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

PATRICK WEST says Irish football fans shouldn’t be cheering on England come the World Cup—and it has nothing to do with Anglo-Irish relations

Philosopher STEPHEN RAINEY considers the morality of the Naseer-Khan decision

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

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

forth’s electoral musings

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

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

The looming closure of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy represents a move toward ‘cybernetic governance’, reports EDIA CONNOLE

The idea that animals have a ‘right’ to privacy is a trojan horse for even madder ideas, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

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

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

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.

The era of the ‘paywall’ is upon us but publishers need to provide something worth paying for, says ADAM MAGUIRE

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

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

The Penny’s moral panic is a sideshow – the real story is the infantalisation of adult women, says DAN JEWESBURY

JAMES HEARTFIELD journeys through the poetry in motion of logistics

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

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.

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

Space isn’t just a vision, it’s a place we should be going, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

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 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

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

An ode to David Beckham’s foot is no more stupid than the office of poet laureate demands

TIMANDRA HARKNESS reports on a supersonic car project that might revitalise engineering

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.

Psychiatrist Dr STEPHEN GINN asks if the growing use of ‘smart drugs’ will see poor concentration classified as an illness

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

25 years after giving up Greek, ANDREW CALCUTT explains why he is now a Latin lover

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

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?

The UK government’s science policy isn’t just contradictory, it’s used a stand-in for politics, says science journalist TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Hillary Clinton’s unsolicited offer to mediate between Britain and Argentina should remind us that you don’t need a history degree to know the Falklands don’t belong to Britain. All you need is a map

They may offend liberal opinion but tabloid newspapers are the first line of defence for a free press, says JASON WALSH

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

Official censorship pales in comparison to unofficial censureship, says BRENDAN O’NEILL

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

The authorities have given over authority to children, argues DENNIS HAYES, and it is tantamount to child abuse.

In the first of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate OWEN POLLEY argues for a modern Britishness against ‘Ulster’ identity

The lesbian, the Pope and the right to free speech

The Republic of Ireland has a lower population than major cities – the only reason anyone cares about Ireland is because of the conflict

The shine has come off the Conservatives’ alliance with unionists as sectarian politics reasserts itself in Northern Ireland, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in the Guardian

forth editor JASON WALSH reporting for the CS Monitor

Why personal communication should be personal, in Global Comment

Paul Chambers arrested under controversial law and banned from airport for obvious joke, report forth editor JASON WALSH and MARK HUGHES in the Independent of London

Despite sounding like a German discount retailer, Rod Liddle is the Waitrose of boring, right-wing ‘controversialists’, says PADDY HOEY

The Northern Assembly is too important for grandstanding – unless it’s officially sanctioned grandstanding, says JASON WALSH

Despite BA’s High Court injunction to block a 12-day Christmas strike, it was a fitting end to the Year of Surreal Industrial Relations that it took airline cabin crew to stand up for workers, says TIM BLACK

Having spent three decades predicting the collapse of capitalism real soon now the left has been blindsided by the global recession. Here’s why:

Both boosters and critics of capitalism should so a little more (free) market research. JASON WALSH crunches the numbers.

RICHARD DWYER says that lurking behind our supposedly ‘democratic’ culture old-fashioned snobbery exists in spades

In light of the cod conflict between the private and public sectors in Ireland, forth reprints this article by James Heartfield which shows that business and the state are intertwined

With identity cards being launched in Manchester STEPHEN GINN asks why Labour is persisting with this unpopular, unworkable and failed idea

With Dublin City Council going cycling crazy, Londoner Stephen Ginn offers a cautionary tale about the dangers – of politicised transport

So-called ‘East-West’ links between Britain and Ireland created as part of the peace process are a waste of time, says Jason Walsh

Marking the recent visit of Arthur Scargill to Ireland, former Yorkshire miner Edward Devoy compares the era of the miners’ strike to today

People have the right to do stupid things – even to commit ‘medi-sins’

Protesting the BNP’s appearance on Question Time wasn’t about debating immigration policy, it was about protestors wanting to feel good about themselves, says Stephen McGlennon

If we denied a platform to every political party that espoused idiotic views there would be no politics on television at all

The Twitter-led virtual lynching of Jan Moir is a sad indictment of what passes for politics in these atomised times, says Jason Walsh

Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy, renowned British journalist, broadcaster and author has died.

This obituary comes courtesy of the British Humanist Association.

Morons are entitled to free speech too, says Jason Walsh. Even morons using Twitter

The only thing more predictable and irritating than the Daily Mail is the ‘offencearati’ of people outraged by it, says Brendan O’Neill

Ukip and Sinn Féin share a common gene-pool, says Patrick West

Stephen McGlennon recounts just how many pennies made their way into the hands of the North’s politicians.

If Robert Ramsay has his way unionists will continue continue to slide into cultural politics after republicans, threatening to undermine their entire project and show up their leaders as ‘wee dafties’.

Review by Jason Walsh

Jason Walsh reports from Dublin where it seems neither the Yes camp nor the No camp voted with much enthusiasm.

Henry Porter wants the Labour party to support individual freedom, but the British left has always been addicted to the state.

By Jason Walsh