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Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

The Irish News

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The Department for Infrastructure is failing – is it simply too big to function?

sunday 5

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

What is the point of having to book to go to the dump?

20.12.2024 5

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Why has ramming police cars become a trend in Northern Ireland?

19.12.2024 8

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Stormont’s sea border non-event leaves public cold

14.12.2024 9

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Stormont had money for transport but spent it elsewhere

12.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Why are unionist politicians shy of challenging loyalism?

12.12.2024 20

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

DUP and Sinn Féin’s contempt for Stormont reform leaves us stuck with lowest common denominator politics

08.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Have our schools and teachers learned the lessons of the Covid pandemic?

I had a visceral reaction to news that Northern Ireland’s teaching unions want a 13.5 per cent pay rise and will strike if they do not get it. Paul...

06.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

The real danger now is of Sinn Féin quiet quitting in Northern Ireland

There will be changes “within the ranks” of Sinn Féin following last week’s Irish general election, DUP leader Gavin Robinson has predicted,...

05.12.2024 40

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Stormont badly needs to hire a project manager

It is considered a scandal that the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen will cost the taxpayer three times more than the building is worth,...

30.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Stormont stance on benefits is cowardice by political choice

Labour’s plan to reduce welfare spending may or may not come to pass. It has been re-announced this week, yet again, still without much detail or...

29.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

For flax sake: why is the idea of a new flag for Northern Ireland so controversial?

The chair and chief executive of the Commonwealth Games board in Northern Ireland want Stormont to design a new flag for the region. While that might...

28.11.2024 30

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

No job market can put organised crime out of business

Loyalist Communities Council chairman David Campbell has dipped into the Big Book of Political Cliches, claiming young people in loyalist areas become...

23.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Why limit regulation of protests to parades?

When regulation of parades was being coaxed into existence three decades ago, it was considered fortunate that marching is fundamental to Orangeism....

22.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Farmers have a point - if only they could make it more reasonably

There was a daunting display of political power outside Lisburn on Monday night. Thousands of farmers gathered in a convention centre for a rally...

21.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Clearing the road blocks in the way of major infrastructure

One month after the A5 dual carriageway apparently received the final go-ahead, the Department for Infrastructure has received notice of another...

17.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

The LCC exists in the space where we have forgotten what normal means

A stark difference of opinion has been revealed by the latest LucidTalk poll. Eighty-one per cent of unionists, including 91 per cent of DUP...

15.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Politicians need to decide if Northern Ireland is desperately poor or so rich it requires no help

The Shared Island Initiative gets its own page in Fianna Fáil’s 200-page manifesto, amid five pages on a broader “Shared Island Agenda”. This...

14.11.2024 20

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

History suggests Trump has no interest in our nonsense

The world may have changed since 2016 but President Trump’s first term remains our best guide to how he might treat Northern Ireland during his...

10.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Family farms need a balanced response to inheritance tax change, not Stormont alarmism

It is a bit much to expect Stormont to take a balanced view of inheritance tax. The tax is not devolved so Stormont sees none of the money, at least...

08.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Gavin Robinson and the DUP need to reach out with style as well as substance

The DUP must win over the unaligned centre ground to secure the union, leader Gavin Robinson has warned his party. The first response from much of...

07.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

The Treasury tap is back on – but does more money mean more problems?

Extra spending in England means more money for Stormont under the Barnett formula. This week’s Westminster budget means a lot more: £640 million...

03.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: Stormont reform is a goal that could unite us all

Sinn Féin and the DUP are at pains to insist devolution is stable, despite recent scandals in Sinn Féin and ensuing acrimony between both parties....

31.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: Spurious comparisons between British rule in Ireland and the slave trade damage the peace process

You can almost feel the slavery reparations debate drifting balefully towards Belfast, not that slavery will be the issue once it touches our shores....

31.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Police back-pedalling, Stormont stone-walling and a plague of biting insects

The PSNI has engaged in absurd back-pedalling over an intelligence assessment on Sinn Féin and the IRA. Asked last week by Jamie Bryson if a 2015...

26.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Is enforced education really the best way to reach ‘neets’?

In 2015, it became compulsory in England to remain in full-time education or training until the age of 18 – not a new school leaving but a new...

25.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

You may as well discuss a Stormont space programme as how to align welfare systems North and South

Four-fifths of households in Northern Ireland receive more in benefits than they pay in tax, according to a new report from the Economic & Social...

24.10.2024 20

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Everyone wants loyalist paramilitary gangs to go away - including UVF and UDA ‘members’

There is a growing sense that time is running out for interminable loyalist peace processing. DUP ministers are under increasing if somewhat...

20.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

How competitions can change thinking and get government moving

Government competitions are an old idea to encourage new thinking and new technology. Many of the great achievements of Victorian engineering began...

18.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Britain’s anti-obesity jab plan is the stuff of sci-fi

The British government is planning to give weight-loss injections to obese people so they can be taken off sickness benefits and obliged to work. This...

17.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Does desire to rejoin EU rely on an imagined past?

In her inaugural speech as SDLP leader last Saturday, Claire Hanna cited rejoining the EU as a decisive attraction of a united Ireland. Former...

10.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Michael McMonagle scandal: Sinn Féin needs to get to grips with its troubled relationship with money

Money is the under-appreciated factor in the Sinn Féin press officer scandal. Michael McMonagle was employed at the party’s central press office...

10.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: Farmers may own the land, but Stormont owns them

Announcing that work on the A5 will begin, DUP Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly noted how vesting homes and farmland became a highly emotive...

06.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Why not copy rest of world and let councils run roads?

Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd may be a minister in a mere regional government, as opposed to a national government, but it is still absurd that he is...

04.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

How Northern Ireland’s supermarket aisles have become another Brexit battleground

Over the next few weeks, people in Northern Ireland will notice familiar products on supermarket shelves being replaced with items from the Republic...

03.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Hill Street blues sum up Stormont’s uselessness

It seems like a small matter and that is the point. Stormont’s inability to pedestrianise a short stretch of road in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter...

28.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

UUP opposition to budget could signal next Stormont crisis

In 2013, when the three smaller parties in the executive complained they were being ignored, Sinn Féin minister John O’Dowd said “so what?”...

26.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: Why Dublin, London and Stormont are still bankrolling loyalists

The entire Irish nationalist political establishment, North and South, has been meeting, facilitating and funding paramilitary-linked loyalist groups...

26.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Could city deals be the real deal?

Labour caused a week of chaos by pausing and unpausing Northern Ireland’s four city deals but at least it has brought the deals to wider attention....

22.09.2024 40

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Labour wants to tell a gloomy story – but could its tale come true?

In the diplomatic words of Emma Little-Pengelly, “a considerable amount of confusion has been allowed to develop” over last Friday’s ‘pause’...

20.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Stop blaming unionists for the Casement Park debacle

If only unionists had the influence ascribed to them by their opponents. Since last Friday, when the British government withdrew a funding pledge for...

19.09.2024 20

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Clear that government intends Finucane inquiry to be the last

Announcing a Pat Finucane public inquiry in the Commons, Secretary of State Hilary Benn explained repeatedly and at length that this decision was made...

14.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Charging developers is far from perfect but is it only solution to sewage crisis?

The housing sector has responded to the proposal by Sinn Féin infrastructure minister John O’Dowd to charge developers to modernise NI Water. The...

12.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

In their cosy new embrace, Starmer and Harris may be forgetting the Belfast Agreement

The reset in British-Irish relations is in danger of over-writing the Belfast Agreement. Prime minister Keir Starmer visited Taoiseach Simon Harris at...

12.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Programme for government should be short on words and long on delivery

The test of Stormont’s programme for government, expected in draft form on Monday, should be brevity. This matters more than whether it it presented...

07.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Dual-market access is oversold and deeply flawed

Stormont is refusing to supply evidence for its claims that Northern Ireland benefits from UK and EU ‘dual-market access’. The Department for the...

05.09.2024 9

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

If you want to know whether Sinn Féin’s housing policy will work, look at what it achieved in the North

The launch of Sinn Féin’s housing policy in the Republic has drawn some critical comparisons with the party’s performance north of the Border....

05.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: Could Hanna’s politics prove better fit for shrunken SDLP?

Paying tribute to Colum Eastwood on his resignation as SDLP leader, former secretary of state Julian Smith called him “an exceptional...

31.08.2024 30

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson: DUP needs to hold its nerve on immigration

An extraordinary amount of unionism’s current malaise stems from the DUP panicking over a LucidTalk poll in February 2021, which showed a shock jump...

30.08.2024 10

The Irish News

Newton Emerson

UUP needs to become the Progressive Democrats to the DUP’s Fianna Fáil

Before the last Stormont election in 2022, I interviewed Ron McDowell, deputy leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Polls were predicting a...

29.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Newton Emerson

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