Bernadette McAliskey

What a start to the dark days to the days the winter?

So there you have it, folks – the generational, transformative budget (the phrase stolen from Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto for the 2019 election) from the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered last week, and dissected in the week since. Am I the only person who hears Maggie Thatcher’s voice every time Rachel Reeves speaks? Do they come from the same street?

This Hallowe'en night, children and adults will take to dressing up and wandering around their local estate, streets and villages knocking on people’s doors with an expectation of a voluntary donation of sweets, nuts and the odd apple or two. They will be careful on some doorsteps not to dislodge any ornately-carved pumpkin lit by a modern battery-powered ‘tea-light’, lest it reduce the chance of a welcome.

At the time of writing, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to announce the Starmer Labour budget on Wednesday, October 30; as I’m a day ‘out’, my concerns below may – or may not – hit the mark. Let us see what is rendered unto us, and particularly how older citizens fare.

Both Sinn Féin (SF) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have been struggling over the past few weeks to minimise and repair ‘reputational damage’. Both parties reacted as if the storm surrounding the presence of Michael McMonagle at the BHF Stormont event was the real problem, when it was actually the consequence of the real problem.

Israel has invaded neighbouring Lebanon with tacit support from the USA, and the United Kingdom. The USA and United Kingdom have now committed to war to protect Israel’s interests, yet Kier Starmer has the brass neck to claim Tehran ‘for too long have been a menace to the Middle East’.

Another week takes us closer to the global war I spoke of recently, towards which the USA and Israel have been driving us for some time. The latest from Israel – the cockpit of Zionist terror – is its intention to ‘annihilate Lebanon’. (Israel’s words, not mine!) Still the USA, UK and EU provide political cover, finance and weapons of mass destruction.

Bernadette McAliskey writes that Hilary Benn's tenure at the NIO continues a legacy of failures, broken promises, and superficial responses.

NI Water recently provided a stark wake-up call to the housing and business sectors that Northern Ireland’s failing wastewater infrastructure “is unable to take connections from new houses and businesses in major parts of our cities and over 100 towns, and this is leading to inadequate environmental protection through increased sewer flooding and pollution”.

I hate to ruin anyone’s day as they settle down to read their local newspaper but I need to raise the unthinkable reality of how near we might be to another World War.