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Gary Robertson ⚽ European duty awaited Glasgow’s big two as Celtic faced Utrecht and Rangers away to Porto (not Napoli as yours truly said last week, not sure how I got the two mixed up but I did and I apologise for my mistake).

So, to the matches. Rangers took an early lead. A cross met by the head of Gassama that nestled nicely into the bottom corner of the net - and with that, hope. However, Porto proved their class and helped by some defensive calamities found themselves 3-1 ahead by half time. And despite spirit and a much improved second half the Rangers limped out of Europe and back to Scotland and domestic duties.
 
Celtic on the other hand found themselves with much more to fight for: a win against Utrecht and they were through to the knockout stages of the Europa league. Any nerves however were quickly settled as a Tierney cross found Nygren, and Celtic park erupted. The second quickly followed as a mix up between former Celtic keeper Barkas and defender was pounced upon by Nygren whose pass to Maeda was turned into his own net by the hapless Viergever. 2-0 Celtic and all looked lovely. A few mins later and ecstasy for the Celtic fans as they were awarded a spot kick which was readily dispatched by Engels. 3-0. Then just before half time Utrecht found themselves with some hope as De Witts shot eluded Schmeichel and found the back of the net. 3-1 half time, I’ll take it for sure. 

Although nothing can be taken for granted in football, nothing's over 'til the pie loving lady serenades us with her version of “Celtic Symphony”, and for a few mins in the second half suddenly thoughts turned to the dark days of WN and Celtic crumbling as Blake shot from range and made it 3-2. Surely not, surely not again. However this is O’Neill's team and quickly the 2 nil advantage was restored as Trusty's head met a corner and the ball flew into the net, sending Celtic through to the knockout stages of the Europa league and a tie against Stuttgart.
 
Very different emotions among fans of Scotland's divide as Rangers look to put all their efforts into the league title and Scottish cup whereas Celtic, Scotland's last remaining hope in Europe, have three trophies still available.
 
Can they finally exorcise the ghosts of Seville and add the Europa league to the “Big cup”? Only time will tell but right now let’s dare to dream. If anyone can inspire Celtic to a famous victory it’s Martin O’Neill.
So to the weekend and domestic action. Hearts faced Dundee Utd at Tannadice looking to extend their lead at the top of the table. This looked a potentially tricky tie on paper but any nerves among the Jambos settled with some excellent play in the 11th minute. What followed was shambolic at best. First a sending off (after a VAR review) for Fatah; another VAR decision upgraded and a penalty awarded; a red for Camara of United; Coach Bowman sent to the stands for protesting and Kabore added a second so Hearts went marching on while United are left thanking their keeper for keeping the score somewhat respectable.
 
Motherwell continued their fine form away to Championship bound Livingston. A double for in-form Maswanhise quickly put this game to bed. West Lothian’s finest must be desperate for the season to end having won only one game so far and cut adrift at the bottom.
 
St Mirren and Dundee both gained a point having fought out a goalless draw. A result that really benefits neither and in honesty the best thing I can say about it is that the match took place. 🤣
 
The Saturday shock however came at Rugby Park where struggling Kilmarnock came up against in form Aberdeen. Goals in the 12th and 14th minute from Lyons and former Livi favourite Anderson put McCann's men in a position they hadn’t found themselves in for some time. Some quality goalkeeping and awful finishing by both sides but nothing could put a dampener on the day for Killie. A sending off for Shinnie summed up the Dons' afternoon before John James scored a third and an unlikely victory sealed. Kilmarnock's first win in 17 league games, they’ll be hoping to build on this and perhaps save their season.
 
Sunday saw a trip to Leith for Rangers, and whilst the sunshine shone for much of the game there were few highlights - a dreary draw that saw the Rangers slip to third. Neither side can be particularly happy with the point. In a game best forgotten and quickly the highlight perhaps was watching Dane Scarlett, currently on loan at Hibs from Spurs, making his debut and showing some class in a match best forgotten. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear, Steve R. I tried. 🤣
 
Celtic rounded up the weekends action with a crowd pleasing performance against Falkirk. A first goal for the new number 11 Cvancara ( I believe will be known as Stan from here on in - if Celtic podcasts are to be believed) whose header from a Tierney cross found its way into the net, having gone in off the post. It took some time for Celtic though to finally ease the nerves of the bhoys and ghirls in Celtic Park when a rocket from the boot of man of the moment Nygren to make it 2-0 to the Celts and lift them back into second place in the league.
 
With transfer deadline day upon us fans up and down the country will be hoping for new signings, so eyes and ears will be glued to the tv and radio for the latest news. May the footballing Gods answer your prayers.

Til next time ….

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Requiem For A European Dream

Intercept ★ Written by Georgia Gee.

Oracle, which has secret partnerships with Israel, has told employees to love the country or work elsewhere

Larry Ellison has been at Donald Trump’s side since he took office last month. The man Trump referred to as “one of the most serious players in the world” was front row at the inauguration, and then watched as the president signed an executive order on artificial intelligence — a major business interest for tech giant Oracle.

And Ellison, Oracle’s billionaire co-founder, was sitting next to Rupert Murdoch in early February when Trump created a fund to facilitate the purchase of TikTok. His presence was no accident.

Last month, after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok, Oracle emerged as a leader in the race to take control of the Chinese-owned short-form video platform.

While the campaign against TikTok was led by China hawks in Washington, it was the ire of pro-Israel activists that perhaps best explains why Oracle is such a natural choice to take over the social media app.

The campaign to ban the app kicked into high gear after Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel. The timing spurred talk that the push for a ban wasn’t just about American national security, but Israel’s too. 

Continue @ Intercept.

Poised To Take Over Tiktok, Oracle Is Accused Of Clamping Down On Pro-Palestine Dissent

Barry Gilheany ✍ The threats to democracy that have emerged in the 21st century internationally and within nation-states have almost hypermodern and transnational qualities to them.

From the release of automated bots through social media providers by bad actors such as Russia’s Internet Research Agency in order to corrupt democratic processes through misinformation; the emergence of vulgar yet alluring movements and personages like MAGA and Donald Trump who carry the Triple P virus of Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth, and the imponderable capacity of Artificial Intelligence to transform all our lives. 

Yet what has played out in the Mother of Parliaments in the last week has illustrated the damage to the democratic will of the people that can be wrought by a venerable old part of constitutional architecture. I am referring to the steady strangulation of the Assisted Dying Bill passed by the elected UK House of Commons by the unelected, hereditary, and nominated House of Lords. The near death (absolutely no pun attended) by a thousand amendments of a piece of legislation commanding cross-party support and which, when enacted, will grant those who wish to avail of it the ultimate human rights to bodily autonomy and dignity in control of the circumstances of one’s own death, is a democratic affront no matter what one’s personal views on assisted dying are. For, in an example of Parliament at its best, the debate around the Bill was conducted with dignity and full accommodation of the passionate views held on either side of the issue and no imposition of party whips. It was then passed by the body delegated by the British people to deliberate and decide on their behalf. However, in what is probably the most outrageous abuse of its functions since it vetoed the 1911 Finance Bill, the Other Place has sought to filibuster the Assisted Dying Bill out of existence.

To briefly reprise the history of the assisted dying bill, properly known as The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, would allow mentally competent adults who are expected to die within six months - and who express “a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life” - to get help to do so. Two doctors would have to agree as to their eligibility and a High Court judge would have to be satisfied as to the absence of any coercion. It was passed by a free and historic vote in the House of Commons in June 2025. It is opposed by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary.

The violation of the fundamental tenets democratic decision making whereby an unelected upper chamber can try to override a decision by the elected lower chamber on any issue is thus a fundamental affront to anyone of a democratic persuasion. But it is the potential real-life impacts on the lived experience of those who desire a peaceful death to end a life of intolerable life. In the words of the tetraplegic Melanie Reid, the ideologues in the Lords who claim to be acting on behalf of a vulnerability minority (while defying the will of the majority).

Since then, a small group of peers have delivered more than a thousand amendments and delivered lengthy speeches, leading to accusations of the grand old delaying tactic of filibustering which Irish Home Rule Party MPs used to such infuriating effect (to opponents of Home Rule) in the Commons in the 19th century and by both Democrats and Republicans in state legislatures up and down the USA.

On Friday, the Bill’s eighth committee stage debate was upheld in the Lords; a further six are scheduled, keeping it in the upper chamber until late April. However it must clear all its remaining stages in parliament before the end of the current session, probably in May, or it will automatically fail.[1]

Analysis by the Observer shows that six peers are responsible for half the amendments: Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson; the former Health Secretary (and bon viveur drinker and cigar smoker) Therese Coffey; Ilora Finlay, a professor of palliative and former president of the Royal Society of Medicine; Alex Carlile KC, the former independent reviewer of antiterrorist legislation, Guy Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst) and Paul or Lord Goodman of Wycombe, who have tabled 623 amendments between them. During the first seven debates, opponents have taken up 90% of the debating time, according to Humanists UK, prominent Bill supporters.[2]

The sincerity of prominent disability campaigner and former Paralympic medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson and her concerns around disability matters as it relates to assisted dying cannot be dismissed. Nor can the expertise in palliative care of Professor Finlay be ignored. However most of the amendments amount to arguments against Common decisions at the heart of the Bill rather than technical revisions which raise fundamental constitutional issues. The need for robust protections against coercion of seriously ill people were raised in good faith during the Bill’s passage through the Commons and the appropriate guardrails against coercion, stronger than in any other jurisdictions permitting assisted dying including Canada, are securely integrated into the Bill.

A particularly egregious stalling tactic was the introduction of the strawman of the role of artificial intelligence in assisted dying by Therese Coffey who in toto put down 95 out of 1,227 amendments. She “put down quite a blunt amendment” to ensure that AI would be prohibited from any involvement in assisted dying. For an hour, peers speculated around such scenarios as future chatbots or algorithmic advertising or even a putative artificial general intelligence pushing people towards assisted death, or coercing people into suicide or that doctors may be fooled by fake voice recordings. Other peers pointed out that since many diseases are now partly diagnosed with AI assistance, since paralysed patients communicate using AI tools tracking their eye blinks and since AI is used to analyse GP records to uncover patterns of illness – not to mention transcribe video calls - Coffey’s amendment would make the law entirely unworkable. In the event, Coffey withdrew this amendment – like all of its 65 predecessors – after Charles Falconer, the bill’s sponsor in the Lords, promised in his response to the debate to draft an amendment dealing with digital advertising. In the opinion of Hannah Slater, a 38 year old with a three year-old son who was told last summer that she had twelve months to live after her breast cancer had spread to her brain and who would like to decide on the manner of her death, such amendments belong to secondary legislation and definitely not part of the Lords debate and which were for her “clearly a filibuster”.[3]

Another potentially complicating factor in the Lords passage of the Bill is the internal politics of the Labour Party with dozens of backbench Labour opponents of the Bill having written to the party’s chief whip Jonathan Reynolds urging him to ensure MPs are not called back to Parliament to vote on the possibly returned Bill during the campaigning period before Scottish and Welsh legislative and English local government elections on 6 May at which Labour are projected to suffer serious losses. In the words of one of these backbenchers: “While there is obviously some latent support for assistant dying, it isn’t core to what Labour was elected to do.”[4]

The violation of the fundamental tenets democratic decision making whereby an unelected upper chamber can try to override a decision by the elected lower chamber on any issue is thus a fundamental affront to anyone of a democratic persuasion. But it is the potential real-life impacts on the lived experience of those who desire a peaceful death to end a life of intolerable life. In the words of the tetraplegic Melanie Reid, the ideologues in the Lords who claim to be acting on behalf of a vulnerability minority (while defying the will of the majority) but who are actually using bad-faith tactics, presumably seeking to sabotage liberal democracy and to perform a tribute act for the “good old days when Britain was great and suicide was a criminal act.|” For, in Reid’s opinion:

They have no understanding of desperation, or what it’s like to endure the privations of the NHS without the connections to pull strings, or poverty and powerlessness. 

Not for them, the experience of “being trapped in a paralysed body I hate, fighting co-morbidities and chronic pain.”[5]

Not for the unelected moral guardians in the Lords, also the continuing trauma for affected families being forced:

to watch the terminally ill people they love and care for spend hours, sometimes days and weeks, dying slowly in agony, when even the best palliative care fails to alleviate their pain. 

Or in a parallel with the cruel anti-abortion laws in both parts of Ireland which forced thousands of Irish women (if they had the financial resources to do so) to make the lonely journey to Britain to terminate their pregnancies with no appropriate after care. If patients are rich enough they have to fly alone to die in Dignitas, in Switzerland:

unable to say their last goodbye to those they love because the current cruel criminal law means their loved ones would then be investigated by the police for murder.[6]

Ultimately, the Parliament Act can be used to force the Assisted Dying Bill into law. But before this democratic act of force majeure can be enacted, how many pain racked individuals will die in agony in a manner not of their choosing. Should the Bill fail to reach the statute book in the prescribed manner, then it will be the House of Lords who receive a terminal blow to its legitimacy and hopefully existence.

References  

[1] Catherine Neilan, Filibustering Lords seek to slow-talk the assisted dying bill to its doom. The Observer. 1 February 2026, p.7

[2] James Tapper and Katie Riley, Six Lords a-speaking: the peers whose long debates may yet end the hopes of those who choose to die. The Observer. 1 February 2026.
Assisted dying The plot against democracy pp.8-9.

[3] Ibid

[4] Neilan, op cit.

[5] Melanie Reid, Death doesn’t scare me but let me decide when it’s time to end the pain. The Observer. 1 February 2026 p.9

[6] Esther Rantzen, It’s too late to help me, but please, my lords: spare others this needless pain. The Observer. 1 February 2026 p.7

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Democracy Thwarted And Pain Is Prolonged 🪶 The House Of Lords Stymies The Assisted Dying Bill

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Seventy

 

A Morning Thought @ 3047

Fírinne McIntyre ✒ writing in  Being Human.

"Your hair has been destroyed, to prevent you from contacting your ship."

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia is a story that could have turned audiences away. The CEO of a powerful medical company is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien sent to destroy Earth.

The concepts behind its most considerable plot points could leave an audience groaning, shaking their heads as they leave the cinema muttering. If I were to explain the story arc to the layman, I would expect no reply other than, ‘Aw, c’mon. Really?’.

Bugonia could have missed its mark, but it was flawlessly executed. Execution is crucial, and Lanthimos has crafted a clean guillotine. The film borrows its plot from the South Korean film Save The Planet! (2003), and I wonder if I might find its execution as successful under another director.

A noteworthy piece of pre-release hype for Bugonia, including a bald-only preview screening, was that Emma Stone had shaved her iconic red hair, and sported a stubbly scalp for Lanthimos’ newest film - a sharp contrast to the remarkably black and ostentatiously long hair she wore in Poor Things. While the trailer revealed this bald-headed Emma, none of this prepares the viewer for the real-time hair-shaving scene.

Up close on 35mm film, I realised that Stone, a woman subjected to the beauty standards of 2025, had no prior idea what her scalp looks like. Watching felt like intruding. Stone’s performance in this film was beyond words, and without traversing too far into the land of spoilers, I found certain moments hard to watch.

Don, played by Aidan Delbis in his breakout role, was a real example of empathy and of the echo chamber - a character perfectly placed between innocence under manipulation and total complicity. Another hit from the guillotine of perfect execution.

To conclude, if you have seen Bugonia, please Google the children’s show Boohbah. It was the first thing I thought of upon leaving the cinema.

Fírinne McIntyre of synth-pop duo “mischa and the bear”

Bugonia

People And Nature ☭ A Moscow court has sentenced university teacher Aleksandr Nesterenko to three years’ imprisonment, for sharing Ukrainian songs on a social media account. Here is a translation of Nesterenko’s final statement to the court, which was published by Mediazona.


On 19 December, the Liublin district court sentenced Nesterenko, an associate professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Moscow state technical university, to three years, Mediazona stated in its introduction. The 62-year-old lecturer has been in custody since September 2024 because he saved on his page on VKontakte [a Russian language site similar to facebook] a clip of the songs “We are growing” by Voply Vidopliassov [Screams of Vidopliassov, a Ukrainian rock-and-roll band], “We were born at a great time” [a Ukrainian nationalist anthem] and “Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother” [a Ukrainian song that Nesterenko denies having circulated]. Experts saw in these songs “evidence of incitement to violent actions against Russians, as a group defined by nationality” and “to the destruction of Russians as military opponents”.

To start with, Nesterenko was accused of “inciting hatred or antipathy” [Article 282:2 of the Russian criminal code] and “advocating extremism” [Article 280:2]. But in court the prosecutor said that the first charge was “unnecessary”, and asked that Nesterenko be sent to a prison colony for four years on the second charge. Before sentencing, Nesterenko made a final statement, which we reproduce here in full.

Aleksandr Nesterenko in court

☭     ☭     ☭     ☭

I hope that this statement is my last in this auditorium, but not my last all together. To start with, I wish everyone here a happy Christmas, with hopes of miracles and of changes for the better. About this, there’s [Iosif] Brodsky’s poetry: the stronger is Herod, the more certain the inevitable wonder.[1] We’re putting our hopes on that.

In the late 80s and the 90s, if someone had said that there would be political prisoners in Russia again, that the sentences for saying things would be longer than they are for murder, I would have thought that that person was insane.

But here I am, already in my second year in prison, because, among the 400 or so songs in many of the world’s languages on my VKontakte playlist, are a few in Ukrainian. That was the basis for my arrest on charges of “inciting hatred or antipathy”. This “incitement” was against Russians: the charges passed over the Russian Federation’s many other nationalities in silence, as second-class citizens not even worth a mention. It wasn’t specified who I incited to hatred and antipathy against Russians, but it’s not hard to guess that they had in mind people who speak Ukrainian.

At the last minute, without any explanation, the charges on which I have been held behind bars for two years, as a terrorist and extremist, were dropped. It turned out that the impression created, of a whirlwind of activity on my case by dozens of law enforcement officers, was all in vain. They undertook search operations, prepared expertise and made investigations of my case … instead of defending citizens from actual terrorists. And now I am charged only with advocating extremist activity.

Both songs that are mentioned in the charges – the third one [“Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother”] is not, and never was, in my playlist – have lyrics written a hundred years ago. They have nothing whatever to do with the Russian Federation, nor with Russians, nor with the current world situation. I am not their author and I didn’t perform them. I didn’t put them on line. No-one has designated them extremist or included them in lists of banned items, and none of the social media channels have blocked them. They are right there, being listened to by other VKontakte users, from whom I took them, to add to my playlist for future study, to follow up on my research interests. Which, in case anyone is interested, are: imagined communities, historical memory, group identities, historical narratives and similar subjects.

In other words, the charges under the relevant Article of the criminal code do not fit with the circumstances of the case. They are unlawful.

What has happened to me, and to other prisoners of conscience, demonstrates clearly this government’s real character. It is based on lies and violence. Its aim is to force us to become sheep, marching to the beat of drums made from our own skins. But in spite of the merciless repression, in Russia there were and there are people who have not renounced their ideals, their truths, because only those truths are worthy of devoting their lives to. And for me it’s a great honour that, by the will of fate, I now stand by side with these wonderful people.

I admit, in full, my guilt, in that to preserve your power, you are ready to commit any crime. I am guilty of not being among those heroes who were thrown into dungeons right at the start, for being faithful to their ideals. Because, unlike them, I, like many of us, had not found for myself the answer to the question, “what can I do?”. Now I know the answer to that, and I hope I have the moral right to say what it is.

First, however banal this sounds: there is no need to be afraid. They want to terrify us, because any power is itself afraid, above all, of its own people. But they can not put half the country in prison. If we all stop being afraid, then no cough will stop us from yelling out the truth: the emperor has no clothes.

Second, no-one can force us to obey criminal orders. We carry them out by our own free will, always finding justifications for our timidity, instead of courageously and honestly doing the duty required by our conscience.

The only way to defy spiritual freedom is to retain freedom in your own soul. Because freedom isn’t external, it is inside us. In detention I have become freer, because in prison you feel more intensely genuine freedom – freedom of the soul.

In conclusion, I would like to mention some beautiful fairy tales, rays of light in the darkness that is swallowing us: Dragon by [the Soviet-era writer Evgeny] Shvarts, The Giant Cockroach by Korney Chukovsky [a children’s poem, published in 1921], Tamara Gabbe’s City of Masters [a cycle of plays, 1943], Tales of Cipollino by Gianni Rodari [Italian children’s stories, 1951] and Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow these publications were denounced by some Grima Wormtongue [a character of Tolkien’s] or Unter Prishibeev [hero of a story by Anton Chekhov, an army officer who even in civvies interferes in everyone’s business and tells them who is in charge]. I wouldn’t be surprised if these tales were found to advocate extremist activities, and their authors were added to the notorious list of extremists and terrorists, on which I too have been lucky enough to land. [Nesterenko was added to the register of extremists and terrorists in December 2024.]

Finally: we must not forget that, whatever the circumstances, our fate and our future lies only in our hands. It depends on us ourselves, no-one else, what we do with our lives: vegetate, or achieve moral victory. Thank you for your attention.

🔴 Aleksandr Nesterenko’s trial reported by Novaya Gazeta Evropa

🔴 Just published (November 2025): Voices Against Putin’s War: protesters’ defiant speeches in Russian courts. Information here. Readings of courtroom speeches on film here: Try Me For Treason. There will be another reading in London on Thursday 5 February, information here.

[1] Here Aleksandr Nesterenko quoted “December 24, 1971” by Iosif Brodsky, the Nobel-prize-winning Russian-American poet, who wrote a poem each Christmas for many years. The relevant lines are “Herod reigns but the stronger he is, the more sure, the more certain the wonder“ («Знал бы Ирод, что чем он сильней, тем верней, неизбежнее чудо»).

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‘Your Power Is Based On Lies And Violence’ 🪶 Three Years For Sharing Ukrainian Songs

Dr John Coulter ✍ Confidence is now the new political buzz word following the coronation of the Ulster Unionist Party’s latest leadership of North Antrim MLA Jon Burrows as leader and Fermanagh South Tyrone MLA Diana Armstrong as deputy leader at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) at the weekend in a Belfast hotel.

By UUP standards, it was a well-attended and good natured EGM. There certainly was none of the vicious repeated rancour which ripped the party asunder during the David Trimble era between the Yes and No camps over the UUP’s role in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Rather than a defensive pose of ‘what we have, we hold’, the UUP grassroots has put its trust in the supposed Burrows/Armstrong ‘dream team’ and has gone on a ‘we want to take back what we once held’ attack mode.

The clock is ticking and the ‘dream team’ has around 15 months until the May 2027 council and Assembly elections to determine if this new-look Confident Unionism appeals to the electorate in Northern Ireland.

Outgoing leader Mike Nesbitt, who has retained his Stormont Executive Ministerial post of Health in the new leadership, seems to have steadied HMS UUP. There’s certainly no more daft notions of ‘Vote Mike, Get Colum’ which sunk Nesbitt’s first stint as party leader.

Under Nesbitt Mark Two, the UUP has stabilised itself in the opinion polls, has re-written its party rules, put a new staff team in place, and sorted the party’s finances. Effectively, he has created the perception that the posts of leader and deputy leader are no longer poisoned chalices in the UUP.

From the party mood and political temperature of the EGM, the UUP’s days of pussy-footing as a wannabe Alliance Party are over. Part of the UUP’s problem over the past decade is that the party’s didn’t really know what it stood for.

It stumbled from election to election like a thoroughly drunk male pensioner trying to find his way home from a dark, cold night at the pub by staggering and slipping across ice-covered streets.

Whilst most of the folk at the EGM were ‘well on’ in years age-wise, there is a genuine hunger to attract more young people and women into the party, and especially to stand as candidates in 2027. But it will require common sense policies if the UUP is to once again become the natural home of the pro-Union community.

Armstrong becomes the first woman in over a century of the party’s existence to hold the post of deputy leader. She also adds Chief Whip to her portfolio of responsibility.

Her late father, former UUP boss Harry West, established his power base in the party using the pressure group, the West Ulster Unionist Council.

Under his daughter’s reign as deputy leader, expect to see an increasing role for the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council within the party.

The EGM has unveiled a rebranding of the UUP which presents it as dynamic Unionism; urging folk to show a pride in the Union and become the chief champions of Northern Ireland being an integral part of the UK.

Put bluntly, the ‘dream team’ wants the UUP to become the chief cheer leader for Northern Ireland. Security is at the heart of this rebranding.

Burrows has been keen to point out that Northern Ireland is now at its most peaceful for 50 years, so that any meddling with the constitution is merely a leap in the dark.

He wants the UUP to become the party of strategic Unionism, and this means taking ownership of the peace process and slam Sinn Fein for suppressing the good news about Northern Ireland.

Burrows points to the importance of national security; that the organised crime gangs are now globally connected and that Northern Ireland is a central lynchpin in protecting that national security compared to the Republic of Ireland.

Burrows is likewise keen to put an end to the internal bickering which has bedevilled the UUP for decades. During the Trimble era, the No camp on the Belfast Agreement rallied itself around the pressure group Union First, while the Yes camp had its own version, Re:Union.

‘We can’t keep having arguments with ourselves; we must agree to move on’ - a clear warning to those in the UUP ranks who feel Burrows and Armstrong are a political gamble because both were co-opted to Stormont.

But does this mean the new look UUP will be Left-wing, Right-wing, liberal or traditional? It seems none of these terms will apply to the rebranded UUP. Yes, the UUP will need detailed policies which are communicated with the utmost and absolute clarity. Yes, the UUP must listen to its members and the community.

Under the Burrows/Armstrong leadership, it seems the UUP will develop its own team of social media ‘attack dogs’ - with Alliance, Sinn Fein and those who want to rewrite the history of the Troubles firmly in their sights.

Burrows is a firm believer in the power of social media to influence potential members and voters. He is equally clear on the topic of Unionist unity - there will be no single party; no mergers. It’ll be a case of ‘we’ll do Unionist co-operation on our terms!’

Burrows’ message to the DUP is brutally honest - we want to replace you as the biggest Unionist party in Northern Ireland.

As the dozens of delegates at the EGM enjoyed their complementary tea, coffee and scones, the ‘dream team’ left them with plenty to both digest and ponder politically.

For those on the liberal wing of the party, they need to recognise that the past ‘fluffy bunny, snowflake politics’ of sucking up to the Alliance-type voter base is parked.

For those on the Hard Right of the UUP, will they face disciplinary action if they use social media to push a Right-wing agenda.

For the church-going clique, does the perception the UUP supports a ‘pluralist society’ sound alarm bells. After all, the EGM began with the saying of the Ulster Unionist Party Prayer. May 2027 will answer all these queries.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Softly, Softly Is Dead 🪶 Long Live The New Kick Ass UUP !

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty NIine

 

A Morning Thought @ 3046

Anthony McIntyre 🔖This is Slough House in a post-Brexit world.

The book's title London Rules subliminally communicates this to the reader. Brussels rule is in the past but 'one of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit . . . was that it had elevated to positions of undue prominence any number of nasty little toerags.' Those that missed out on elevation might have made their way to Slough House. On second thoughts, they might even have stayed at Regent's Park.

The building where the slow horses ply their trade is no cleaner than it was in any of the previous books. This is the fifth, and the filth remains. No one can accuse Jackson Lamb of mounting a clean up operation, the dirtiest room of all being his office on the top floor, from which he likes to fart on those below, and which no amount of air freshener or fumigation could make right. Lamb doesn't jettison his persona, it sticks to him like dog poo to a shoe and smells as bad. Profane, flatulent, lover of whiskey and cigarettes, sharp as a razor, he is the alpha male stallion here, brooking neither rival nor alternative opinions.

The slow horses graze around in their Siberian stable, a mere half hour on foot from MI5 Headquarters, banished there for misdemeanours usually explained, although the cause for Lamb's exile is never detailed. Travellers to Slough House were given a one way ticket. 'From Regent's Park to Slough house: ‘a distance that could be walked in thirty minutes, though the return journey was unclockable, because nobody had ever made it.'

Over at Regent's Park, a beleaguered Claude Whelan is first desk at MI5 Headquarters, where trust amongst colleagues is in short supply. He is defending himself against assault from all sides in a world concisely summed up by Lamb: 'Ethical behaviour's like a vajazzle on a nun. Pretty to picture, but who really benefits?' Whelan wants to protect the Prime Minister from ambitious pretenders such as Denis Gimball, a Brexiteer MP who covets the No 10 spot. Gimball is an unsavoury prat but one who is outdone only by his obnoxious wife, a red top columnist who makes a point of going for Whelan. It is difficult to evict the image of Nigel Farage from the mind each time Gimball pops up, which is all too frequent. At one point he assumes the persona of Pat Rabbitte: 'actually, he reflected, he'd have been better off saying it had been an electoral promise. Only infants and idiots expected you to keep those.'

Ricky Lee Jones could have penned a song, Rod Ho's in Love, to stand in for Mick Jagger's Strange Game in the television series. It might have captured the atmospherics better. Roddy Ho, the in-house IT geek, has fallen in love but none of his colleagues can bring themselves to believe that the love is reciprocated. Afterall who could love Ho but himself. So smitten is Roddy that he is oblivious to the very real attempt to kill him. Shirley Dander intervenes to save Ho but her past drug addiction - she is now 62 days clean - persuades Lamb not to be persuaded that Ho was targeted for assassination at all. A second attempt changes his mind.

The attempts on Ho's life are part of a wider web that begins with an attack by armed men in a Derbyshire village, Abbotsfield, leaving twelve people dead. Add to that the mass slaughter of penguins at London Zoo and a bomb placed on a high speed train, it leaves the spooks with a lot of figuring out to do, but the dots are joined once forensics show a link between the second attempt on Ho's life and the Derbyshire incident.

And so the hunt begins. The horses might be slow but the ride is anything but.

Mick Herron, 2018, London Rules. Publisher: Baskerville. ISBN-13: 978-1473657397

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London Rules

Democracy / / / / / /   For Sale 🔦 Written by Peter Geoghegan and Max Colbert.

Toby Young’s outfit went to court to hide its donors. Today we reveal that funders include US anti-abortion groups, Brexit politicians and Tufton Street insiders.


The Free Speech Union (FSU) has come a long way since its inception in 2020. Founder Toby Young now sits in the House of Lords and FSU spokespeople regularly appear on British media. Even JD Vance has endorsed its argument that the UK is suffering a ‘free speech crisis’.

The FSU has also backed numerous freedom of speech legal challenges. So I was somewhat surprised to learn that last week Young’s organisation had itself obtained a High Court injunction - banning the publication of a list of its donors.

The court order followed the hacking of the organisation’s website earlier this month by the trans rights group Bash Back. On its own website, Bash Back accused the FSU of “purport[ing] to protect free speech” while in reality “work[ing] to protect transphobes, racists, and anti-choice activists,” and published a list of people who had donated £50 or more to the FSU over the past two years.

Who Funds The Free Speech Union?

National Secular Society ★ Written by Keith Porteous Wood.

Despite achieving constitutional separation from the Catholic Church after much 
bloodshed, the French state is still subservient to the Church when it comes to child abuse


The 120th anniversary of France's landmark law codifying the separation of Church and state was commemorated last month. The 1905 law's ideological origin was of course the Revolution of 1789, which sought to end, through the establishment of a republic, the corruption and excessive power of the monarchs, the aristocracy and the Catholic Church.

However, France wasn't the first jurisdiction to make religious freedom a right and forbid state support for religion – the US state of Virginia was. There, the Anglican Church was established just as it was, and still is, in England. Virginia's stance formed the template for the first amendment to the US Constitution in 1789, thanks to visionaries James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the latter of whom devoted his life to replicating these concepts in other countries, starting with France.

Now, nearly 250 years later, let's examine what has been achieved, and what still needs to be done.

In 1789 after much bloodshed, French citizens managed to form a unicameral National Assembly  . . . 

Continue @ NSS.

France’s Rocky Road To The Separation Of Church And State

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