Category: Commentary
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Return to Sender: August 2026
Right at the start of August, three countries in the Middle East region – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – came together to sign the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. Similar to NATO’s article 5, this states that any attack on one will be considered as an attack on all three and be met with a…
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Letter from Lincoln…August 2026
The dominant theme of the summer is continuing into August – runaway wars and out of control wildfires – but attention is now starting to turn to the cost of all this.
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Return to Sender: July 2026
The recent news within the UK has been dominated by the Odyssey – not the latest cinematic retelling of Homer’s original poem – but Andy Burnham’s far less interesting journey from Westminster to Manchester and the long return back to Westminster to become Britain’s fifth prime minister in four years. He has promised a radical…
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Letter from Lincoln…July 2026
Entirely predictably – and not just by me in my last column – the ceasefire between the US and Iran has broken down, with both sides initiating strikes in the Middle East. This has left more ships stranded on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz while the oil prices head north again.
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Return to Sender: June 2026
The European heatwave is back, with records for the hottest day being superceded faster than British prime ministers. The UK may have started June with riots and division, but has ended the month united in that nobody wants Keir Starmer to continue as leader.
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Letter from Lincoln…June 2026
Yay, at last the US and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding and the ships that were stranded in the Gulf have started to make their way out, past the Strait of Hormuz including those Iranian ships that were caught in the US blockade.
Nessan Cleary 