| It is now the darkest time of the year but from Tuesday, the winter solstice, the daylight will be returning. No wonder at a latitude as far north as Ulster we have been celebrating this point in the calendar since long before the birth of Christ.
Until they brought forward the dates, I would not have been eligible for a third jab until February. The vaccine programme is, like Furlough, a thing the UK has got right about Covid. But much about the pandemic response is contentious. On our front page today a veteran of the pubs trade in Northern Ireland says it is the worst time in the industry he remembers in decades.
And the former IRA man Shane Paul O'Doherty contrasted the treatment of the hooded men with brutal republican use of torture However, the hooded men did not win their case on all points and we will be examining the ruling in coming weeks, and the view that it was not too bad for the UK state.
This weekend we serialise our latest extract from 'The Idea for the Union' in which Dr Graham Gudgin says nationalists have comprehensively and unfairly won the late 1960s propaganda battle over discrimination In other news, the Broughshane man Brian Gault, who was born with no arms after his mother took two Thalidomide tablets to treat morning sickness, picked up an MBE at Windsor Castle ... with his toes Our our sports back page today, we report on the first major football domestic final to be played in Northern Ireland on a Sunday next year: In motorcycling, Peter Hickman and Brian McCormack will spearhead BMW Motorrad’s official roads challenge as the FHO Racing team gears up for North West 200 and Isle of Man TT in 2022. And there is, as always, so much more. The News Letter is printed daily this week except Christmas Day itself, Saturday, but the website will still be updated on December 25.
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We hope you have a good week in the run-up to Christmas.
Best wishes, Ben Lowry
Editor, The News Letter | 
