To the lovely (and now engaged) @sharonashambles. Ireland is screwed. From the moment some moron decided to break away from the greatest nation on Earth, through the moment someone thought it’d be a good idea to shoot the chap who negotiated peace with the British, through the moment we realised we had built more apartments [...]

  Obvious but necessary

The striking thing about the Irish Sovereignty arguments re: the bailout is how non-sovereign and dependent Ireland has been since the beginning of the twentieth century. First, between 1900 and 3 May 1921, Ireland was under British administration; clearly not sovereign and independent, and sometimes treated pretty poorly by the motherland.  Your mileage may vary. [...]

Next week begins European Week Against Racism, a week when organisations opposed to racism host events to highlight racial prejudice and discrimination, and to celebrate the existence of societies where discrimination on the colour of a person’s skin or their ethnicity is considered unacceptable. Normally, I mark the week by working much harder on promoting [...]

Gordon Brown, the king of wishful thinking, has just made the Queen read out some drivel in the House of Lords.  Here’s the draft he sent up to Buckingham Palace before it was fixed up by an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters. “My Government, which has saved the world and the global financial system, [...]

So, how does someone with an irrational, childish, offensive, misanthropic and uncouth national antipathy for both France and Ireland go about deciding who to jeer more?

Note: regular readers of Slugger O’Toole will call this entire article whataboutery.  It is.  I’m predicting a possible future here, so don’t hate me if you don’t like the scenario I depict. Please don’t cry, and certainly don’t have nightmares. I had three strange conversations about Lisbon today, from three sides of the debate around [...]

I had a protracted Twitter conversation with @ijclark last evening about Micha? Kaminski, the leader of the new anti-federalist European Parliamentary group. The main bone of contention seems to be the allegation that Mr. Kaminski is an anti-semite and, by extension, unfit to lead a group in the European Parliament. I do not believe a [...]

come and see Ireland, come and see the way an EU referendum is handled, and consider whether the people here really are free to vote in a fair referendum. But don’t say you weren’t warned what to expect.