A monumental PSNI data breach happened today, & perhaps can't be undone: Detailed personal info on every PSNI officer & civilian employee was published online - by the PSNI. It is a catastrophic breach of security, undoing years of discretion by officers. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-… A former officer told @BelTel “This is freely circulating on WhatApp groups, including retired officers. It is in essence ‘out there’ and can never be retrieved; the operating assumption must be it will be outside of the police family.”

Where it all went wrong for the DUP since its total dominance in 2016: The party has spent 6 years damaging itself – and the Union. Many DUP insiders despair at their party’s perpetual scandals and serial ineptitude, but don’t expect that to change. #DUP22 belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column… It's breakfast time and already the DUP press office has created a problem of its own making. If political parties were to ban everyone who's been to an event they don’t like or works for a media outlet they don't like, the press benches would be empty.

https://twitter.com/AmandaFBelfast/status/1578658711358226432?t=9X9RgPVYv5BLoEEGOWpGgA&s=19

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. In 2011, the figures were 48.4% Protestant, 45.1% Catholic. This is an historic shift, and one which will have political implications. But it does not mean what it would have meant in 1921 - religion is no longer a simple signifier of constitutional preference.

Today's Belfast Telegraph has 50 pages of reports & analysis of the death of the late Queen and her relationship with the island of Ireland. In an age of ephemeral online content, a physical newspaper is an unrivalled record of history. What is being mourned is not just a person, although the sorrow felt at the death of the late Queen is itself intense. What is being laid to rest with Queen Elizabeth II is an era of stability, a way of life, a country which has departed never to return. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…

After months of obfuscation, @BelTel has discovered that the person who spent public cash trying to overturn a judgment devastating for NI's chief vet...was NI's chief vet. An extraordinary conflict of interest by a man still in post - & top officials knew
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/… Robert Huey's decision added to whistleblower Tamara Bronckaers' distress - but also cost taxpayers a fortune. Not only was the appeal itself costly (DAERA refuses to say how costly), but rules on compensation changed in that period meaning that the settlement went up to £1.25m.

The story NI's most chaotic council didn't want published: How a @BelTel FoI request for information about lucrative contracts caused five months of consternation, whistleblowing, an inquiry & its entire FoI team to quit after they were literally shut out.
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column… The months of work here by reporters, editors, lawyers, etc costs money & is only possible because @BelTel prioritises it: If you want more, you can support it by subscribing - & get yourself an incredible deal for another few days: <6p a day for all we do:subscribe.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The whistleblower hounded out of her job by civil servants - one of whom has just promoted the other - has spoken for the first time. Tamara Bronckaers says they made her life hell & reveals Stormont paid her an unprecedented £1.25m - from public funds. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/… Despite paying a sum believed to be the highest such settlement in NI history, Dr Bronckaers says DAERA insisted to her lawyer it was "never going to admit liability”. DAERA won't say if it paid extra to get that ludicrous line. Second part of interview online in the morning.

Tomorrow's @BelTel front page story: The man who for 15 years was the Executive’s top spin doctor has denounced the “scandalous behaviour” of some of his ex-colleagues who drove a whistleblower out of her job & last week promoted one of those responsible. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/… This shows the scale of the loss of confidence in the NI Civil Service - even from some of those who until recently were among its most senior figures. Stephen Grimason is not someone who has spoken out like this before, but says that what's happening is "an absolute disgrace".

Much of the RHI scandal is being repeated before our eyes: A civil servant involved in hounding a whistleblower from her job because she exposed serious problems has not been disciplined. Instead, he was promoted last week - by another implicated official.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-… This developing scandal is exposing the vacuousness of senior civil servants & ministers' cliched claims about having "learned the lessons" of RHI. It will cost taxpayers £1m+ (perhaps vastly more indirectly) & shows persecuting whistleblowers still isn't frowned upon in Stormont

Last month, NI civil servants took advice from someone – Whitehall says the EU – to harden the Irish Sea border, but didn't tell their minister. Firms lost money after GB loads were arbitrarily turned back by secretly altered rules - with no compensation.
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column… For two government departments to blame each other for a major policy change, as here, is highly unusual - but not unheard of. But for two departments to say that their ministers had no role in the policy is remarkable. It means no one is democratically accountable for this.

One of Northern Ireland's key power stations, Kilroot, wants to stop buying Russian coal - but says it is being forced to do so by Stormont. A huge load of Russian coal arrived in Belfast Harbour on Saturday - legal because of the way in which it arrived.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-… Right now, Kilroot is burning Russian coal, supplying 14.5% of NI's electricity - & probably powering the device on which you're reading this. Kilroot says it has plenty of coal for the forseeable future. The scale of Saturday's huge load is still visible in Belfast Harbour.

Northern Ireland now has the worst vaccination record in the UK or Ireland. Part of the reason is a minority of evangelical Christians who see covid in apocalyptic terms. Some are preaching against the vaccine - but other evangelicals are dismayed by that.
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column… This is not a majority of Christians, and even among evangelical Christians it is a small minority. Many evangelicals have been on the front line against covid and most churches have acted responsibly. But others are spreading a particular form of misinformation.

Even allowing for inevitable imperfection in tricky lockdown decisions, this one seems not only unfair but potentially something which increases spread of coronavirus: In NI, garden centres must shut - unless linked to another shop that can open (eg B&Q) 1/newsletter.co.uk/business/ni-ga… I went to my local Homebase a couple of weeks ago and it was an extraordinary sight - almost sold out of plants (normally thousands), almost sold out of pots (normally hundreds), and the shop was busier than I'd ever seen it. Many people were just there for gardening stuff. 2/

Health Minister Robin Swann's paper to the Executive last night (conveying advice of CMO & CSA) - which recommended guidance not to fly into NI from GB, rather than a ban - says covid is more likely to come into NI via RoI & suggested "limiting travel from RoI" as well as from GB The five-page health advice paper says that "given the extent of traffic between RoI and UK it is almost inevitable that the [virus] variant is present in RoI where it is unlikely to be easily detected given that little viral sequencing is performed".

Six hours after the Prime Minister announced an extreme lockdown for much of SE England & exemptions are only to be lifted on Christmas Day in all of GB, there still has been no statement from the NI Executive. Various sources close to the Exec don't expect a decision tonight. What remains unclear is whether Health Minister Robin Swann, acting on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer & Chief Scientific Adviser, has asked for NI to follow GB's far tougher restrictions. That would be the first step, but no one I've spoken to says that he has done so.

Arlene Foster appears to be tearing up a policy central to what the DUP has presented as its seminal achievement of the last 20 years - but it's not clear if this is a conscious U-turn or being done in ignorance. Either way, it will have huge implications.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/… I'd missed that Naomi Long had said that it was the DUP who argued for broadening this bill to give all ministers more autonomy. That's quite remarkable, given the party's historic position - but still no clarity from the DUP as to this vast policy shift.

https://twitter.com/naomi_long/status/1283361612515160064

Top Dept of Health official Richard Pengelly has written to NI's health trusts to set out next stage of pandemic 'surge' plan. Key points:
🔷 They expect NI hospitals won't be able to give critical care to everyone who needs it
🔷 Large field hospitals being set up immediately All hospital visiting has now stopped, with these exceptions:
🔷Children: One parent/carer at once
🔷A woman in labour: One birthing partner. No ante-natal or post-natal visits.
🔷Neonatal/paediatric ICU patients: One parent visit
🔷Palliative: One visitor; 1hour.
Full advice:

Thread: Thanks to @irish_news, @News_Letter, @BelTel, @IrishTimes & @dailymirrorni for such extensive and generous coverage of Burned in today's newspapers.
Spoiler alert: Here are some of those extracts & news reports, but there's much, much more in the book - believe me... Arlene Foster has refused to explain why civil servants were, unusually, excluded from a meeting with the Brazilian owner of major RHI beneficiary Moy Park just a year after RHI was set up and before the company began getting its farmers to pile into RHI.
newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/…

Among a series of historically significant revelations in a major seven-part BBC Spotlight investigation into the Troubles is video footage never broadcast of Martin McGuinness openly assembling a car bomb - and handing bullets to children of about eight. newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/… Ian Paisley helped finance some of the earliest terrorism of the Troubles, an ex-colonel has said. David Hancock told @BBCSpotlightNI that he was shown evidence by the RUC that Paisley funded explosives for a blast which helped eject NI PM Terence O'Neill. newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/…

Despite several powerful people having made clear in robust terms that they do not want parts of this book published, today the first bound proof of BURNED arrived from @IAP_MERRION, who have been excellent throughout. Pre-order discount & publication date details below ⬇️ Pre-order BURNED with 21% off here: amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178… (As an Amazon associate I get commission if you buy using this link but you pay no more);
You can also pre-order it directly from Merrion Press: irishacademicpress.ie/product/burned…
Or from Waterstones: waterstones.com/book/burned/sa…

Some thoughts on a law (publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill…) being rushed through Parliament to let NI civil servants act as quasi-ministers. If you live in NI, this is about how you're governed. If you're in GB, you should care about it because it involves spending billions of your taxes... This has profound constitutional and democratic implications, involving Parliament (presumably an empty chamber nodding it through because it's NI legislation) explicitly allowing civil servants to take ministerial decisions - with no democratic oversight.