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Barry Gilheany ✍😔The daily fallout continues in Britain from the revelations concerning the revelations about New Labour guru Peter Mandelson.. 

With the latest batch of documents released by the US Department of Justice concerning the reach of influence of the late serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the resignation of PM Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, it is important to delve beneath the headlines behind the downfall of Mandelson and the former HRH Prince Andrew (and maybe the PM himself and other Establishment figures) to name and examine what the nexus of elite power, finance and celebrity surrounding Epstein was. A bespoke organisation of patriarchy crossing political and ideological lines in which men of power and privilege traded favours and resources and which required cowed and subservient women to service both the perverted sexual needs of those in the circle and the day-to-day functional running of the operation.

Before digging down and dirty into the sordid and criminal vortex of misogynistic abuse and exploitation that was the Epstein network, let us briefly reprise the events of the last week. Peter Mandelson, consummate networker and connoisseur extraordinaire of wealth and privilege resigned in September 2025 as UK ambassador to Washington after an earlier tranche of DOJ data dump revealed photographic evidence of his friendship with and residence in the properties of Epstein. This was after Epstein's conviction for soliciting under age sex in 2008. He was then found to have informed Epstein by email, when Secretary of State for Business in the administration of PM Gordon Brown, of market sensitive developments in relation to Brown’s attempts to deal with the effects of the 2008 global financial collapse and of proposals to cap bonuses for bankers: effectively insider trading. 

The resulting outcry led to Mandelson’s resignation from the House of Lords and from the Labour Party. But the real gotcha moment came at Prime Minister’s Questions at noon on Wednesday when at the third time of asking Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, drew from Keir Starmer an admission that he had known of (if not to the fullest extent) of the erstwhile peer of the realm’s links to Epstein, post his conviction. For all his angry denunciations of Mandelson’s “treachery” and his indignant assertions that he “had lied and lied again” during the vetting process prior to his ambassadorial appointment; the mood on the Labour benches and within the wider party is that the buck stops with him. Certainly, it is impossible to disagree with Gordon Brown’s assertion that Keir Starmer is facing the most serious crisis of his Premiership yet. 

That no heads have rolled in the United States because of the thousands of references to Donald Trump in the files (and of assorted Democrat and Republican luminaries) does not lessen the morality tale that the whole sorry episode tells us about British and Labour politics; that appointing someone with Mandelson’s record of sleaze (two dismissals from Blair’s first cabinet for inappropriate financial relationships) to Britain’s top diplomatic posting on the rationale that his making friends and influencing skillset was ideal for dealing with the caprices of Donald Trump sets a very low bar for competence and integrity in public life. As things stand, Starmer’s government is in a limbo state with authority leaking away from it but with no obvious successor to Sir Keir in sight.

However, in the words of Marina Hyde, rather than “being massively more obsessed” with the fact of this “network of incredibly famous and powerful men trying to help a known ex-con minimise and wave away his under-age sex crimes,” we should be “more concerned about the actual Sex Bilderberg.”[1]. For in her sarcastic takedown of the New Statesman’s banner headline on the Mandelson affair as the “scandal of the century” it is not even the scandal of the scandal. For all the discussion and analysis of the fallout is possibly:

a mass displacement activity, driven subconsciously or consciously by men, so we don’t have to reckon with the fact that we now have searchable records of the way some of the most powerful guys in the world, who have huge sway over our lives, talk and think about women. And girls.[2]

So how did this para-state or para–Multinational Corporation operate? The Epstein files reveal the full organisational structure and culture of World Patriarchy Inc. It is a milieu in which “the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not.” They lay bare:

the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information. Women exist at the periphery, tolerated because they provide sex, they grace a table.[3]

In the division of labour in this gilded dystopia, the men are the billionaires, the tech giants, the bankers, statesmen, politicians, leaders, people who need to be cultivated as they provide Epstein ways to bolster his tentacles of influence. The women exist as little better than paid servants, as insignificant plus-ones. They feature in Epstein’s world as objects to be manicured and optimised for the male gaze – teeth seen to, weight lost, STDs treated, features fixed. (“You might want to see a doctor about reducing the nose a little before you turn 23,” Epstein suggests to an unnamed woman in July 2017).[4]

In the organisation chart of this transnational criminality, the role of CEO without the kudos of power and authority is occupied by Lesley Groff, Epstein’s long-term executive assistant. She heads up the team of women helpers tasked with attending to every need and whim of the male movers and shakers constantly at their beck and call. Her job specification is the organisation of schedules, snacks, and women. She is on first name terms with a global rota of female personal assistants – Elon Musk’s Mary Beth and Anne and Richard Branson’s Helen. They liaise with each other about their employers’ dietary preferences (Branson likes Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and Rose. No Chardonnay please!) When Epstein has a meeting with the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers in 2012, Groff reminds her female colleagues that “Larry is VIP!” and tells them that “We should be prepared with snacks with Larry.”[5]

Gross greases the wheels of the Epstein operation by sorting out the diaries and travel schedules for her boss so that he can meet his powerful clients as he traverses the globe between Paris, Los Angeles, New York, and London. At short notice, she sorts out invites to two seminars in 2012 on power and money to the great, good, and not so good of the worlds of Big Tech and High Politics – Jeff Bezos, Jes Staley, Bill Clinton, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates etc. In parallel she organises the logistics of the more sinister aspects of the Epstein global enterprise – the travel and visa arrangements for the women that Epstein wants to accompany with on his trips around the world. She handles innumerable requests to transport women from Eastern European cities: “Organise for [redacted] to come from Moscow to Paris arrive 2.40 sat, leave late sun night, she will send her passport.” She sends out details of the addresses that women should be picked up from (“Girls to meet at 71st Street with their IDs. Heli to East Hampton. She gets saunas fixed, steam rooms serviced, makes sure the modem is working in the bedroom.”)[6]

Not that it would prick the consciences or self-awareness zones of these men had they committed their indiscretions in front of their female servants, but away from their observations the full extent of their Access Hollywood, locker room type banter is laid bare. “By the way,” Sultan bin Sulayem messages Epstein early on a November Tuesday morning in 2013. “The Ukrainian and Moldovan arrived. Big disappointment the Moldavian is not as attractive as the picture.” “Photo shop,” Epstein suggests. “Not only that she was too short and skinny” the Sultan replies. In the aftermath of Epstein’s release from prison in July 2009, Peter Mandelson asks “How is freedom feeling?” To which Epstein replies “She feels fresh, firm and creamy.” “Naughty boy,” Mandelson responded and asks “How shall we celebrate” eliciting this reply from Epstein “With Grace and Modesty (the names of two strippers. While there are just 525 messages referencing “pussy”, the word is often coyly used as a barely disguised unit of communication currency. Men sign off messages to Epstein wishing him “lots of P.” “Happy New Year with lots of P” or “Happy Birthday and a year full of health, money and lots of P.” Reflecting on the health benefits of sex, the Canadian longevity doctor Peter Attia writes to Epstein in an email “Pussy is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content though."[7] Sexism with the New Age wellness touch.

Since the revelations in the Epstein files are widely perceived to have undermined faith in the workings of liberal democracy, increased contempt in politicians as a category regardless of party affiliation, and to be a boon for anti-system populists, it is worth looking at the involvement of two radical figures from the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum in Epstein’s circle. Entering stage right is Steve Bannon the intellectual guru for the Alt-Right and former Trump adviser. Bannon acted as a mentor for Epstein’s appearance in a documentary series designed to salvage his public image. In return Epstein gave Bannon high end gifts, including a Hermes Apple watch. In one 2019 exchange, Bannon offered this pearl of wisdom “first we need to push back on the lies”, “crush the pedo/trafficking narrative” and “rebuild your image as philanthropist.”[8] A piece of counsel straight from the playbook of Donald Trump’s notorious mentor Roy Cohn whose mantra was deny, attack, never admit fault. In a video of an interview released as part of the new files, Bannon asks him: “Do you think you’re the devil himself?” Epstein replies: “No, but I do have a good mirror.” When told he has “all the attributes of the devil,” he says, “The devil scares me.”[9]

Entering from the left is one of its most iconic, cross-generational figures – Professor Noam Chomsky. In February 2019, 11 years after he had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, Epstein told an associate he had received advice from Chomsky over how to deal with the clamour of public and media response to the multiple allegations against him. Chomsky’s advice reads as follows “The best way to proceed is to ignore it . . . That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is worse than murder." [10] 

Written in the #MeToo era, these comments are a stark reminder that of how women’s rights and autonomy have been blind spots in parts of the Left; particularly in the Left landscape that relegates concerns like gender relations and sexism to the margins in the pursuit of class and/or anti-imperialist revolutions. Chomsky has made his post-linguistic career around his “manufacturing of consent”, about how the mass media acts as the conduit for the agenda of corporate capitalism through the framing of news and information via the lens of the dominant elites. That and his strident, almost reflective opposition to US foreign policy has earned him a devoted following among generations of radical students and activists. However, his downplaying, if not actual denial, of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s and the Bosnian genocide in the 1990s and his equivocal attitude to the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine has attracted condemnation from scholars and commentators whose concerns about human rights and social justice has a wider remit than the nefariousness of the US at home and abroad which has been Chomsky’s all consuming passion.

Documents released by US House Democrats in November 2025 partially contained comments attributed to Chomsky, calling it “a most valuable experience” to have maintained “regular contact” with Epstein. Their contact did involve finances, including Chomsky communicating with Epstein for advice throughout a complex fight pitting him against his children from his first marriage that revolved around money and the purchase of an apartment. His second wife and spokesperson Valeria Chomsky arranged for an associate of Epstein to post a $20,000 cheque meant to help “administering the Chomsky challenge in linguistics” at another juncture. This affiliation also gained Chomsky invitations to holiday together and recognisable names to his orbit.[11]

In the absence of any response from Noam and Valeria Chomsky about the content of the Epstein related emails including the authenticity of the 2019 advice attributed to Noam, then not a few would consider it to be an appropriate epitaph for someone who spent a lifetime fulminating about the power of elites but who in the twilight of his life moved around and helped to grease the palms of the most sordid elite perhaps in human history. At least the penny seems to have dropped among Chomsky’s acolytes including Zara Sultana, joint leader of the ill-starred British uber left Your Party who has scrubbed the photos of her with her erstwhile guru and all references to him on the party’s website.

There are many lessons to be drawn from the Epstein scandals. There is the corrosive effects on democracy of the “revolving door” between government and business and the value of the knowledge and contacts that political leaders which is central to the accumulation and operation of such unaccountable power. There is the lack of transparency at the highest levels of decision making in the UK. Had Mandelson been summoned to the Select Foreign Affairs Committee for confirmation of his appointment then the whole sorry episode would have been avoided by its veto. There is the toxic, boys club working culture at 10 Downing Street under the now departed Chief of Staff McSweeney with uncomfortable echoes of Dominic Cummings “reign of terror” during Boris Johnson’s Premiership. Related to this power grab has been the diminution of the authority of the PM and the cavalier disregard for the PLP which has responded by flexing its numerical muscles forcing an almost unprecedented of U turns by the executive. But the dark heart of the Epstein enterprise. was the industrial scale grooming, trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girl children, a global paedophile ring. Anyone who traded information, jobs, or favours while knowledgeable at any level of Epstein’s (and maybe other’s) offending is party to a crime against humanity.

References

[1] Marina Hyde, Remember the men who aided Epstein, despite his crimes. Guardian Journal. 4 February 2026 pp.1-2

[2] Marina Hyde, Silly me for thinking the story here is mass abuse of women. Guardian Journal.7 February 2026 pp.1-2

[3] Amekia Gentleman, Epstein’s world: where powerful men matter and women exist to serve them. Guardian. 7 February 2026 pp.14-15

[4] Ibid, p.14

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Jason Burke, Daniel Boffey and Emine Sinmaz,   Epstein’s network. Extraordinary details from vast cache of files. The Guardian. 5 February 2026 p.9

[9] Ibid

[10] Ramon Antinio Vargas, ‘Best ignore it’ Emails reveal Chomsky advice to guilty sex offender. The Guardian 4 February 2016 pp.8-9

[11] Ibid

⏩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.

Right, Left And Centre🪶 The Epstein Network As Global Patriarchy

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3054

Cam Ogie ✍ Keir Starmer likes to present himself as a lawyer’s lawyer: forensic, risk-averse, intolerant of ethical shortcuts. 

Yet his own account of how he handled Peter Mandelson turns that brand into self-parody — and raises a devastating question about judgment, leadership, and moral seriousness.

Starmer has acknowledged that he was aware of Mandelson’s continued association with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sexual offences involving a minor and public status as a registered sex offender, before appointing him UK Ambassador to the United States. That admission alone should end the discussion. A lawyer who identifies a red flag and proceeds anyway doesn’t get to later plead surprise — not in court, not in government, not in leadership.

And this wasn’t just any figure being waved through. Mandelson is not some naive first-time appointee who made a single unfortunate misjudgment. He is one of the most repeatedly disgraced senior figures in modern British politics: twice forced to resign from cabinet, repeatedly implicated in lobbying scandals, and synonymous with the idea that rules are flexible for the well-connected. This is a man whose entire career has been a case study in how power insulates itself from consequence.

Which makes Starmer’s decision to appoint him after clocking the Epstein connection not merely careless, but actively reckless. What followed compounded the error rather than mitigated it

And that recklessness didn’t end with the appointment. When Mandelson was later removed as ambassador, Starmer still never raised the possibility of expelling him from the Labour Party. No disciplinary process followed. There was no disciplinary push, no red line drawn or no boundary was enforced, no acknowledgement that Epstein-linked behaviour — layered onto an already extensive record and toxic history of malfeasance in public office — might itself be incompatible with party membership. Mandelson was not forced out; he stepped aside voluntarily on his own terms. Starmer did not intervene — he observed.

That detail matters, because it exposes the hollowness of Starmer’s main defence: that Mandelson later “lied.” Even once the appointment had collapsed, Starmer still didn’t treat the issue as grounds for decisive action. That isn’t deception preventing accountability — that’s leadership choosing not to exercise it.

At this point, trusting Starmer as a lawyer becomes genuinely absurd. It’s like appointing someone with a widely known friendship with Jimmy Savile as head of child services, then responding to outrage by saying, “Well, he lied to me.” Not because the comparison is theatrical, but because the logic is identical: prior knowledge removes plausible deniability, especially where sexual abuse is concerned.

Then there’s the part Starmer would prefer to remain sotto voce: his chief adviser, Morgan McSweeney, is a long-time Mandelson protégé. A political inheritor of the very culture now being framed as an unfortunate oversight. The idea that Mandelson’s soft handling occurred in a vacuum — untouched by loyalty networks or adviser influence — strains credulity to breaking point.

So when Starmer asks us to believe he was misled, what he’s really asking us to accept is that:he knew about the Epstein association:

  • deemed it acceptable,
  • appointed a man with a long record of ethical scandal anyway
  • failed to act decisively when the appointment collapsed
  • never even raised party expulsion
  • relied on advice from a Mandelson-aligned strategist
  • and now insists the real problem is that Mandelson wasn’t honest after the fact

That isn’t legal reasoning. That’s institutional self-protection dressed up as professionalism.

Most grotesque of all is the attempt to spread responsibility so thin that it evaporates. By suggesting everyone — cabinet, party, public — was somehow equally “misled,” Starmer reframes the scandal as a misunderstanding rather than a failure of judgment. In that telling, the real victims are politicians embarrassed by timing, not the actual victims of Epstein’s abuse, who barely register in the calculus at all.

Strip away the spin and what remains is bleakly clear: a leader who knew, appointed anyway, shielded a serially disgraced figure, failed to act even when the damage was obvious, never raised expulsion, leaned on a compromised advisory structure, and now hides behind the idea that lies only matter once they become politically inconvenient.

That isn’t integrity. It isn’t leadership. And it certainly isn’t the mindset of someone you’d trust to defend you when the facts are uncomfortable.

If this is Keir Starmer’s standard of judgment — slow, evasive, internally protective, and morally reactive — then the real mystery isn’t why people criticise him.

It’s why anyone would trust him at all.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

The Lawyer Who Didn’t Cross-Examine

People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani.


Thirty-five years ago, Turkey was shaken by strikes. An eight-week stoppage by mineworkers, between November 1990 and January 1991, won support from other workers, and took up political demands. It was a turning point for the workers’ movement. At that time I was working for the North East Area of the National Union of Mineworkers here in the UK, editing their newspaper. With their support, I travelled to Turkey, and then published a pamphlet about the workers’ movement. Here’s a PDF version: please download, share and copy it.

And here is the introduction and chronology with which the pamphlet began. Simon Pirani, January 2026.

The Turkish miners’ strike of November 1990-January 1991 was far, far more than just a strike.

Firstly, it brought into action not just the strikers but the whole community: this it had in common with all movements that really challenge the established order of things. The most downtrodden people in Turkish society, the women, were on the front lines.

While in many strikes the majority of participants are only occasionally called to picket lines or demonstrations, in this case the daily marches involved most strikers, and their families too. The march to the president’s palace in Ankara, begun by this activated mass on no-one’s instructions – and ended only by heavy police and army intervention – was the spontaneous movement of the working class in a most spectacular form.

The second reason this was far more than a strike was that it began with a demand for more pay … but rapidly went on to demand “bread, peace and democracy”. Zonguldak [the mining town on Turkey’s north coast] saw its action as political – and this on the eve of the Gulf war in which Turkey was an essential part of the US-led alliance. At the end of December [1990], 150,000 metal workers joined the miners on strike; in mid-January textile workers came out. A general strike on 3 January was supported by 1.5 million.

It took much manoeuvring, by the right-wing leaders of the Turk-Is union confederation, to get the metal and textile strikes called off. That opened the way for the government to ban all strikes, on the grounds of Turkey’s participation in the Gulf war. That in turn put the miners in a corner; their strike ended on 28 January.

I went to Turkey just after the strike ended. Some socialists I spoke to hoped that the miners, despite their isolation, would fight on. When the wage deal was finally signed, such people were crestfallen.

Others, instead of living on hopes and crying when they were dashed, thought about the lessons. They understood – as rank-and-file miners did – that, once the textile and metal strikes had been stopped, and the miners isolated, not even they could defy the state single-handed. They understood that the strike’s gains could be measured in terms of political development.

The march forward, and ultimate victory, of the workers’ movement, internationally, does not depend on whether the strike movement is “up” or “down” – or on whether workers are apparently ready to accept socialist ideas. It depends on forming leadership which lives not on hope, but on understanding; which works in every struggle for workers’ interests, independently of state and employers, and to break the hold of the treacherous “leaders” on the workers’ movement.

By bringing the lessons of the Turkish workers’ struggle to the attention of workers everywhere, I hope this pamphlet helps that process forward.

How the struggle unfolded

1980s: Zonguldak’s mines, which supply coking coal to iron and steel plants, face increasing competition from imported South African and Australian coal.

In a decade, Zonguldak’s share of Turkey’s coking coal market falls from 90% to 30%. The town falls from being the seventh most productive per worker in Turkey to the 18th.

1985: Turkey’s ruling Motherland party announces three five-year plans to increase production levels at the Zonguldak mines. But little is done, and eventually the town is put on an urban redevelopment programme.

1989: A five-month strike by 24,000 workers at the Karabuk and Iskenderun steelworkers, to which Zonguldak supplies coal, wins a 250% wage increase.

Late 1989: An accident in Yeni Celtek pit, caused by a methane explosion, kills 68 miners. A joint protest strike is staged by Zonguldak’s coking coal miners and the workers in private lignite mines.

September 1990: The coal miners’ union, Genel Maden-Is, starts talks on a wage deal to run for two years. They demand increases of nearly 500%, which would raise face workers’ pay from 540,000 Turkish lira (TL) per month to 2,500,000 lira (£94.25 to £436). The Turkish Coal Company offers 250-300%. The lignite miners, members of Turkiye Maden-Is, are not involved in the talks. Because their coal is used for power stations, the law forbids them to strike.

17 November 1990: The miners’ union, preparing for conflict, calls a meeting in Zonguldak of all trade union, social and community organisations, which declares support for the strike.

Sevket Yilmaz, general secretary of the Turk-Is union confederation and leader of the powerful textile workers’ union, tells the meeting that no other wage deals will be signed while the miners’ dispute is unresolved.

30 November: Talks fail. The miners’ strike begins.

On the streets of Zonguldak, 1991
Every morning from then on, the miners and their families meet at the pit-heads and march to a mass rally outside the union office. Artists, writers, opposition political parties and others join the demonstrations.

2 December: The Zonguldak Chamber of Commerce declares its support for the strike and join the rally. The next day, the town’s lawyers arrive in their gowns.

10 December: The Ankara-based Human Rights Association devotes their annual Human Rights Day to the miners. “By this time our demands had passed from economics to politics”, explains a union spokesman. “We began with slogans like, ‘we don’t ask to live like European workers; we just want to live like humans’. Then we took up the slogan ‘bread, peace and freedom’.”

26 December: 85,000 metal workers at 230 private- and state-owned factories go on strike for wage increases.

31 December: As a “New Year present”, Turkish president Turgut Ozal ups the Coal Company’s wage offer to 1,250,000 TL (£283) per month for underground workers, and 900,000 TL (£150) per month for surface workers.

In a New Year statement, the miners’ union says it is fighting for “bread and democracy”.

3 January 1991: A general strike in protest at the government’s wages policies, called by Turk-Is, is supported by 1.5 million workers.

4 January: The miners and their families set out to lobby Chankaya, the presidential palace in Ankara. They are taking up an offer, made by president Ozal on TV, to “open Chankaya to you, to come and drink tea and discuss our problems”.

The 50,000 demonstrators plan to travel in 1000 hired buses, but police stop them – so they start to march, and spend the night 17 kilometres down the road at Devrek.

Textile union leader Sevket Yilmaz repeats his promise that no wage deals will be signed until the miners’ dispute is settled.

5 January: A meeting between the prime minister, Yildirim Akbulut, and union leaders, breaks down without agreement.

The march to Ankara, January 1991
By the evening, the marchers arrive at Mengen, 35 kilometres south of Zonguldak, and camp in freezing temperatures. Blankets and other aid are sent from all parts of Turkey.

Economist Murat Celikkan, interviewed in the press, claims the “process of dispute and resistance between the government and the workers has itself become a political (rather than economic) process”. Economist Nail Satligan said it was “the most militant action by public sector workers ever, in Turkey” and heed would be taken “especially by oil workers, in a sector where strikes are considered illegal”.

Labour minister Imren Aykut claims, provocatively, that the miners’ movement “may be infiltrated” by supporters of Iraq.

6 January: 12 kilometres outside Mengen, the marchers arrive at a barricade, erected by police and soldiers under Ministry of Interior orders. Their way to the main Istanbul-Ankara highway – which is also the principal road link from Europe to Asia – is blocked.

One group of miners tries to pass the barricade, and 186 of them are arrested. The majority, around 60,000, simply refuse to move, and wait for union leader Semsi Denizer, who is in talks with the government.

“Before coming to the barricade”, reported Hurriyet:

Denizer held a meeting in Mengen with the women taking part in the march, asking them to return home. All the women rejected the idea . . . 
Throughout Sunday, the number of participants swelled, reaching a new high [between 80,000 and 100,000] as more and more people came from Zonguldak and surrounding towns.

Relief food, blankets and woollen garments poured in for the marchers from supporters all over Turkey. But state forces cut the roads from Ankara, and then the road from Zonguldak too, to stop supplies getting through.

The marchers simply refused to budge. Union leader Denizer meets the regional governor at Bolu and telephones miners in Ankara.

They tell him to send the marchers back to Zonguldak; he refuses. The crowd spends a second night on the road.

7 January: After meeting with other leaders of Turk-Is, Denizer reverses his decision on the march, according to Hurriyet. He convinces the marchers to return to Zonguldak, and resumes talks with the government.

Mid-January: 135,000 textile and paper workers go on strike for more wages.

23 January: Textile workers’ leaders sign a wages deal and return to work. Union leader Sevket Yilmaz is reported ill.

25 January: The metal workers’ strike ends. The unions involved reach an agreement with the government for wage rises of 150-300%.

26 January: All strikes (in practice, that means the miners’ strike) are banned for two months. The reason given is Turkey’s involvement in the war in the Gulf.

28 January: After 58 days on strike, the miners resolve to return to work, without signing any agreement on wages.

Had they continued to strike illegally, the wage negotiations would automatically have been broken off, and their contract referred to the Higher Arbitration Court whose decision is final.

“It wasn’t nice to go back, but we had taken it as far as we could”, said a union spokesman.

12 February: Miners’ leaders ask union members to accept a deal which means about 1,800,000 TL (£300) per month for face workers and 1,200,000 TL (£200) per month for surface workers, before deductions.

“Do you think that will last us until 1992?”, shouted a miner at the mass meeting. “I don’t know, but when the war’s over the workers’ demands will again become the focus of attention”, answered union leader Denizer.

Threats by president Ozal, to close pits if mineworkers pursued their economic demands, turned the strike into a political challenge to his strategy, Cetin Uygur, former president of the Yeni Celtek miners union and editor of a workers’ newspaper, said in an interview in the pamphlet.

“The whole pay struggle became an educational process for workers: they became more politically conscious. The Gulf war hastened this process. With wave after wave of demonstrations the union leaders became small ships without rudders, tossed along by the movement itself.

Cetin Uygur

"But they didn’t stay that way. The union re-established a discipline, you could call it feudal, which was part of these unions’ heritage, that was a real barrier in front of the workers’ movement." It was this discipline that made it possible for the leaders to turn back the march to the Turkish capital, Ankara." It was the union leaders, and the opposition parties who had at first supported the workers’ movement, who “blocked the workers’ way – not the soldiers and police. At the critical point they told the workers to turn back.

"Had the marchers passed the barricade, Turkey could not have involved itself in the Gulf war to the same extent. The obstacles to the development of democracy would not have been so big. A door could have been opened for many struggles, not just by the workers but by other sections."

The government was facing “a revolt supported by the villagers, the peasants, the students and the unemployed” and the union leaders and opposition parties came to its aid at a crucial moment, Uygur said.

The strike, he argued, “contains invaluable lessons for Zonguldak, for the whole working class and for other opposition forces in society.”

To Zonguldak workers it showed that the strike committees which were formed during the demonstrations should be transformed into strong workplace committees, to organise the struggle on a daily basis.To other opposition forces it showed “the necessity to be very sensitive to struggles elsewhere. ‘Support’ for these struggles means making the struggle yourself.”

🔴Read Cetin Uygur’s whole interview, and interviews with strikers and women’s committee members, in the pamphlet Bread, Peace and Democracy. It is free to download here.

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‘Bread, Peace, Democracy.’ 🪶The Turkish Miners’ Strike Of 1991

Dr John Coulter ✍ Given the quagmire which the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) now finds itself bogged down in concerning the safe-guarding crisis, perhaps Moderator-Designate Rev Richard Kerr of Templepatrick could take a leaf out newly-crowned Ulster Unionist leader Jon Burrows’ vision on women and young people.

While Rev Kerr will not formally take up his Moderator post until the June General Assembly, among his ‘in-tray’ pondering in the meantime could be how he could attract more women and young people into the denomination.

In recent years, PCI has witnessed a steady decline in folks in the pews and while the denomination has always had fairly strong women’s and young people’s movements, in terms of building for the future, how can PCI successfully attract more of these two groups into the churches.

UUP boss Jon Burrows has openly stated he wants to see more women and young people getting involved with Ulster Unionism. To ram the point home, delegates at last month’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) unanimously ratified the appointment of Fermanagh South Tyrone MLA Diana Armstrong as the party’s first deputy leader.

Mainstream Presbyterianism in the form of PCI has a strong following among the UUP grassroots, so some may be wondering why the various Presbyteries which elect a Moderator annually did not follow the Burrows vision and vote for a woman Moderator, which would have been the first female Moderator in the history of the denomination.

The female wing of PCI is Presbyterian Women, commonly known as PW. According to its own statistics, PW has 450 branches throughout the island of Ireland with around 14,000 members. However, there is a perception that PW has an ageing membership and needs to focus more on attracting younger women in their twenties and thirties into its ranks.

Just as the appointment of Mrs Armstrong - the daughter of former UUP leader Harry West - clearly signalled the intention of the new UUP leadership to recruit more women and indeed get more women elected, so too, if Presbyteries had elected female candidate Rev Mairisine Stanfield of Bangor as Moderator-Designate instead of Rev Kerr, could that election have boosted the ranks of PW and the role of women in PCI?

As well as the fallout from the current safe-guarding crisis, there is still a significant body of opinion within PCI that would take a staunch fundamentalist position on the Biblical interpretation of women in the church.

PCI does have some women ministers, elders and deaconesses, but it seems a female Moderator is still a step too far in 2026.

This year also marks the 75th anniversary of the formation by the late Rev Ian Paisley in 1951 of the strongly fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. In the days leading up to the election of the PCI Moderator, some Free Presbyterians issued statements on social media warning against the election of a female Moderator.

My late father, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was minister of Clough Presbyterian Church in Co Antrim for 14 years in the Sixties and Seventies. It was not uncommon at church functions for a male to announce: “The ladies will now leave and serve the tea!”

It was taken for granted, especially in some areas of rural Presbyterianism, that women knew they place in churches.

There are still some Protestant denominations and places of worship even today that will insist women must wear hats to church and would not allow a woman to preach a sermon from the pulpit. And some of these fundamentalist places of worship wonder why they have both dwindling congregations made up of middle aged and elderly folk.

Young people are the life blood and future generation of churches. Granted, churches are facing more distractions and competition for attention of the youth of 2026 than when I was a primary school pupil and teenager in the Sixties and Seventies.

Even by the Eighties, I witnessed the drift among my PCI peers towards the ‘happy-clappy’ style of worship which the Pentecostalists could offer. There was livelier worship with praise bands, hand-waving, dancing in the aisles, and a more relaxed dress code. But again, many Pentecostal churches drew the line about women pastors.

In the Catholic Church, the treatment of women is ironically equally Puritan. Nuns cannot say Mass. While nuns may reach the ranks of Mother Superior, how many nuns have become bishops or cardinals?

Just as folk in PCI may ponder when will there be a first female Moderator, could many rank and file Catholics wonder if they will ever live to see a first female pope?

No doubt many fundamentalists will be able to rattle off a series of Biblical texts why women should have a secondary role in churches. Perhaps it is a case they blame the first woman, Eve, for the fall of man in the garden of Eden in the opening book of the Bible, Genesis.

Places of worship and denominations are not being asked to dilute Scripture; merely have a serious conversation about how women can be more successfully integrated into church life.

Is it a perception that women in power and posts in the Christian church can bring a more down to earth maternal attitude to issues, whereas men folk tend to be more authoritarian and want to impose Old Testament style discipline?

Put bluntly, if PCI had more women ministers, and especially a female Moderator, would the safe-guarding saga which has dogged the denomination be addressed more constructively, more compassionately, and a situation created where such failings would never happen again?

If the Burrows vision for the UUP becomes a reality and the May 2027 council and Assembly elections see more women recruited to the party and getting elected, maybe the time has come for PCI to follow that Burrows visionary lead to put more women in charge.

Given the current slide in PCI membership and much talk of so-called ‘reconfiguration’ as the buzz word leading to churches closing or merging for Presbyterianism to survive in a locality, perhaps if the men folk remain in complete charge, within a decade we in PCI will end up with our churches full of elderly, bald old men in dark suits.

Just as the UUP will see a growth in influence of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council in the coming months, maybe the key to stem the decline in PCI membership lies with a female Moderator and an increased role for the PW. Only time will tell, but time is not something which PCI has on its side.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Burrows Vision Could Become PCI’s Saving Grace

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3053

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The dark shadow cast by Eoin O'Duffy over republican history has been a long one, viewed by each generation of republicans as a stain.


Peadar O'Donnell, an O'Duffy nemesis, with his socialist perspective always fitted into the republican worldview much more readily than O'Duffy and the fascism he has come to be remembered for. His role as founder and leader of the Blueshirt movement at a time when Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were strutting the stage with whip in hand overshadowed his role in the IRA during the War of Independence, his leadership of the Treaty Army and his eleven year stint as Commissioner of An Garda Siochana. Add to that his centrality to the military leadership of the Treaty forces, alongside Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, helped solidify his frame in a republican constructed rogue's gallery.

A crucial figure in republican history he has for the most part become a one dimensional bogeyman. A statue to him would be viewed as valuable by republicans only for drawing bird droppings. His leadership of the Blueshirts perhaps best explains why Collins managed to avoid the opprobrium and invective hurled O'Duffy's way. His fascism ensured he would remain a deeply divisive figure, making a large target on his back for critics.

If unable to erase him the tendency has never been to assess his contribution to the struggle for Irish freedom but to ignore it. And when that does not prove possible he is simply lambasted, often depicted as a clown in the manner of the incompetent but dangerous Mussolini. Unlike Sean Russell who had a fraternal relationship with Nazi Germany no republican mitigation is afforded O'Duffy.

Hailing from that very same stable where O'Duffy was persona non grata, I was faintly amused when a friend invited me to a play based on his character. While not declining outright there was little enthusiasm on my part. After being told I would like it I opted to go more out of courtesy than interest, so made my way by bus yesterday evening to Castleblaney. By the time the cast left the stage having performed O’Duffy Abú, my courtesy had given way to unbridled satisfaction. Where the politics failed to please me the performances did. 

The play was nothing short of stunning.  Put on by Castleblaney Players in the splendour of the Iontas Theatre, it is a wonderfully crafted and acted piece of work. So much history crammed into so little time, the production is a tribute to the craftmanship of the late Aidan McQuillan who drafted but never completed the work and Brian Kenny who picked up the baton and fashioned it into a lightsaber, fuelled by the legendary power associated with that weapon.

In a reversal of the republican order of things, O'Duffy's emergence on the national stage, first as a military chief of staff and then as Garda Commissioner in the play is not eclipsed by his siding with Franco in the Spanish civil war. He is treated as sad rather than bad, his political odyssey eventually declining into alcoholism and loneliness. His passion for the GAA is accentuated along with his love of the Catholic religion and his abhorrence of godless communism, which he claimed motivated his participation in the Spanish civil war. Despite the sympathetic portrayal the writers did not allow him to escape the sneer that he spent much of his time in Spain in pubs and restaurants far from the front.

Not normally a theatre goer, memories of this visit to Castleblaney's Iontas Theatre will remain with me for some time to come. About ninety minutes long O’Duffy Abú  is so absorbing that it seemed more like fifteen. The evening just vanished. 

Castleblaney in County Monaghan was O'Duffy's stomping ground and probably drew an interested rather than a sympathetic audience to the packed theatre that might not have been replicated in another part of the country. If so, that would be regrettable.  O’Duffy Abú is quality stuff which deserves a much wider audience than Monaghan. It won't send theatregoers rushing off to Penneys in search of a blue shirt, but it will give them an appreciation of there being more colour than one in this excellent production by Castleblaney Players.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

O’Duffy Abú

Joanne Murphy ★ Writing in Leading Questions.

It is, I suppose, the topic of the day - and the days to come until he inevitably goes. The Mandelson stuff is bad enough, but I suspect that the investigative trawl of messages and communications with Labour colleagues will be pretty awful. Add that to the by-election and the local elections and its less death by a thousand cuts, and more firing squad territory. 

For anyone who is interested in leadership, Starmer is kind of fascinating. I (like many in the Labour party, I suspect) have considered him a decent guy who may be a bit of a vacuum but might get things done in a tedious technocratic way. Hadn’t everyone had enough of the psychodrama of Johnson anyway? ‘Time the grown ups etc’. It really hasn’t worked out like that.

What has always intrigued me about Starmer isn’t actually related to his political rise in the last number of years but activity at an earlier point in his career. I did my PhD on the process of organisational change which saw the RUC become the PSNI - with all the attendant political, institutional and leadership drama around that. 

Starmer Is Toast

National Secular Society ★ Decision comes after Supreme Court found RE and collective worship in Northern Ireland breach human rights.


The Northern Ireland Executive has announced a review of the core Religious Education (RE) syllabus, following a Supreme Court ruling that current RE arrangements breach human rights.

In November, the UK Supreme Court unanimously allowed the appeal in the case of JR87 - a daughter and father from Belfast who argued Christian-based RE and collective worship in Northern Ireland's schools are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Court found the current RE syllabus promotes faith development in a manner that amounts to indoctrination. This included encouraging children to accept ideas such as creation being "the gift of God" as "absolute truths", according to the review.

In a statement to the NI Assembly yesterday, Minister of Education Paul Givan said it was "necessary" to review the core syllabus in light of the judgment, in order to ensure knowledge is "conveyed in an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner".

Christianity will remain "central" to the revised syllabus, Givan said, due to the "reality of Northern Ireland's historical, cultural and legal context".

Continue @ NSS.

NI Executive Announces Review Of Religious Education Syllabus

Right Wing Watch ★ Written by Peter Montgomery.


When the National Football League announced last fall that global superstar Bad Bunny would be the musical headliner for this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, MAGA was MAD.

Some didn’t realize that Bad Bunny, like other Puerto Ricans, is an American citizen. Some didn’t like that he sings in Spanish. Some may have been mad that he isn’t white. And some were clearly upset because Bad Bunny is not a fan of President Donald Trump.

With MAGA activists seeing red, right-wing organizing group Turning Point USA saw an opportunity. TPUSA announced that it would host a competing “all-American” half-time show. It posted a poll asking what people wanted to hear, which included the options “Anything in English” and “worship music.”

When the group finally announced its lineup, headed by MAGA musician Kid Rock, TPUSA promised “a pure celebration of faith, family and freedom.”

It seems that for MAGA-minded Christian nationalists like the people running TPUSA, being in favor of faith, family, and freedom, really just means being pro-Trump.

Kid Rock is not exactly someone whose body of work could be called pure or pro-family.

Continue @ RWW.

Kid Rock Strange Choice To Headline TPUSA’s ‘Pure’ Alternative To Super Bowl Halftime Show

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

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