I read the news today (oh boy) - Current world events | Page 113 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Not an excuse, @Wigwam, but as Holey said, I have badly damaged my leg and have had problems posting the last week or so (my usual position when on my laptop is sitting on the sofa cross-legged with the laptop on the coffee table in front of me, which has been impossible).

However, I would not have blamed the small Muslim population of Sri Lanka had I been able to post normally because there has been no claim of responsibility. I would have added yesterday that the Sri Lankan Government believe a previously unheard of Muslim group – the NFJ – were responsible, and that the attack was in response to the NZ attack.

It was easy to blame the NZ attack on a white supremacist because he claimed it, sent out a deranged manifesto.

It has only been in the last hour that ISIS have claimed involvement in the horrific Sri Lankan attacks.

On the day of her funereal, I wanted to make a few comments on the murder of 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee on the streets of the Creggan estate in Derry last Thursday.

As some of you may know, I come from a London Irish background, with grandparents who fled the sectarian divides and violence that have plagued the island of Ireland for more than a century. I have always lent toward a united Ireland, but only should that be the will of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland. It will never, and should never, come about because of those who believe they can bring it about with their bombs and their guns and their indiscriminate murders.

The Good Friday Agreement 21 years ago offered Hope For The Future , a political path forward that the politicians, instead of embedding democracy and a non-violent path forward, the power-sharing Assembly has often been suspended, with the current suspension beginning on 9 January 2017.

Instead of offering Hope For The Future , the main parties – the loyalist DUP and the republican Sinn Féin – find quarrels to excuse their unwillingness to work across the divides and do the jobs for which they were elected while still pocketing their nearly £50,000 wages.

The political vacuum they have created emboldens those with violence in their hearts as there is a lack of political and social progress in the North of the island, and leads – inevitably – to death on the streets at the hands of violent dissidents that the majority of the people, North and South, DO NOT WANT!!!

Lyra, as a lesbian, and a great campaigner for LGBTQIA rights, was denied the rights that those in every other part of the United Kingdom have. She was planning to marry her girlfriend, but knew that marriage couldn’t happen in Northern Ireland, and that it wouldn’t be recognised there, because of the dogma, doctrine and religious bigotry.

It is time for the politicians to get back to work. It is long past time.

The New IRA are not wanted, and their hollow apology for her death following the outcry and disgust at a gunman firing indiscriminately into a crowd hoping to hit and kill police is a crock. There wasn’t a police officer there who deserved death any more than she did.

It was nice watching the politicians squirm in their seats as Father Martin Magill challenged them to do better, be better, as the real mourners broke into a standing ovation around them.

It has to stop. NO MORE.

RIP Lyra Catherine McKee (31 March 1990 – 18 April 2019)

The island of Ireland of poorer for your loss, and its echo of the past.

and, Ma’am,

Many of today’s UK front pages (it’s currently 01:21 on the 24th here) predict that Prime Minister Theresa May will either resign today or lay out a definite timetable for her departure that will see her leave after Trump’s UK State visit in a couple of weeks.

Myself, I think she will do both since our unwritten constitution allows it. I think the chances are that she will resign as Conservative Party leader, setting off the election of a new party leader, and say she will remain as PM until the conclusion of the leadership race, which will probably take 6-8 weeks, at which point she will resign as PM. During those weeks she will remain in office but not in power. A situation she is totally used to since she hasn’t been in power in many many months.

The other alternative would be to wait until Sunday/Monday in order to take the media focus away from what will undoubtedly be disastrous European Election results for the Conservatives, with many polls suggesting they will have got less than 10% of the vote.

Her main aim now seems to be to outlast former Labour PM Gordon Brown, the shortest serving PM in modern times, which she’ll soon pass.

It is interesting to note that the last three Conservative Prime Ministers – Margaret Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron – and now we add a fourth, Theresa May, have all been brought down, destroyed, by the Party’s divisions over Europe.

Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as Prime Minister, I was driven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few but for everyone, and to honour the result of the EU referendum.

Back in 2016, we gave the people the British people a choice.

Against all predictions, the British people voted to leave the European Union.

I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide.

I have done my best to do that.

I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbours that protects jobs, our security and our union.

I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal.

Sadly, I have not been able to do so. I tried three times. I believe it was right to persevere, even where the odds against success seemed high.

But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort.

So I am today announcing that I will resign as the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday 7 June so that a successor can be chosen.

I have agreed with the party chairman and with the chairman of the 1922 committee that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week.

I have kept Her Majesty the Queen fully informed of my intentions and I will continue to serve as her Prime Minister until the process has concluded.

It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.

It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honours the result of the referendum.

To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not.

Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise.

For many years the great humanitarian, Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czecheslovakia through the Kindertransport, was my constituent in Maidenhead.

At another time of political controversy a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice.

He said: “Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.” He was right.

As we strive to find the compromises we need in our politics, whether to deliver Brexit or to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland, we must remember what brought us here.

Because the referendum was not just a call to leave the EU, but for profound change in our country, a call to make the United Kingdom a country that truly works for everyone.

I’m proud of the progress we have made over the last three years.

We have completed the work that David Cameron and George Osborne started. The deficit is almost eliminated.

Our national debt is falling and we are bringing an end to austerity.

My focus has been on ensuring that the good jobs of the future will be created in communities across the whole country, not just in London and the South East, through our modern industrial strategy.

We have helped more people than ever enjoy the security of a job. We are building more homes and helping first-time buyers onto the housing ladder, so young people can enjoy the opportunities their parents did.

And we are protecting the environment, eliminating plastic waste, tackling climate change and improving air quality.

This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government on the common ground of British politics can achieve, even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge any government has faced.

I know that the Conservative Party can renew itself in the years ahead, that we can deliver Brexit and serve the British people with policies inspired by our values.

Security, freedom and opportunity. Those values have guided me throughout my career. But the unique privilege of this office is to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless. To fight the burning injustices that still scar our society.

That is why I put proper funding for mental health at the heart of our NHS long term plan.

It’s why I’m ending the postcode lottery for victims of domestic abuse.

It is why the race disparity audit and gender pay reporting are shining a light on inequality so it has nowhere to hide.

And it is why I set up the independent inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, to search for the truth so nothing like it can ever happen again, and so the people who lost their lives that night are never forgotten.

Because this country is a union. Not just a family of four nations, but a union of people, all of us. Whatever our background, the colour of our skin, or who we love, we stand together, and together we have a great future.

Our politics may be under strain but there is so much that is good about this country, so much to be proud of, so much to be optimistic about.

I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold.

The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.

I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.

I don’t usually bother commenting on Trump antics but sometimes it’s hard to bite your tongue…

Today he launched a Twitter attack on four ethnic Congresswomen who have critical of American government (for that, I think, we can read critical of Trump) to go back to where they came from and fix the problems in governance there before criticising America.

Firstly, telling four members of Congress of a different ethnic background to butt out and get back to where they once belonged is racist in itself but, worse still, three of the four are Americans by birth, one being born in the same neighbourhood as he was, with only one being a migrant.

And yet most of his supporters will defend his comments, protesting any suggestion it’s further proof of his racism…