US soldier is killed in Iraq, often it is more than one. The British Army though, with far fewer troops concentrated in much quieter areas, can go months without losing a man to hostile fire. This may be about to change should Sh...

I like to write my blogs by hand before I type them up. As I write this, I’m travelling on a bus from Dublin to Belfast. We are in the town of Drogheda in the Irish Republic. By the time I finish writing, we’ll be in Northern Ireland. It is three days until Easter. For Catholics today is Holy Thursday, for Protestants, Maunday Thursday. Either way, tomorrow will be Good Friday. Given the date and the location, I feel it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), r...

I’ve been strongly opposed to the war in Iraq from the outset. As each day passes Paul Bremer’s optimism gets more laughable, Tony Blair’s lies become more apparent and more people, mostly Iraqis, are killed. Each new day brings no news of those mysterious WMD. And each day I grow more convinced that this war was wrong. Having said this, I don’t pretend to possess the absolute truth in any scenario. There are some good pro-war arguments, I just happen to think that there are many more goo...