Martin McAuley
📍 Belfast
🏳️🌈 he/him
instagram.com/martin_mcauley
- This is right - funding for opposition is deficient and amounts to less than 2 members of staff in practice. When party funding was renegotiated recently, there was a push against properly funding opposition parties. Makes the work of the SDLP/UUP opposition in 2016/17 more remarkable.
- Today's @irishnews.com column If you want accountability at Stormont, you need a properly funded opposition www.irishnews.com/opinion/davi...
- Gordon Lyons & the DUP obviously feel very hard done by today (having been found to have breached the Ministerial Code of Office AGAIN). But there were families forced from their homes who then saw the place they were given shelter torched. They’re the victims. Has Lyons met and apologised to them?
- I’ve heard Jon Burrows say, a few times, that Opposition needs reformed to have ‘shadow’ Ministers. Entirely a UK Parliament tradition that wouldn’t change the operation of our system at all. But I haven’t heard him acknowledge that would require cooperation with other parties in the Opposition 🤔
- We were at Cape Canaveral a couple of years ago and this was the big project they were excited about. Class to see it start to take shape www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- Really muddled thinking from Jon Burrows on Good Morning Ulster today. By denying him a contest, Robbie Butler hasn’t just deprived him of a bit of legitimacy, he hasn’t given him an opportunity to clarify his thinking about what the UUP needs or is for. Which it sounds like he sorely needed.
- The smarter move for Burrows would be to seek to build a broader consensus with a range of parties on the issues they can cooperate on. If he wants to squeeze Alliance and pull back some of that eroded UUP ground, he needs to look pluralistic, not entrenched.
- Reposted by Martin McAuleyif the Labour defector to Reform is Kate Hoey that would be the dampest squib ever
- Respectfully, most people would struggle to pick Robert Jenrick or María Corina Machado out of a lineup. Not saying the stories aren’t interesting - they’re compelling drama but they’re being profiled far, far above their public interest value.
- Telling, isn’t it, that we can geoblock the RTÉ player on the basis of commercial broadcasting licenses for a football match but the UK Government is on the fence about geoblocking a different website which is creating sexualised images of children. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- I’m unlikely to be competing in the Commonwealth Games so the flag doesn’t really bother me. This reaction is instructive though - for all the unionist political parties demanding (rightly) to know what compromises will be made in a new Ireland, they’re unwilling to make ANY themselves today.
- An early front runner for bizarrest story of the year here www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
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- A religious experience at the Mayhem Ball 🙌
- For the day that’s in it - on the subject of flags and politics.
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- Go get your nut, girl.
- Awestruck. I want to be Sharleen Spiteri when I grow up.
- Getting gayed up ahead of Lurgan pride.
- Reposted by Martin McAuleyOur mission is to build a new Ireland by winning a referendum. That means we need to understand the needs, hopes, concerns and fears of everyone but particularly people in the middle who are open to change. @columeastwood.ie speaking to @dmcbfs.bsky.social at Féile an Phobail.
- One good shot makes an hour of cursing yourself worthwhile 😅
- Imagine being the person at the International Criminal Court that has to read these every day 🤯
- Escaping the city for a few hours with my beach babes.
- Scissor sisters were 🤩✨
- Protests and pints 🍻 🏳️⚧️
- Few snaps from the wedding last week.
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- Date night 💕
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- Sometimes it’s just a coffee and cartoons Sunday morning ☕️
- Michael McGrath is right - it’s not inconceivable that an emboldened Putin will move on other Eastern European territory. That’s a real threat that we should be prepared for. www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...
- There’s so much in this that’s wild but the ‘thank you for your attention to this matter’ sign off is so weird. Folksy fascist vibes.
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- Lads lads lads ⚽️
- Reposted by Martin McAuley“If Roosevelt had told Churchill to sue for peace on any terms with Adolf Hitler and to fork over Britain’s coal reserves to the United States in exchange for no American security guarantees, it might have approximated what Trump did to Zelensky.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/o...
- Would very much like to be back in the sun plz.
- She’s started adopting this psychiatrist pose in the evening and it’s really disconcerting #catsofbluesky
- Good first episode last week - lots of interesting points about opposition 2016/17 and today. And a few robust exchanges on MLA pay 👀
- And we are off! stormontsources.com
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- This week’s office
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- The new Children’s Hospital will be delivered 10 years late at the earliest and is expected to cost almost half a billion more than anticipated (around £421m over-budget before a spade’s in the ground). This was supposed to be an Executive ‘flagship’ project in 2013. www.bbc.com/news/article...
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- In breaking news (or mews?) I think she may have missed us…
- Racking up the gay reads by the pool.
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- It’s a hard life but someone has to do it…
- Who had ‘deport the bishops’ on their bingo card? thehill.com/homenews/hou...
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- We love a cocktail 🍸
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- Feeling like a husk. But what a great weekend celebrating Clíona’s hen do. Beautiful, hilarious, fizzy (my blood is still about 68% Prosecco) memories with great friends.
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- Should the Department for Infrastructure provide an emergency subsidy for public transport to address critical traffic issues and get people back on buses/trains? I’d estimate a 50% reduction in fares for the month of December would cost about £10m (0.07% of the Executive budget).
