We were told on many occasions by various Conservative ministers that the arms being sold to Indonesia would not be used for "internal security" and yet on the TV news over the past few days we have seen many shots of these tanks in action against ri...

This demonstrates more clearly than any other single act I can recall the complete misreading by the Northern Ireland Office of the thinking of the average Ulster Unionist. The mandarins are so sure that Unionism is at heart no more than a raucously ...

We have been using one since the birth of our daughter last September and have found it convenient and reliable. Obviously, it costs money to have dirty nappies taken away and a bag of clean ones left on our doorstep. The cost, however, is comparable...

Why Newbliss ? "When they saw these rolling fields they thought they'd walked into their own hymns," a Scottish researcher once told me. Historically and topographically these counties, Cavan and Monaghan, belong to Ulster. Demographically, they are ...

So it was with a certain weariness that I read about the anti-trust suit filed this week by the US Justice Department against Microsoft. Who cares which browser to use on the Internet? Surely when someone comes along with a better browser (or whateve...

In the real world however childcare is regarded as a boring women's issue, even though it is one that is central to New Labour, New Deal politicians. People who have never spent one week in sole charge of their own children debate childcare at an ent...

The duty-free lobby has made the most extreme predictions about the imminent loss of jobs, industries, even whole airports as a result of the change. The alarms are a little synthetic. It is not as if the proposal to abolish duty-free has come out of...

On 22 June 1921, King George V opened the new Ulster Parliament at Stormont. Rejecting the hard-line tendency of the official address provided, the King chose instead to express himself in language intended to appeal to the whole of the Irish people....

AS SPECULATION about a Blair reshuffle intensifies, word has reached Pandora of a "Stop Mandelson" campaign being waged on the highest slopes of the Cabinet. The Minister Without Portfolio continues to enjoy the warm support of the Prime Minister, an...

Three weeks of television dominated by World Cup football is about to be the most visible manifestation of this. Titillating images of women proliferate in the press (even in The Independent, though usually masquerading under some other guise). And a...

Politics is language as well as action. The first clue that something was wrong with the campaign was the statement made by a spokesperson for Oxfam last week. She said: "Failure to remove the debt burden in Africa is a violation of child rights." We...

Let the cathedrals become state property, given over to English Heritage to manage. They could be let out for suitable private functions, such as religious services, on a cost basis.

Plainly we should disapprove of disregard for tenants. But what on earth does that have to do with the sex of the landlord? Deconstructing your argument is not difficult - her crime may be greed, but her real crime is to be a greedy woman.

But those decisions are being taken in private. They are being taken, often, with minimal input from the public which pays the taxes on which the spending depends. Departments are arguing with the Treasury about candle ends here, pennies there, while...

Western intervention is not going to get rid of rulers in Asia. That is done by the people of the country, as shown in Thailand and South Korea - and now perhaps in Indonesia. Unless, of course, one takes the view that the IMF rescue package was subt...

He wrote passionately, seeking to persuade Suzanne to be nicer about us. We need her, he said, to give us a bit of support through rough times. But, of course, the predictable happened. Mummy refused. "That's not my job," she responded. I can live wi...