Alliance said Drumcree was settled. When the Orange Order sought to parade, Eóin Tennyson said it unsettled that settlement. Now the parade is permitted, his line is: you have the right, but wisdom says don’t exercise it. Has he given residents the same advice?

Absolutely diabolical. I can accept that a march is not allowed by the parades commission and it should be peacefully protested and challenged in court. But it should be taken into account who the opposition are and what threats they pose. Violence should never win.

Once every so often, Relatives for Justice lets the mask slip.

WATCH: Andrew Neil Demolishes Rejoin Fantasists order-order.com/2026/09/25/w…

Illegally detected cumulative immigration in the UK by year since 2018, compared to the approximate town or city population most similar to it

Does anyone else find it odd that in the Equality Commission's monitoring of public sector organisations, it fails to spell Equality correctly in its own name, almost as if it is unfamiliar with Equality?

"Douche needs to go" Alleigha Botner texted this to Caleb Flynn. She continues to read through the more than 100k texts the two sent. So many of them just talking about how much they hated Ashley.

TORIES: More illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel under Labour than there are full-time soldiers in the British Army More immigrants have crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour came to office than there are full-time soldiers in the British Army. Home Office figures show 83,279 illegal immigrants have made the crossing since Labour took office on 4 July 2024, overtaking the 83,000 full-time personnel serving in the Army on 23 September 2026. Small boat arrivals under Labour already dwarf the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force combined, which have a total of 67,850 full-time personnel between them, leaving the illegal immigrants 15,429 ahead of both services put together. Across the 809 days since Labour came to office, Channel crossings have delivered an average of barely under 103 people to the UK every single day.

Gordon Lucy's Monday essays for the News Letter, about people from Ulster who helped shape the world in recent centuries, were outstanding: interesting and well written. I always enjoyed talking to him too, so I'll miss the man, not just his work. My condolences to his family

Nobody reads anything at Stormont except the speeches they're supposed to utter without notes

When unionist voters stop voting for unionists (in some cases there are no more unionists to vote for), this is where their votes go next. In four constituencies, it was not possible to accurately discern the paths, as they were in combined eliminations (they have been omitted)

He was also a murderer. Why omit this key information? While I sympathise with his family, we must not stand idly by as ‘journalists’ attempt to distort reality.

I've been looking back at every Assembly and Westminster election in West Belfast since 1998, excluding the 2011 Westminster by-election, to see how the unionist vote has changed. Obviously quotas only apply to Assembly elections. For Westminster elections I've calculated a notional Assembly quota from the valid vote, simply to give a consistent yardstick across the period. The blue figures show the combined unionist vote, while at Assembly elections the orange figures show where the final unionist candidate standing actually ended up after transfers. The comparison between 1998 and 2003 is particularly interesting. In 1998 the combined unionist first-preference vote was 97.7% of a quota, yet Chris McGimpsey of the UUP ultimately reached only around 81% and wasn't elected. Unionist transfers did consolidate substantially behind him, but transfers elsewhere in the count carried other candidates ahead. In 2003 the combined unionist vote was actually slightly lower, at 96.4% of quota, yet Diane Dodds won the final seat. She started with only 54.2% of a quota herself, accumulated transfers and was elected on 91.1%, without ever reaching quota. That is an important feature of STV. You don't necessarily have to reach quota to take the final seat. There is another major change in the graph. Until 2017 each constituency elected six MLAs. From 2017 that was reduced to five, substantially increasing the hurdle required for a quota. I've therefore also produced a notional version showing what the figures would look like had the old six-seat system continued. On that basis the present unionist vote would be well within the safety of a unionist seat, even allowing for some indiscipline in transfers. The constituency boundaries have changed too, including for the 2024 Westminster election, so I've marked those breaks on the graph. The history is therefore a bit more complicated than simply saying unionism needs 100% of a quota. In 1998 it had 97.7% and failed to win a seat. In 2003 it had 96.4% and won one. First preferences matter, but under STV so do candidate distribution, eliminations and transfers. And, as Diane Dodds demonstrated in 2003, a candidate can be elected sub-quota.

Massive abuse of process as the proposer and her party forced a vote before everyone could speak on her Bill, have a ministerial response or even had a chance to respond to her opponent’s arguments in summing up nitter.net/paulajaneb/status/2102…

Given he was using free tax payer funded electric charging until recently, perhaps he's not the best MLA to comment on fuel price hikes

Every glib, arrogant, virtue-signalling celebrity who’s broadcast the lie that kids will kill themselves if not allowed to transition deserves to have this read aloud to them non-stop through a megaphone for a year.

RT @FraserNelson: The level of ignorance of Holyrood ministers over their own departments is something. The point of devolution was to ha…

Frank McCoubrey's selection as the DUP's West Belfast Assembly candidate came as no surprise, but what was more interesting was his appeal, reported by Suzanne Breen, for TUV deputy leader Ron McDowell not to stand against him, which raises the fairly obvious question of why he is so concerned about having another unionist in the race. West Belfast isn't unique in this respect. The DUP already holds the sole unionist representation in Foyle, West Tyrone, Mid Ulster and Newry & Armagh, yet we don't hear the same demands for other unionists to clear the field in those constituencies. Nor does the West Belfast arithmetic justify the nervousness. The combined DUP, TUV and UUP vote at the 2024 Westminster election was around 17%, which, if repeated at an Assembly election, would be more than a quota. With good transfers between unionist candidates, there is every prospect of electing a unionist with votes to spare. Indeed, I would argue that Julie Middleton faces a tougher battle to retain the DUP's position in Foyle than Frank McCoubrey, or another unionist candidate, faces in West Belfast, yet there doesn't appear to be the same clamour for everybody else to clear the field for her. So why should West Belfast be treated differently, and why is Frank particularly concerned about Ron McDowell? I suspect ego has something to do with it, because politics attracts strong personalities and few people who have spent years establishing themselves in their own patch particularly relish somebody else coming close. Another unionist candidate doesn't necessarily prevent unionist representation, but what it does prevent is Frank having virtually the entire unionist electorate to himself. Instead of sailing towards a quota, he might have to compete for first preferences and then depend upon transfers later in the count. That gets to what I think is the weakness in Frank's approach. He doesn't appear confident enough simply to sell himself as the best candidate on ability, record and ideas, but instead appears to be selling himself as the dominant candidate, the established figure around whom everybody else should fall into line. That is also where I think the argument becomes manipulative, because rather than simply persuading voters that he is a better candidate than Ron McDowell, it risks changing the question in their minds from, "Which candidate do I prefer?" to, "Will I damage unionism if I don't vote for Frank?" Instead of asking voters to judge him entirely on his merits, it introduces the fear that choosing somebody else could have consequences for unionist representation. That is quite a powerful seed to plant in the minds of voters, particularly when STV allows them to rank Frank, Ron and any other unionist candidates in whatever order they choose. A first preference for another unionist doesn't prevent somebody transferring to Frank afterwards, just as a Frank voter can transfer to another unionist if Frank is eliminated or has a surplus. It also leaves another question unanswered. If unionist competition is genuinely the problem, why single out the TUV and Ron McDowell rather than make precisely the same appeal to every other unionist party that might contest West Belfast? In some respects, Frank's argument feels like a diet version of Danny Kennedy's remarks, in which the great electoral offence appears to be that another political party has the audacity to stand, compete and perhaps even win. Elections don't exist to protect established politicians from competition, and unionism does not own a seat simply by virtue of being unionism. Frank should have enough confidence in his own abilities and record to make the case for himself without making voters fearful of the consequences of choosing somebody else. Let Frank make his case, let other unionists make theirs, let unionist voters choose whichever candidate they actually prefer and then transfer accordingly, because ultimately it should be the electorate that decides.

Is it just me ..?👇