Gareth Cross

#KingOfTheHill Season 15 debuts July 20 on Hulu. The new season consists of 10 episodes, all of which will be released at once. wp.me/pc8uak-1lHe5D

Kemi Badenoch has now been forced to delete the appalling video. She should apologise directly to the Bloody Sunday families and acknowledge that the politics of prioritising the interests of soldiers over the needs of victims is wrong.

I’m astounded that @KemiBadenoch used footage of soldiers in Derry during Bloody Sunday in this video promoting the actions of the British Army. It’s disgusting, deeply offensive and an insult to the innocent civil rights protestors who soldiers killed that day.

This is a genuinely disgraceful thing to say days after the Dunmurry attack. Abandoning this place to London rule won't hasten unity but it will punish ordinary people for DUP/SF failure.

Eastwood raises cases of Paul Whitters and Stephen McConomy reminding MPs they were among 49 children killed by State derryjournal.com/news/people/ea…

I loved Football Focus in its heyday - and its heyday lasted four long decades. It was simply appointment-to-view TV. Tucked into the first hour of Grandstand, it then became a standalone show after that was canned too. Football Focus gave us iconic moments: Motty in a raging horizontal snowstorm in his sheepskin coat; Jonathan Pearce’s high-octane previews, packed with “I live this” energy and knowledge; any contribution from Barry Davies, “ohwaddagoal!” - and the reassuring presence of Arsenal’s double-winner Bob Wilson, who made the transition from goalkeeping to journalism seem effortless. I loved the way he’d reel off the fixtures each week: “And Everton make the trip to League Champions, Aston Villa.” Then, the following season: “European Champions, Aston Villa.” But to say the show simply ran its course, swallowed up by the welter of social media we now consume, is to miss a key reason its audience crashed. It was hollowed out by items we didn’t want to see. It became boring, irrelevant, stopped serving its audience. As much as ever, we still want intelligent interviews and insight: a counterweight to the screaming, shouting, fake arguments and laddish banter elsewhere. Dan Walker had the knack of making the programme feel like a celebration of young men in their flourish: elite and successful in their prime. You’d look on at these familiar star faces and think how wonderful it must be in your late thirties, to look back at your medals and still remain relevant as a voice in the game; perhaps a national team manager, with clubs no doubt watching your progress for your next job. I’m of course talking about Gary Speed and his last day on earth, which was on Football Focus. They sat him with his title-winning Leeds midfield partner, Gary McAllister. They showed wonderful goals, mapped his extraordinary consistency as a player with Everton and Newcastle, and celebrated his recent big win as Wales manager over Norway. Then we woke up the next morning to the terrible, frankly unbelievable news about him. “But, but we saw him relaxed and happy with Gary Mac on Football Focus the afternoon before.” Of course the show had life in it. They just forgot its mission. It became another victim of the BBC swallowed whole by their institutional urges to foist values and agendas on us which few believe in. The mass switch-off proves that. No amount of competing attention is really to blame for its demise. It just needed a reset. RIP Gary Speed.

End of Football Focus. End of an era. No great surprise. Clashed with games, fixtures all over the place and people consume football content differently in a digital era. The Hand of Pod everywhere. Worth remembering that FF showcased plenty of great interviews, insight & talent over past 52 years 📺🙌

Today was a big day in the fight to tackle reckless e-scooter and scrambler use in our communities. The Assembly has backed our motion to strengthen powers to seize vehicles when they are being used illegally and putting lives at risk - and to support the expansion of programmes already working on the ground through schools, youth centres and community organisations. Enough is enough. The time for action is now - before more lives are lost.

This has nothing to do with Marie Anderson. It is a dangerous intervention by the DUP & an attempt to give UK security services a soft veto on future appointments in Policing & Justice in NI. With nationalist confidence in policing slipping further, that cannot be permitted.

People have had enough. Our motion on Tuesday is a real opportunity for the Justice Minister and the Executive to step up and act - strengthening the powers needed to take these vehicles off our streets when they’re being used dangerously. This is about protecting communities, restoring confidence, and preventing the kind of tragedy we all know is coming if nothing changes.

We are bringing a motion to the Assembly on Tuesday to create stronger powers to remove scramblers and e-scooters putting people and communities at risk. The Justice Minister must also recognise the success of programmes involving schools and youth services, which have seen up to a 90% reduction in anti-social behaviour - but remain unfunded and need to be supported and expanded to reach more young people. The time to act is now!

A local councillor in West Belfast is calling on the Justice Minister to act on the growing misuse of scramblers and e-scooters belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-n…

Claire Hanna is the most popular NI party leader in @LucidTalk poll for @BelTel. For the first time, she scores higher than Michelle O'Neill among nationalists. Jon Burrows is the second best rated leader, replacing Jim Allister as unionists' favourite. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

In an act of extreme bad faith, Netanyahu is already refusing to honour the ceasefire in Lebanon hours after it was announced. Israel has already killed 1500 people and displaced more than 1.1 million civilians who are now living on the street or the shells of their homes.

🇮🇪 Happy #StPatricksDay, Celts! ☘️ #CelticFC🍀

A crucial 3 pts at Paradise 💪 #CELMOT | #CelticFC🍀

Today's #DafabetMOTM ⚽️⚽️ #CELMOT | #CelticFC🍀

David O’Leary and Jack Charlton stand for the national anthem before Ireland’s quarter-final against the hosts at Italia ’90. Just four years earlier, the two had a major falling out. In Jack’s first game in charge, a 0-1 loss to Wales, he blamed O’Leary for Ian Rush’s winning goal. O’Leary, a ball-playing centre-half, was never Charlton’s type—he preferred hard-tackling defenders like Mick McCarthy. O’Leary missed the next game against Uruguay due to injury, but when it came time for a trip to Reykjavík for a mini-tournament in May, Charlton left him out completely. When Mark Lawrenson, Jack’s first choice, withdrew, he called O’Leary, but the defender had already booked a family holiday and, still stung by the initial snub, refused to cancel. Jack was livid. O’Leary stayed out of the squad until November 1988, sparking a national uproar over the Arsenal legend’s exclusion. However, Ireland’s Euro ’88 heroics allowed Jack to just about get away with it. An injury crisis ahead of a World Cup qualifier in Seville against a classy Spanish side saw Charlton call O’Leary again, and this time he accepted. Ireland lost 2-0, but the rift was mended, and O’Leary was back. Thankfully so, because in Genoa, he fired the Boys in Green into that famous quarter-final in Rome. Amazing how football works out sometimes! #ireland

A reminder of the time Martin O'Neill ruthlessly tore down Fabio Cannavaro, Patrick Vieira and Adrian Chiles in less than a minute