Politics

You have to hand it to the green movement. When it comes to their increasingly farcical and delusional race towards the illusory target of net zero, they’re never short of ideas. Bad ideas, that is. E-bikes and E-scooters that have an unfortunate tendency to explode in the middle of the night. Electric cars which take days to charge – when you can find a charger. Motorists threatened with eye-watering fines if they dare to go faster than 20 miles an hour. Honestly, don’t be surprised if the next generation of cars come equipped with only two gears and a built in speed inhibitor. But here in Ireland, we have really taken the

On Wednesday, 19 churches and more than 80 Christian homes in Pakistan were ransacked after the inhabitants of the city of Jaranwala were accused of blasphemy against Islam. Perhaps the most unacknowledged aspect of the violence was just how expected it was.  Nationwide, non-Muslim places of worship, especially churches, have been on high alert for the past month following burnings of the Quran carried out in Sweden by anti-Islam protesters. All the Islamic clergy and groups in Pakistan needed was an excuse to ignite the tinderbox. It’s unfortunate that Pakistan can’t seem to muster even residual security for some of its citizens The excuse was provided by a rumour that desecrated pages of the Quran were

Good old Sadiq Khan: the right-on left-winger who never met a camera he didn’t like. The Mayor of London hit the headlines again last month with his controversial new ‘Maaate’ campaign. It calls on men to say: ‘Maaate’ to their friend if they see anything untoward towards women, in a bid to stamp out harassment. The adverts divided opinion, with women’s rights campaigner Zan Moon, founder of the Instagram account Screengrab Them, declaring at the time that Khan’s campaign was myopic and ‘offensive in its naivety’. Now Mr S has done some digging and it turns out that the total cost of the ‘Maaate’ initiative is more than £219,000. According

After nearly a month of silence, North Korea has finally spoken out about Travis King – the US soldier who dashed across the border while on a guided tour from South Korea.  To the dismay of observers, however, the press release by the state-controlled media outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, offered no details as to his current condition or whereabouts.  North Korea’s own narrative portrays its people as the purer of the two Koreas, forced to live in an evil world led by its ultimate adversary, the United States The North Korean announcement did, however, state that King entered the country hoping to seek political asylum, because he was seeking to flee

In these turbulent times, it’s good to know there’s one thing we can count on: Keir Starmer’s consistent inconsistency. The Labour leader is at it again, breaking yet another of his past pledges: this time on workers’ rights. In 2021 Sir Keir’s party pledged to create a single status of ‘worker’ in employment law to stop gig economy giants like Deliveroo using the category of bogus self-employment to undermine conditions. But the Financial Times reports that the party’s policy documents – agreed at last month’s National Policy Forum – now pledge only to consult on ‘a simpler framework’ for differentiating the self-employed from workers. This new policy would create a system that ‘could