Ben Lowry: The Ulster Unionist Party has somehow lost a politician who seemed a natural fit for it
View email online | | | | | | | | | | | Jan 7, 2023 | | | | | | | |
We travel further and further into January.
The days keep getting longer but whatever cheer that might bring people above all want to be warm. So there is great interest in how the £600 fuel assistance will be unveiled https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/consumer/cost-of-living/concerns-for-keypad-customers-as-ps600-energy-support-payment-rollout-begins-in-northern-ireland-3973042 Politically, it is looking ever more like a winter of discontent, with now civil servants set to go on strike https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/northern-ireland-civil-servants-appear-set-to-join-wave-of-industrial-action-after-pay-offer-dubbed-offensive-by-nipsa-3977535 Coverage of the disputes has hardly been even handed. It is not as if you hear as much criticism of the industrial action as sympathy. But every story has two sides https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/it-is-long-past-time-that-the-public-should-be-hearing-both-sides-to-strike-disputes-3977932 This letter writer is concerned about imbalance too, in how a recent New Year honour reflects a one-sided approach to views on abortion https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/letter-two-women-do-what-they-believe-one-gets-an-honour-for-facilitating-abortion-the-other-is-arrested-for-for-protesting-against-it-3977934 In other news, we have covered throughout a group of Orangemen on their scaling of Kilimanjaro. There is a lot of interest, perhaps because so many of us would love to go there one day? I certainly would. https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/people/group-of-24-orangemen-make-it-to-top-of-kilimanjaro-on-charity-hike-which-has-raised-more-than-ps250000-3973383 My latest column is about a little known politician who is the sort of talent unionism ought to be fostering for Stormont, yet this man was facing a fight to hold on to his council seat https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ben-lowry-the-ulster-unionist-party-has-somehow-lost-a-politician-who-seemed-a-natural-fit-for-it-3977936
I remember clearly as a boy watching on TV the Pope's visit to Ireland in 1979, and thinking it exciting that he got off a jumbo jet and kissed the ground. Alf McCreary writes here his recollection of the end of that papacy, and in Rome bumping into another Northern Irish media person https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/alf-mccreary-the-news-letter-photographer-and-a-ladder-at-popes-funeral-3976585
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Ben Lowry Editor | |
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