🎧Podcast David Trimble was one of unionism's most compellingly consequential leaders, and its most complex. Stephen Walker talks through with me the life of this far-sighted but contradictory man who rarely seemed destined for getting to the top, yet did.

Peter Robinson and Sammy Wilson will be among a host of high-profile witnesses called in a major corruption trial involving the sale of Nama’s NI loans, a jury was told this morning. The case before a jury of nine men & three women could last 12 weeks.

Did the Education Minister write a key speech using AI, as the SDLP claimed? After examining it, I don't think he did. But we now can't conclusively prove authorship, and this technology is already making us distrustful, divided and increasingly reliant.

What an utter flop after hyping this decision as a "game-changer". SF clearly didn't want to back Connolly; for more than two months since her launch it has searched for a SF candidate and couldn't agree one. Now the party is openly divided on the issue, which is highly unusual.

Stormont civil servants have for almost two years been privately aware that there are lots of missing children open to "sexual exploitation" yet the issue still isn’t even close to being resolved. They then attempted to censor a key figure but failed.

The deal between the British and Irish governments on how to approach the legacy of the Troubles is in some ways quite detailed — but that makes one omission all the more striking. To killers, it must reek of weakness.

This is the eight-page deal between the British & Irish governments on handling the legacy of the Troubles, which has just been published. Quite a lot of information on what's to be changed, but the more significant point will be once we see legislation.

If your idea of culture is listening to me droning on about architecture, politics and the future of Belfast, tomorrow's your lucky day. If you have more conventional tastes, the good news is that there's lots of far better stuff on for Culture Night, and it's all free.

David vs Goliath if the Philistines had done PR: One of the world's biggest booze companies last night faced the indignity of having its drink lampooned as "p**s poor imported beer" by a senior figure at the Belfast arts festival it tried to muscle in on.

The Economist on BBC dumbing down: Newscast issues a “geek alert” before interviewing such apparently recherché figures as trade experts. In Our Time, by contrast, unapologetically offered an entire episode on David Ricardo, a 19th-century economist...

Gerry Adams backed Mary McAleese for the Irish Presidency and lauded her when she left office. But in private, declassified files show she told the British Ambassador she was so dismayed when Adams was on TV that she was left shouting at the screen.

Inside the $20 billion gold mine Stormont can't decide on...after eight years. SF has been both for & against; now some of its staunchest US allies are piling on the pressure. The controversial mine is now geopolitically significant due to its major deposits of rare earths.

It's arrived! ✍️For and Against a United Ireland by Fintan O'Toole and yours truly is hot off the presses, more than a year after the research and writing began. Each of us set out what seem to us the best arguments for and against removing the border. 📙In bookshops next month.

Executive leaders are now blaming the media, blaming the Opposition, blaming a think tank, blaming anyone other than those who've the power to tax, to spend & to legislate – themselves. They're making clear they don't intend to take the toughest decisions.

Comparing the Copernicus imagery of Lough Neagh between 2023 and 2025 shows how the blue-green algae situation has been even worse this year.

David Trimble was known for his first-rate intellect, yet his schoolteachers savaged him. One said his work was "so full of ridiculous mistakes that often it's not worth marking"; another placed him 32nd in a class of 47. He'd go on to be a senior academic, NI First Minister, & win a Nobel prize...

When revealed last week, the civil service insisted Jayne Brady's massive pay increase was totally normal. After a week refusing to answer, now it admits it wasn't; no one judged her performance. Now her cost to taxpayers is soaring again...to £290,000.

Former Irish President Mary McAleese says that the day after Bloody Sunday David Trimble was ebullient, "looking for Catholics to whom he could say wasn’t it a wonderful day". Despite thinking him "nakedly sectarian" then, she later came to respect him.

David Trimble ­believed he was probably ­autistic — and some of his closest aides agreed, according to a new biography. This detail is enlightening, historically significant, and speaks powerfully to what society can gain by harnessing everyone's talents.

David Trimble’s final days are revealed by his family in a new book by Stephen Walker: physical decline, but also healing with some former foes, humility – and how the Trimbles rejected a Government official’s plan to segregate mourners at his funeral.

Amid growing northern control over Sinn Féin's Dublin operation, @BelTel has been told that SF's new general secretary recently made clear to colleagues that those who want to escape the legacy of the Troubles are wrong & SF should embrace its IRA links.

A vital conversation ahead: For and Against a United Ireland, chaired by Sarah Carey. Experience the book brought to life at the National Concert Hall, November 30th. 👉 bit.ly/4p6klU8 @fotoole.bsky.social @sjamcbride.bsky.social

A senior trade unionist who represents Stormont’s top civil servant has urged ministers to defend her pay and pension contributions soaring by £30,000 in a year – but no one has come forward to do so. Neither the DUP nor SF will say if they approved it.

Despite failing to reform the floundering NI Civil Service, its boss, Jayne Brady, has seen her salary and pension contributions rocket £30,000 in just one year for a "satisfactory" performance - and no one will say who approved it.

The curious case of Gerry Adams and the Irish presidency: Adams is head and shoulders above any other SF candidate & the timing for him is more perfect than ever - yet he isn't even being mentioned, and SF is flip-flopping on whether to stand at all.

For almost a century, an old paper file was judged too sensitve to release. But now it reveals how London wanted Stormont to pardon men accused of murdering the son of the Apprentice Boys’ governor in 1920 as anarchy gripped Londonderry around partition.

Months after NI Water claimed it had investigated a whistleblower’s claims about systemic fraud against the taxpayer & shut the case, the PSNI is now examining the allegations. But the whistleblower has already been ditched by NIW after 20 years as a contractor.

Working from home once signified poverty; now it signifies privilege. But that privilege involves disadvantage elsewhere - and especially for young people. This is an unjust revolution which is favouring people like me.

A major gangster was on the IRA Army Council in 2002, according to a previously secret Downing Street file — while David Trimble told the Government that people in both unionism & nationalism were too tolerant of criminality but the effect was ‘corrosive’.

It's a decade since a critical meeting as RHI ran out of control. Now, hapless Stormont’s continued inability to shut RHI exposes how irreformable devolution has been - and some of the behaviour which led to RHI is being repeated under a Sinn Féin minister.

🎧Talking to Olivia Peden about the 'invasion' of Clontibret: It's such a bizarre, absurd, disturbing and significant event with enduring mystery as to whether Peter Robinson was trying to outflank Ian Paisley, or if Paisley dropped him in it.

As Ambassador to Ireland, JFK’s sister was seen as close to Gerry Adams - but after September 11, she privately said Tony Blair should be "much tougher with the IRA" and should tell Congress “that Americans should stop sending any money to the IRA”, declassified Downing Street file shows.

Gerry Adams furiously complained to Tony Blair about voters being taken off the electoral register after an anti-fraud law came into effect — but when Sinn Fein handed over names to the Government, some of them proved to be dead, declassified files show.

Just hours before a Belfast Telegraph article on the issue, NI Water deleted a statement which dismissed a whistleblower’s allegations of systemic fraud. It now admits that multiple investigations are under way into allegations it said had been resolved.

When busted in 2002, the IRA’s Stormont spy ring had gathered a host of material which could be useful to terrorists – including a map of Castle Buildings with instructions about its zones, passwords and security information, declassified files reveal.

While denouncing David Trimble, Jeffrey Donaldson secretly presented himself as far more moderate than the hardline image he cultivated, suggesting he might enter government with Sinn Féin without full IRA decommissioning, according to declassified files.

A Stormont department has defended highly complex accounting procedures which make it appear to have spent £1.9m on a series of active travel projects last year, when in fact that never happened. ✍️ @sjamcbride.bsky.social

Why the other Stormont could help unlock the Casement conundrum...and influence international sport. Unlikely as it may at first seem, cricket is the perfect game to convey the rich diversity of what Ireland - north and south - has become.

A businessman who blew the whistle on what he believed was systemic fraud against taxpayers says his advice to anyone in a similar position is to “shut your mouth & carry on” as if nothing happened. Now he's lost most of his business after NIW ditched him.

Declassified files reveal that the British and Irish governments were dismayed when they learnt that an ‘independent’ body they’d set up to monitor paramilitarism was considering naming every member of the IRA Army Council - and they lobbied to stop that.

Tony Blair removed his NI security minister just days after she sent a blunt private message that he was being too soft on Sinn Féin, declassified files reveal. Months before the IRA's Northern Bank heist, she denounced the PM's “nonsense” stance, saying she wouldn’t defend it.

The mystery of the computer whiz who vanished from a Portrush gaming arcade in 1991: Malaysian student Chang Swee Chuan's normally messy car was spotless, there were Triad rumours & the PSNI were until recently searching for the wrong guy. Fascinating story by Gabrielle Swan.

A key Downing Street figure in the peace process advised Tony Blair that the IRA could never prove it fully decommissioned so he should maybe accept a few “big symbolic acts of decommissioning” & then declare the process complete, declassified files show.

There was a time when Sinn Féin campaigned under the slogans ‘No Return to Stormont’ and ‘Smash Stormont’. Increasingly, modern Sinn Féin is inching towards a once-unthinkable slogan: Keep Northern Ireland.

Flattery, deceit, a financial bung, MI5 briefing and a secret back-channel to Sinn Féin: Buried in thousands of pages of newly-declassified Downing Street files are secrets which lay bare how the DUP misled its voters after it overtook David Trimble's UUP.

Declassified files show: 🕵️Almost immediately after a major meeting of the UDA’s inner council in 2003, MI5 was aware of what had been said in the room 🗣️South East Antrim UDA man was talking to the NIO 💷Government strategy for loyalist community cash

A man who is now a key figure in Britain’s intelligence apparatus wrote key sections of a seminal speech Gerry Adams gave about the IRA’s disbandment, declassified files prove.

Some senior Fianna Fáil sources dismiss reports of a Deirdre Heenan Presidential candidature. She is competent & a political blank canvass but would carry risks: A slew of highly opinionated comments, & the implications of being unable to vote for herself.

For more than two decades, Northern Ireland’s biggest parties have insisted they’ve always opposed water charges — but newly-declassified files show that the idea of selling off NI Water and charging the public came from the Stormont Executive.