News Letter Editor Alistair Bushe take a look at recent events in Northern Ireland

Dear reader
At the beginning of April I don’t think there were many people who could have foreseen the dramatic events that ultimately saw Arlene Foster toppled as leader of the DUP by the end of the month.
Rumours of opposition to Mrs Foster’s leadership had come to the fore on various occasions in the past, but it never seemed to amount to much.

However, there were hints of a change in March when we revealed that there was mounting concern about the DUP’s performance among the membership of a prominent DUP branch.
Even then though, there weren’t that many hints that the end of her leadership was imminent.
However, the manner of Mrs Foster’s demise was brutally swift at the end.
I am delighted to say that the News Letter was right at the centre of the story. Our political editor Sam McBride was massively well informed as first he revealed online and in our print edition on Tuesday, April 27, that the DUP was in open revolt over Mrs Foster’s leadership.
Sam wrote that eight DUP constituency associations had contacted the party leadership with concerns, and while it was clear that Mrs Foster’s future was now clouded in doubt, it was only later that afternoon that the true scale of her difficulties fully emerged.
Again, Sam was ahead of the press pack, revealing in an exclusive online report that 75 per cent of her MLAs had signed a letter demanding a leadership contest. This article was our most read of the entire month and was followed up by national and international media.
That afternoon Mrs Foster was remaining bullish but a day later she had indicated her intention to stand down, both as DUP leader and first minister of Northern Ireland, and to leave politics altogether.
We know now of course that the identity of the new DUP leader will be settled by a leadership election, the first in the party’s history, with Edwin Poots declaring his intention to stand within 26 hours of Mrs Foster’s departure. His opponent will be Lagan Valley MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.
April also saw a return to the kind of street violence that Northern Ireland thought it had left behind. While as a newspaper the News Letter is gravely concerned about the Northern Ireland Protocol, there can be no excuses for the scenes in Belfast in particular last month.
Of course not all of our reporting was of the serious kind, with Tim McGarry, our Thursday columnist, taking a light-hearted and hilarious look at the protests in his home city.
I’d like to end this letter on a positive note, with April seeing Northern Ireland taking long-awaited steps out of lockdown, with all schools having reopened, non-essential retail returned and even outdoor hospitality was back.
With the outstanding success of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, we should all be optimistic that there should now be no returns to the lockdowns of the last year and that the threat from the virus in this country has receded.
Many thanks for continuing to support us with a subscription. I trust you are enjoying most aspects of our coverage, but as ever, please contact me with any thoughts or observations that you may have.

Alistair Bushe
Editor, News Letter