You know that anti-Israeli protests have reached their nadir when gay pride becomes involved, says JASON WALSH

70 per cent of the North’s economy is state subsidised – it’s time to stop playing with the toy economy, says STEPHEN RAINEY

The North is about to pay a very high price for its isolation from both the British and Irish polities

Slashing government spending doesn’t sound like Keynesian economics but it is when it’s done to prop-up failing businesses, says JASON WALSH

Mock outrage over Ivor Callely’s expense claims is a distraction from real politics, says JASON WALSH

Greece will suffer due to the EU intervention, it’s French and German banks that are getting bailed-out, says JASON WALSH

In the wake of the British general election OWEN POLLEY challenges the unionist parties to come to terms with what unionism actually stands for

With public spending ‘out of control’ the government wants to avoid being seen as ’the next Greece’ by imposing round after round of tax hikes, public sector pay restraint and swingeing cuts to public service provision—but has it worked, asks JASON WALSH

Get Irish off life support and into real life, says JASON WALSH

CONNAL PARR looks at the spectre of dissident republicanism

‘Sinn Fein the Workers’ party’, Ireland’s ‘official’ republicans twisted in the wind, says JAMES HEARTFIELD reviewing the Lost Revolution

The British general election campaign was a rendez-vous with reality for the far left, writes JAMES HEARTFIELD

STEPHEN RAINEY says the euro crisis means we should – finally – treat the EU as the political entity it is

Recessions are better for the right, says DOUG HENWOOD

Since 1999 Britain’s bomb-happy Labour party has slaughtered more foreigners than the Tories could dream of. Does the new Conservative-Liberal government mean the dawning of a less murderous age or will the internal contradictions win out, asks OWEN POLLEY

Irish public anger at bank bailouts boils over but there is still an absence of political meaning, says JASON WALSH

What does the pharmaceutical industry have in common with the Bilderberg Group? Nothing, says JASON WALSH, who really wants conspiracy theorists to shut up

PAULINE HADAWAY says there is no alternative — to remaking society in the interests of the majority

The trouble in Greece underlines two important lessons: austerity packages don’t have to accepted and that frustrated violent actions achieve nothing, says JASON WALSH

forth’s electoral musings

RICHARD DWYER critically examines Labour’s record since 1997 and hopes for a positive Labour-Liberal coalition

DOMHNALL Ó COBHTAIGH asks, why has a hedge fund has been allowed to trump democracy in Greece?

Dr STEPHEN RAINEY was not impressed by the lastest Northern Irish leaders’ debate

Tomorrow sees Britain and the North go to the polls but whoever wins there will be winter of austerity, says JASON WALSH

YAEL MAURER is feeling hopeful after May Day in Tel Aviv

Ireland’s bourgeoisie already had its (failed) revolution and today’s grumbling mistakes the ‘middle class’ for a meaningful political category, says JASON WALSH

Gordon ‘send-‘em-home’ Brown should watch who he’s calling a bigot, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Calls to start a left alliance amount to political necrophilia, says JASON WALSH

Calls for Libya to stump-up to the relatives of people killed by the IRA are senseless, CONNAL PARR

As Belgium falls apart (while staying together) GERRY FEEHILY says nous sommes tous des Flamands maintenant

Are attacks on the ‘One True Church’ assaults on truth itself, asks JASON WALSH

David Cameron’s slash-and-burn policies could see the Unionist/Tory marriage collapse before it’s consummated, says STEPHEN RAINEY but there’s another problem lurking in the long grass

We’re supporting Labour. And the Liberal Democrats. But only because Zac Goldsmith is standing as a Tory.

Media coverage of the British leaders’ debates is all about who won the debate – this isn’t politics, say JASON WALSH and T. UÍ FINNTHIGHEIRN

A Tory government could, ironically, be good for the Irish language, says OWEN POLLEY

Leaders’ debate or no leaders’ debate, British politics has been emptied of eccentrics and it’s poorer for it, says JASON WALSH

COLETTE BROWNE is not impressed with the ‘fighting Irish’

Calls to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain are not only mind-bogglingly stupid, they also threaten national sovereignty and follow in the footsteps of the wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, says atheist JASON WALSH

DOMHNALL Ó COBHTHAIGH explains how Anglo, AIB and Bank of Ireland forced him to leave Sinn Féin and how Anglo in particular typifies the follies of Irish economics

Suggestions on what to do with the parasitic new Anglo Irish (Bank) class from forth contributors GERARD CASEY, STEPHEN KINSELLA and JASON WALSH

The shotgun marriage between the Tories and Ulster Unionists won’t see the dawning of a bright blue future, JASON WALSH

Libertarian and philosopher GERARD CASEY doesn’t agree with Roger Scruton but he’s ready for the debate

It’s no surprise that Marx’s zombie bones won’t stay interred at Highgate Cemetery during a global recession but why is it always the worst parts of Marxism that stalk us today, asks TP D’INVILLIERS

England’s new tougher regulations on lap dancing are a victory for middle class hypocrisy, not women, says ELEANOR TAMS

One British political party wants to not only stop immigration but introduce what amounts to an internal passport system – but it’s not the BNP. It’s the Greens.

Vincent Browne wants to know why the public isn’t angry – it’s because they don’t exist, says JASON WALSH

The Quinn Group’s difficulties reflect failure of Irish economic policy – and the government’s response, says DOMHNALL Ó COBHTHAIG

Calls to ban head shops are illiberal and silly but so are pro-drug voices who complain about alcohol and tobacco, says JASON WALSH

The British government is about to call a general election but the stakes have never been lower, says JASON WALSH

James Lovelock’s authoritarian complaints about humanity are not only undemocratic, they’re wrong

Even anarchists accept authority so long as it can be freely challenged. Irish politics is careering toward nihilism, not freedom, says JASON WALSH

‘What do we want? Not much. When do we want it? Er…’

Adding green to the red, white and blue doesn’t make forced deportations, colonisation or militarisation acceptable, says JASON WALSH

Nationalisation is not public ownership, says JASON WALSH

A disastrous ‘bad bank’ and worse policy, the National Assets Management Agency has one thing going for it: at least people are talking

A note from the editor’s desk

The spectres of Brendan Hughes and Jean McConville are stalking Gerry Adams, but there is more to this story than meets the eye and the IRA isn’t the only party that comes out of it covered in dirt, says JASON WALSH

Why is the Conservative candidate for Richmond upon Thames funding so many of the environmental groups that ought to be attacking the Tories, asks WILL DEIGHTON

Links between a orangeman and the BNP aren’t scandalous or surprising – nor are they illegal, says JASON WALSH

The decision to open pubs on Good Friday is the right one but it’s being done for the wrong reasons, says JASON WALSH

Sylvia Hermon is standing as a ‘liberal’ but she’s one of the most authoritarian MPs in Westminster and looking at a DUP pact, says OWEN POLLEY

As an avalanche of fresh allegations of cover-ups of child abuse emerge one senior Irish clergyman says he was not party to oaths of secrecy, despite media reports to the contrary – but there is strong evidence of a culture of silence as more cases emerge, forth editor JASON WALSH reports

Conservative opposition to universal healthcare, in Ireland as in the United States, misses the real problem: the redefinition of medicine as ‘wellness promotion’

Meaningless apologies help no-one in the case of the Irish clerical abuse scandal, says JASON WALSH

A new book reveals how celebrities’ and human rights activists’ simple-minded moral posturing on Darfur made the conflict even worse says PHILIP HAMMOND

Google is a business and that’s why it acts the way it does – so why single it out for critique?

The nanny state and cynical anti-politics have met head-on in Brisbane’s new nightclub regulations, reports forth‘s Australia correspondent DAVID JACKMANSON

From Google, through the banks, to the arts, everyone is arguing for their own private communist society to protect them from the ravages of the market, says JASON WALSH

Republican writer LIAM O’RUAIRC says the jig is up for Sinn Féin but argues that republicanism is, like modernity itself, unfinished business

Transcript of forth editor JASON WALSH‘s contribution to the Global Uncertainties debate ‘What makes a terrorist?’ held at Queens School in Bushey, Hertforshire on March 17, 2010 as part of a UK Research Councils/Debating Matters event.

Forget St Patrick’s Day, it’s St Tina’s Day in Ireland, says JASON WALSH

The ‘promise’ of jobs at Dublin airport is an empty one

Enlightenment Reason provided the chance of emancipation then, and it still does today. The problem is we’re still doing it wrong, says STEPHEN RAINEY

With the Lisbon treaty out of the headlines and in the statute books Europe is less coherent than ever, says JASON WALSH

We have to defend Lars Vilks because free speech matters but he’s a fool and his alleged would-be assassins arrested in Ireland are bumbling idiots, says FINBAR ROSATO in Sweden

Why is modern Ireland home to some of the most conservative politics in Europe, asks JASON WALSH

STEPHEN MCGLENNON wonders how ‘liberal’ became a term of abuse and argues there’s still life in the old dog yet

Google is not the newsmonster – nor is it omniscient, says JASON WALSH

Why is the Green Party following in the truculent footsteps of the pre-agreement DUP?

JASON WALSH loathes toffs as much as the next pleb but he doesn’t want to see fox hunting banned

Never mind grade inflation, expecting education to solve the country’s economic problems is a joke, says JASON WALSH

Social vampire and art critic Waldemar Januszak can now fondly remember the conflict in Ireland – but only because it’s over, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

Nationialism was the politics of empowerment in the nineteenth century – but it’s now 2010, says ANDREW GALLAGHER

OWEN POLLEY says we’re gearing-up to blame the SDLP and UUP for failure but they are the very people who can fix the assembly by challenging its authoritarian, centralising nature

Michael Foot wasn’t a hero of the left, he was the last in a long line of Labour losers, says JASON WALSH

Is Britain headed for a hung parliament, asks JASON WALSH – and does it matter?

Ireland’s desperate political elite is now begging the public for ideas – in a bizarre PR-driven competition

Mad, bad and dangerous to know, the Tea Parties are the flip side of Obamamania and both contain positive aspects

As Ian Paisley prepares to step down from his role as MP forth traces his transformation from sectarian demagogue to living saint

A new Brand of environmentalism seeks to distance itself from its technophobic past but Stewart Brand’s paean to poverty is anything but progressive. JASON WALSH trawls through history, from the classical period to the age of Marxism to show why.

Precious pieties never solved anything, says JASON WALSH

It’s the same as the old one, says STEPHEN MCGLENNON

forth editor JASON WALSH gives his personal view on why nothing matters in Ireland today – and suggests how we might change that

Sargent getting his marching orders is more of the same un-politics, says JASON WALSH

Responses to the recent London conference on Irish unity suggest a united Ireland is a mere managerial process. Nothing could be further from the truth

ANNA MORVERN says the alleged Mossad assassination should not be allowed to force biometric identity documents on us

Complaining about ‘civil war politics’ isn’t enough – it’s time to reinvigorate our moribund political system, says JASON WALSH

forth reader MICHAEL GILLESPIE gives his view on the proposed bill of rights for the North

Whatever about the ‘necessity’ of austerity packages, anti-Greek sentiment is inflated by prejudice and unmasks EU bully-boy tactics

Defence minister Willie O’Dea is an alleged perjurer and fights dirty – but the forces circling him aren’t democratic, this is the backstabbing of court politics