
Jon Tonge: Calls for voting at age of 16, but would reform end teen apathy?
By Jon Tonge Less than a week to go before the verdicts of more than 800,000 voters - assuming turnout holds up - decide the fate of Northern Ireland's politicians.
By Jon Tonge Less than a week to go before the verdicts of more than 800,000 voters - assuming turnout holds up - decide the fate of Northern Ireland's politicians.
By Jon Tonge It is the election that continues to astound. This week saw Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn win the 'Most Money Ever Found on an Interview Chair' award as he unearthed a cool £58bn during his...
By Jon Tonge Great to see the election bringing everyone together then as we enter the season of goodwill. A grim set of posters isn't really cutting it as Belfast's alternative advent calendar.
By Jon Tonge With Sinn Fein under immense pressure to retain the constituency in which the party's ard fheis was located, the gathering of the faithful was imbued with extra significance.
Jon Tonge Earlier this week the Political Studies Association provided a General Election briefing to journalists in London. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all covered (the lattermost by your...
By Jon Tonge Sinn Fein's ard fheis this weekend will be a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
By Jon Tonge All this election excitement and we've not even moved from pacts to policies yet. It has been an extraordinary week in what is shaping up to be a dramatic contest.
By Jon Tonge All I want for Christmas is ... a Belfast constituency where all the parties stand. Some chance. The city's hollowed-out contests have become even more fascinating - but 'action-pact' in different...
By Jon Tonge Steve Aiken might be wondering whether to give Doug Beattie a call to see if he fancies the UUP job after all.
By Jon Tonge So that went well. The 'no pacts' UUP policy appears in trouble even before the new leader has taken the helm to implement what he announced this time last week.
By Jon Tonge Just when you were looking forward to Christmas as well. Political parties, not Christmas ones. While there was a certain inevitability about yesterday’s election calling, it made few hearts race with...
By Jon Tonge No-one could accuse Steve Aiken of holding back as incoming leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.
By Jon Tonge Flying back over the prospective regulatory and customs borders in the Irish Sea on Saturday evening, there was much to ponder from the DUP conference.
By Jon Tonge This weekend’s DUP conference is perhaps the trickiest for the party since the one that followed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA).
By Jon Tonge Prime Minister 1 v DUP 2. A midweek success for the DUP, building on Saturday's triumph, in thwarting a Boris Brexit they loathe so much.
By Jon Tonge So, it was a case of Get Boris Done not Get Brexit Done at the weekend. The passing of the Letwin amendment in the Commons bought a little time for the DUP and the visceral satisfaction of...
By Jon Tonge Today is potentially one of the most momentous days in unionist political history. A vote in favour of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will fundamentally reshape Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, in...
By Jon Tonge Jon Tonge analyses some key parts of revised Brexit deal agreed by UK and EU
By Jon Tonge Boris Johnson’s deal with the EU is a U-turn extraordinary even by his considerable chameleonic standards.
By Jon Tonge It's hardly surprising that DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has indicated that a dual UK-EU customs plan cannot work. The DUP has always opposed joint authority in any context.
By Jon Tonge The positive tone from Thursday's meeting between Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar was a welcome antidote to the weeks of megaphone diplomacy which preceded the Wirral mini-summit.
By Jon Tonge So the European Union rejects the idea of a non-existent Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly determining the contours of the EU single market, covering 500 million people? Just fancy that.
By Jon Tonge So the DUP supports an all-Ireland economy within the EU single market and backs checks on goods travelling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland? Who would have thought it?
By Jon Tonge The imminent departure of Robin Swann as leader represents another blow to the long-ailing Ulster Unionist Party.
By Jon Tonge Another unedifying week in politics. Such was the poisonous rancour of Wednesday evening's Westminster 'debate' after Parliament reconvened that another prorogation might actually have been...
By Jon Tonge Where does the Government go from here? It ought to be hard for the Prime Minister, effectively labelled an 'Enemy of the Parliament' by a Supreme Court as incredulous as it was unanimous, to...
By Jon Tonge What are the odds on a 6-5 split verdict from the Supreme Court judges next week?
By Jon Tonge It has been the least edifying week in politics since, well, the previous one. As a parliament prorogued was adjudicated by the Scottish Courts to be the action of rogues not pros, the battle...
By Jon Tonge "DUP opens door to new Brexit deal for Johnson" trumpeted yesterday's Times newspaper.
By Jon Tonge Are the DUP's best days gone? It's a question many will pose amid the loss of the party's kingmaker role at Westminster.
By Jon Tonge So apart from no Brexit, no majority and no election, not a bad week for Boris Johnson then.
By Jon Tonge So having demanded a general election for two years, it appears that Jeremy Corbyn's party may have got cold feet on the idea.
By Jon Tonge It might have been easier to have taken the Crown off the lectern and leave it outside 10 Downing Street, ready for Boris Johnson's election declaration tomorrow night. For all the Prime Minister's...
By Jon Tonge So it's not just Northern Ireland with expertise in the prolonged proroguing of parliament. Boris Johnson's five-week suspension of the Commons is possibly the most thinly-veiled Westminster plot in...
By Jon Tonge As plans go, Boris Johnson's idea of an October 17 general election has far more credibility than the one to suspend Parliament to get Brexit over the line.
By Jon Tonge Amid the furore over Boris Johnson's Cabinet appointments, Julian Smith's posting as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appears one of the new Prime Minister's shrewder moves. Smith has spent the...
By Jon Tonge Arlene Foster chose a good day to be sat in the royal box at Wimbledon. Watching Serena Williams (twice) and Andy Murray must have been infinitely preferable to witnessing the demolition of...
By Jon Tonge Prime Minister-elect Boris Johnson - that's assuming the Conservative members don't take a dim view of late-night domestics - was unusually reticent during the rounds of voting among...
By Jon Tonge This newspaper doesn't always make it easy for columnists. "A thousand words on Theresa May's achievements as Prime Minister please". I've not struggled with the upper word limit.
By Jon Tonge Two breakthroughs in one month. These are heady days for Naomi Long's Alliance Party.
Jon Tonge Eight Conservative Party leadership candidates declared and lots more to come. But, if a Conservative Secretary of State struggled to understand the differences between unionists and nationalists,...
By Jon Tonge As election candidates, pundits and counters catch up on sleep this Bank Holiday Monday, how is the 2019 local election best analysed in terms of all the main parties?
By Jon Tonge So the centre ground really does exist. Just when we were thinking that the non-unionist, non-nationalist elector was a creature found only in our university studies of public opinion, out come Alliance...
By Jon Tonge The opening day of May seems early to decide the political moment of the year. Yet the sight of sheepish politicians rising uncertainly to their feet amid heartfelt admonishment from Father Martin Magill...
By Jon Tonge Parliament's predictable eight-fold rejection of every Brexit option highlights how all exits from our political crisis are currently blocked.
By Jon Tonge Another day, another humiliation for the Prime Minister. There's little fun in interminable ritual. When even your Attorney General says, in boomingly polite but forlorn language, that you haven't...
By Jon Tonge Will the real DUP Brexit policy please stand up? You can have whatever DUP Brexit you like at present.
By Jon Tonge Another day. Another 7pm News Special. Another near-farce. Two long hours of divisions to produce the parliamentary equivalent of a scoreless penalty shoot-out. Still, at least the Commons will be...
By Jon Tonge Not bad night's work for the DUP then, in an odd sort of way. An unwanted deal defeated, a Prime Minister humiliated and a Conservative Party clinging to office today on its 10 votes.
By Jon Tonge So on we go, with a Prime Minister with the backing of 63% of her party. Weaker than John Major, the last Conservative PM to undergo a vote of confidence. He carried on and took his party out of...
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