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Sam McBride
@SJAMcBride
Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph & Sunday Independent. Author of Burned: The Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal. Any views mine alone.
Belfast
amazon.co.uk/Burned-Cash-As…
Joined January 2012
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Jun 25, 2025
    📢Some news from me: I've written a book with the erudite & eloquent Fintan O'Toole in which we each argue for - and then against - Irish unity, setting out objectively what seem to us each side's best arguments, and the issues people across the island of Ireland should consider.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Apr 8, 2022
    GB News will tomorrow broadcast a cosy interview with Boris Johnson. The interviewers? None other than two Conservative MPs - Philip Davies & Esther McVey. A PM being interviewed on a supposed news channel by MPs from the governing party is not journalism; it's propaganda.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Aug 3, 2020
    John Hume is dead, just 6 months after the death of that other SDLP giant, Seamus Mallon. When others turned to the IRA & violence, Hume turned to politics & throughout the Troubles espoused non-violent nationalism. Ultimately, the Good Friday Agreement was saturated in his ideas
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Feb 3, 2021
    Even in this political age, there's something rather remarkable about this: Boris Johnson said he'd never agree an Irish Sea border, then agreed it, denied he'd agreed what he'd agreed, then implemented it...& now says there must not be an Irish Sea border.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/…
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Sep 24, 2021
    Yesterday Dublin-based lockdown sceptic Ivor Cummins sent me a legal threat after I asked him questions in relation to a matter of profound public interest. The threat has not worked & in tomorrow's Belfast Telegraph you can read what Mr Cummins did not want us to publish.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Oct 25, 2019
    Arlene Foster tells the BBC that she won't read Burned but may have "somebody reading it for me". It's not the first time that Mrs Foster hasn't read something relevant to her - she didn't read her own RHI legislation either. You can read what she hasn't: amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178…
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Jan 8, 2021
    A Tesco employee has sent me this picture of rotting oranges at Tesco's fresh warehouse in Belfast today. He says that they took so long to arrive in Northern Ireland that by the time they got here they were out of date & went straight to the bin.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Sep 22, 2022
    Catholics now outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland, a country whose boundaries were drawn in 1921 to ensure a hefty Protestant majority - but both are now minorities. Results (including 'religion brought up in') of last year's census: NI is 45.7% Catholic, 43.5% Protestant.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Mar 27, 2019
    Four months ago, Boris Johnson told the DUP conference that Theresa May's deal would mean Northern Ireland becoming "an economic semi-colony of the EU...no Conservative British Government could or should sign up to such arrangements". Tonight he says he's voting for her deal.
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Sep 14, 2022
    There lies a chasm between the generosity of Her late Majesty and the begrudgery of Arlene Foster - not just towards Sinn Féin, but the Irish President. In that chasm lies much of the explanation for NI unionism's shambolic handling of what they cherish. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-…
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Jul 8, 2024
    Sue Gray leaving Stormont Castle - the place where she'd have worked as Head of the NI Civil Service, had the DUP and SF not blocked her application. Now she's back with the PM in a far more powerful position...
    00:00
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Feb 24, 2022
    After learning about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, my seven-year-old daughter looked at the map & said: "But Russia is such a big country - why do they want more?"
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Aug 4, 2024
    Bashir's Belfast supermarket was burnt to the ground last night. He says Muslim firms were targeted: "All of that happened and the police did nothing, I am telling you the truth. What kind of police are letting the people burn everything down?"
    Supermarket reduced to ‘ashes’ amid Belfast disorder, says manager
    From belfasttelegraph.co.uk
    496K
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    Sam McBride
    @SJAMcBride
    Mar 17, 2020
    First day of working from home while two young children sing, shout, fight, dance, extract sweets from me...it's now 2pm and since 9.30am I've done about an hour's work. If my report on Monday night's Assembly debate claims that Jim Allister is a Sinn Féin MLA, please forgive me.