Good morning and welcome to IT Sunday for June 12th, 2022 – your weekly briefing of some of the best Irish Times journalism for subscribers.
At the end of a week that saw British prime minister Boris Johnson win a confidence vote in Westminster – a victory that still represented a significant blow to his authority – Fintan O’Toole is writing about politics in the UK, positing that if contemporary Britain were a movie, it would be The Long Goodbye – parts 2 and 3.
“The Queen is edging visibly towards the end of her reign; her prime minister is 90 per cent gone,” he writes. “Elizabeth II and Boris Johnson embody, in their very different ways, the same sense of a polity that is on its way out but reluctant to shuffle off into the night. Drinking-up time has expired but still a kind of Britain lingers, having no home to go to.”
Johnson’s narrowly-won vote isn’t the only trouble facing the British government. As London Editor Denis Staunton pointed out in the aftermath, there are economic difficulties to contend with. The OECD said this week it expects Britain to experience no economic growth at all next year; its forecast of 0 per cent for Britain is the lowest for any G20 country apart from Russia.
These problems, Staunton writes, have even prompted some politicians and commentators to think the unthinkable – by advocating closer economic ties with the EU.
David McWilliams, meanwhile, is writing about Dublin city. Long gone is the vibrant street life that met Leopold Bloom when he left his house at 8am on June 16th, 1904, in James Joyce’s Ulysses: “Take a stroll down Dublin’s premier shopping streets and you will be presented with dozens of boarded-up retail units. Look up over the ground floor on practically any street and witness the dereliction.
“Cars bully pedestrians at every turn and at night, much of the place turns into an open vomitorium and, unlike in Bloom’s gloriously mixed Dublin, today pretty much only very rich corporate renters, or the inner-city poor, live within the canals.”
As bleak as that may seem, things could change, according to McWilliams. The prize is great – and achievable.
On the economic front, this year began with forecasters expecting 2022 to be a period of rebound. With the pandemic waning, businesses reopening and consumers ready to unleash their vast accumulated savings, growth was expected to surge. Now the comparator decade is the 1970s, according to Eoin Burke-Kennedy: a period characterised by high inflation, low growth and record-high interest rates.
Amid economic uncertainty following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing surge in energy and food prices, this piece asks the question: Is Ireland heading into recession?
When it comes to household budgets, the price of healthcare has long been an issue and with the current cost of living increases, now may be a good time to the look at those benefits currently available to taxpayers. Fiona Reddan has assembled this quick recap on existing benefits and the new initiatives which may help you save some money this year.
Over in the Health and Family section, Sheila Wayman is discussing baby and toddler health. While the physical considerations of newborns and young kids often take centre stage, infant mental health specialists are encouraging parents to pay attention to emotional needs, too. To that end, Wayman has compiled these 10 things you need to know about your infant’s mental health.
Trish Murphy this week used her advice column to respond to a mother who says her adult children have cut her off after her ex-husband walked out of a 20-year marriage. “I’ve always been a good mom and I’m an extremely hard worker and can’t figure out why they would treat me like this,” says the reader, whose correspondence touches on abuse, loneliness and addiction. “Instead of being an abusive parent, I am the one who has been abused by my children and now my ex-husband.”
“While you are definitely suffering,” writes Murphy, “it sounds that some, if not all, of your children are suffering too.”
Roe McDermott, in her weekly column, is also offering important reader advice. In this case, McDermott responds to a person whose boyfriend – after emerging from a verbally and emotionally abusive relationship – finds it hard to communicate his feelings. “His vocabulary is limited to things like ‘Are you okay?’ ‘You’ll be okay,’ ‘I’m grand,’ or ‘Ah sure look, it’ll be grand, things aren’t that bad.’ Putting his head in the sand is his modus operandi.”
As always there is much more on irishtimes.com, including extensive coverage of the weekend’s sport, rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, and tips for restaurants to suit all tastes in our food section. You can always check out more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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