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The Guardian 📰Written by Patrick Wintour. Recommended by Tony Roche.

By dragging out talks, Tehran aims to damage the US president politically – but some fear a bruised and weakened Trump could lash back

Tehran has set out a protracted negotiating timetable designed to keep Donald Trump embroiled in the Iran conflict until the midterm elections, in the hope of inflicting the same ruinous blow on his presidency as Jimmy Carter suffered over the 1979-81 US embassy hostage crisis.

For many inside Iran, inflicting meaningful revenge on Trump is a legitimate and self-standing war aim, reflected in the mood of those attending the funeral of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei where demands for retribution were ubiquitous.

While Iranian officials since the 1979 Islamic revolution have never trusted the US, that animus is now also directed personally towards Trump. He not only tore up the painfully negotiated nuclear deal in 2018, but he sanctioned the assassination of the military leader Qassem Suleimani and twice involved Iran in negotiations on its nuclear programme only to launch wars against it. He shows no remorse for the killing of the country’s supreme leader, or for the attempt on the life of Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Continue @ The Guardian.

Iran Plots To Deal Trump A Blow In Midterms By Keeping Him Entangled In War

Barry Gilheany ✍ It was a “gotcha” moment for opponents of “woke” culture and its institutional manifestation: DEI (or Diversity, Equality and Inclusion). 

And for those whose belief in meritocracy is often wilfully colour blind. On the other hand, it was a moment for serious reflection for genuine anti-racists. 

Last Wednesday, Jason Arday, the “youngest black professor at Cambridge University” resigned from his post as Professor of Sociology of Education after a welter of allegations concerning his academic credentials including plagiarism in the course of acquiring his PhD thesis at Liverpool John Moores University and his backstory in which he had supposedly learned to speak at age 11, and to read and write at age 18, having been diagnosed with global developmental delay and autistic spectrum disorder as a child. 

None of these disadvantages were to stand in the way of his appointment to that prestigious Cambridge post at 37. As well as the deconstruction of his academic credential, Jason Arday’s fantastical claims about his sporting achievements including that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days helping to raise £5m for charities over a twenty-year period and that he had played football for Crystal Palace as an under-18 (he actually turned out for Lewisham Borough in the Southern Counties East Division One – near the bottom of English non-league pyramid)[1]. As is inevitable on these occasions, this saga generated a quotidian of online and offline abuse towards the central character; “I told you so” triumphalism about the conservative media and academia and yet another culture war for respective combatants to engage in.

A hint of the looming storm ahead when Jason Arday delivered a talk entitled Wanted Dead or Alive: The Playbook at the British Sociological Association’s 75th anniversary conference earlier this year. It is unusual, to say the least, for such political polemics to be sounded at academic events such as these as they are usually occasions where academics discuss their work and possible breakthroughs. The youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s history described the MO of the playbook to his audience of academic peers. 

In order to bring down some of the stellar names in US academia; conservative “activists” were trawling through the work of black academics; looking for any scraps of scholarly infractions to weaponise against them: inconsistencies, citation errors, passages in their works that appeared similar to work in existing papers. Errors duly identified would trigger pile-ons by right-wing media and political figures on universities to pressurise them to sever ties with the offending academic. High profile figures such as Claudine Gray, the first African American woman to become president of Harvard, fell victim to this blitzkrieg with her being forced to resign over plagiarism allegations. Other academics were forced to become passive spectators to the trashing of their work and some even committed suicide after being hounded out of their positions. But Arday warned that these tactics were being imported into the UK to deal similar fates to its high-profile black academics. He called for his peers to defend him from “the cancer that we need to eradicate from academia.”[2]

As if on cue, at the end of July 2026, the Telegraph reported that analysis had found that more than 100 passages in his PhD resembled another thesis by Paula Zwozdfiak-Myers, a student at Brunel University, published six years earlier. This followed two denouncements of Arday’s work by two academics with controversial views on race which for some anti-racists served as confirmation of the playbook narrative that Arday had expounded on at the British Sociological Association. The first was Nathan Cofnas, a self-styled “race realist” sacked by Cambridge’s Emmanuel College in 2024 after he suggested in a blogpost that, in a meritocracy, there would be “close to zero” black professors” at Harvard, who claimed in a Substack post that he had put Arday’s PhD through plagiarism detection software, which found that “many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source” (A disciplinary investigation into his blogpost about black academics concluded that Cofnas was not guilty of “discrimination or harassment” and that his views, “while seen by many as offensive, did not breach the law and did not contravene university regulations designed to uphold free speech.” He now works at Ghent University in Belgium).[3]

The second race-controversial critic of Arday was Dr David Harris, a professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, who had previously written to Cambridge with claims about Arday’s work. Harris had been stripped of his professor emeritus title after he wrote a post about critical race theory that was deemed “controversial” by colleagues, but it was reinstated this year. After Harris’s earlier queries about Arday’s work, two corrections were made to papers released in 2018 and 2020.[4]

The fact that his critics held so controversial views on race appeared to lead to a doubling down of support for Arday from those at the opposite end of the academic and political spectrum. Cambridge called the plagiarism claims a “vile smear campaign to undermine his credibility.” An open letter in support of Arday, signed by the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, (never one to pass up an opportunity to burnish his “woke” credentials regardless of the possible electoral and reputational impacts on his party) and the prominent black studies academic Kehinde Andrews, argued there was “an orchestrated and grim effort to delegitimise a brilliant, young working-class academic for the sin of being successful while Black”.[5] An open letter from the Good Law Project, signed by prominent public figures, denounced the allegations as “entirely false”, a “smear campaign” to “undermine Black people who hold positions of influence.”[6]

But yet, despite John Moores University’s rebuttal of the plagiarism allegations concerning him, more troubling evidence emerged about Arday’s scholarly attributes and achievement including his claims to have held a string of prestigious visiting fellowships and professorships at other universities. The website for Jesus College, where Arday was a fellow, stated that he had been a visiting professor at the Ohio State University and the University of Glasgow which both institutions have denied. This biography also stated that Arday was still an “honorary professor at Durham University in the Department of Sociology” where he had previously worked. The university told the Daily Mail that he no longer held any role there. He has also claimed to have completed a master’s degree in psychodynamic practices at Birkbeck, University of London which, according to enquiries by the Guardian has no record of any student named Jason Arday having studied there. He has claimed to have published a book with Palgrave Macmillan but while this publisher have confirmed that they took a proposal from Arday, the book was never published.[7]

And the suspicions about his false representations of his work did not go away. Prominent academics of colour, including one who has worked in the area of race and education for decades, who have spoken to the Guardian on conditions of anonymity, have agreed that the claims of plagiarism were legitimate. John Preston, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex, asserts: “Having seen the evidence, it triangulates and there is, in my judgment, a case to answer here”.[8]

And so Cambridge’s DEI icon resigned and a full inquiry into the circumstances of Jason Arday’s appointment and his academic credentials has commenced. 

 But what has been and what will the likely fallout from the affair? For eminent black sociologist Paul Gilroy and other academics of colour, the manner of Arday’s appointment and the divisions around it, will have a chilling effect on blacks and other ethnic minorities in academe to come. For Gilroy, the 

unthinking culture warriors who have supported Jason Arday unconditionally share responsibility with his racist critics for making life harder for black academics and dragging UK higher education deeper into the mire . . . (emphasising that) . . . reckoning with [Arday] and his impact-chasing enablers should not be allowed to obscure the vicious, irrational cuts to humanities that are wrecking UK universities.[9]

For Jason Okundaye, the “inspiring story” media circus around Arday’s appointment and the framing of his story as the “youngest black ever” asterisked by a tale of hardship has left the field wide open to the right to frame criticism of DEI on its own terms rather than a genuinely progressive critique of institutional diversity practices – one capable of examining how for many organisations and corporations symbolic or tokenistic representation has been a substitute for deeper reform. For, in his view, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that Arday was treated as a mascot rather than a scholar, an expedient gesture for an institution frequently found wanting over its record on race in matriculation records such as in the Okundaye’s 2015 cohort in which there were only 15 black males out of 3,449 students; single-figure black academics (which is still the case); allegations of institutional racism. 

The lesson of the Jason Arday scandal is that the left must advocate for diversity not tokenism, the celebration of excellent BME and other minority scholarship without the iconography of exceptionalism or celebrity academic. It does not entail taking on trust the entreaties of someone who alleges a racist campaign of intimidation including a severed pig’s head, a masked man wielding a knife and bullets in the post on the reasoning that “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me” as Jason Arday responded to the Guardian after their queries found they were either non-existent or could not be verified.[10]

As is often the case with disability and neurodiversity, the story of the youngest Black professor in Cambridge’s history was framed as a triumph over adversity. However such heroic narratives prioritise the individual story of amazing success over the struggle for equality and justice by the community of group from which they have. Black, disabled, neurodiverse or any other minoritised excellence deso not have to be redemption stories to be coherent or empowering.

The Jason Arday affair can be seen as another deleterious example of imported US style, tick box, institutional feel-good DEI culture whose outworkings have disastrous consequences for societal harmony as well as the advancement of genuine equality for BME and other marginalised groups as the Henry Novak case showed in policing. To counteract the “DEI hires”, surrender of academia to “wokeness” and “bogus” disciplines like sociology jibes from the right means not just acknowledging plagiarism and fraud where it is found even among black academics but also attacking the falsity, tokenism and blackwashing of corporate wokeness. It means also resistance to the self-appointed guardians of woke orthodoxy in parts of the left – – the dictatorship of the woketariat as Anthony McIntyre has christened them.

References

[1] Lanre Bakare, 2026. Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head. New claims surround a star Cambridge professor. The Guardian. 3-August.pp.6-8

[2] Ibid, p.6

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid, p.7

[6] Kenan Malik, 2026. The racism black academics face isn’t helped by leaping to Jason Ardat’s defence. The Observer Forum 9 August. p.25

[7] Lanre Bakare, 2026. Jobs, sport and charity. Long list of Arday’s claims now being scrutinised. The Guardian. 7 August. pp.12-13

[8] Bakare, 3 August op cit p.7

[9] Chris Osuh. 2026. Jason Arday. Scandal has a chilling effect on black lecturers. The Guardian. 8 August 2026 p.5

[10] Jason Okundaye, 2026. The right made DEI a weapon and the left just let it happen. The Guardian Opinion. 6 August. pp.1-2

⏩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.

Jason Arday 🪶 Poster Boy For Or Victim Of “Woke”?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Fifty Nine

 


Hate Theology @ 11

 

A Morning Thought @ 3231

Gary Robertson ⚽ Saturday August 8th saw the 45th anniversary of the passing of Thomas McElwee. 

The 23 year old boy from Bellaghy, Derry, the ninth of the 1981 hunger strikers to give their lives, my thoughts are with his family, friends and comrades.

On the Scottish football front Saturday saw week two of the SPL & SPFL seasons and with Celtic and Rangers both playing Sunday this gave us a chance to focus our attentions elsewhere.

Dundee V Aberdeen, and after an inauspicious start to the season for Dundee having lost out to a solitary goal at Celtic, and Aberdeen running out 2-1winners against last season's runners up Hearts, I expected better of the visitors. But they were poor, a very poor side and despite edging it on possession they did little with it the majority of the chances and shots on target from the home side the Dens Park men ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. A Westley flick past the Dons keeper in nine minutes, it took far longer than it should have for Dundee to extend their lead but finally it came when a powerful shot from Bevan in the fifty sixth minute put the game to bed.

On Saturday we also had the joy of the Saints derby when St Mirren faced St Johnstone at home. I say “joy” because I believe it’s the job of any author of any piece to hold the attention of the reader but it’s pure clickbait. This isn’t a game we will be looking back upon with fondness. The fact Sky Sports managed to find three minutes of highlights is credit to them. Yes there was incidents, a penalty each end. St Johnstone's effort saved by St Mirren's Chapman and St Mirren's scored by Phillips in the seventy third minute. Dreary, yes, but it must feel pretty good being a St Mirren fan with six points from six and sitting top of the table on Saturday evening.

In the Championship Partick continued their hundred percent record running out comfortable 2-0 winners against last season's Premier League relegated Livingston on Friday night. A crowd of almost four thousand turned up which isn’t bad for a Friday evening. The worry (for me at least having a soft spot for Livi) is Livingston only managed one shot on target in the entire match, and even playing three up front Glenn Whelan (Livingston manager) must be wondering what went wrong.

League One, and Hamilton and Ross County have both collected maximum points so far with County leaving it late (a goal in the eighty sixth minute) to overcome a stubborn Montrose, who without their talismanic striker Taylor Sutherland who’s moved on to play for Hamilton, find themselves rooted to the foot of the table, but only on goal difference as Queen of the South are equally poor at this stage and remain only above Montrose by a single goal.

League Two and poor old Edinburgh City find themselves once again on a minus points start to the season having been docked five points for “suffering an insolvency event” (being broke I suppose) so bottom of the table minus four points it’s early enough for themselves to get out of trouble. But honestly it must be hard being a City fan as the SPFL seem determined to kick you out of the league. Last year they survived but only just. This year has already started difficultly for the men from Scotland's capital. I suppose it could be worse. I mean, your club could have spent a small fortune on decorating a bus for a victory parade only to see that victory ruthlessly ripped from your grasp by a pensioner and a mishmash of players that he somehow managed to bond as one. I’m not sure where that bus is now but I do hope it’s overcome its embarrassment.

And so to Sunday …
 
First up we have the glorious Glasgow Celtic facing the threat of Kilmarnock who have finally ripped up their artificial pitch and replaced it with grass.
 
Rugby Park isn’t always an easy venue to play at but with Martin O’Neill at home recuperating from minor surgery - sending regards and best wishes, Martin Shaun Maloney taking charge of the team I expected a tight nervy encounter but what we got instead was a master class from the hoops. New bhoy Kasper Høgh put on a performance that has Celtic fans excited again. A hat trick in 33 minutes and a statement of more to come, it was difficult not to get carried away in a wave of invincibility. Celtic were imperious. Kilmarnock weren’t awful, they were simply blown away by the men from Paradise. Goals from Nygren and Mcowan, a late consolation for Killie from Schjønning-Larsen - the day however belonged to the Viking that is Celtic's new number 9. Finally we have a proper striker at the club. Big things are expected this season.

On the other side of the country and Hearts faced Dundee Utd. Again a remarkably one sided affair which didn’t look obvious on paper,  Hearts having capitulated the week before to Aberdeen, and Dundee Utd who took a point snatching a draw from the jaws of victory against Rangers. I expected much better from Jim Goodwins side. The match ended 4-0 to the Jambos and a performance that left the Arabs scratching their heads, shaking them in disbelief. Contrary to rumour, their defeat is not down to my prediction they’d win this game. They were just awful and if they had any decency they’d apologise to their fans, and the club would reimburse travel costs. Granted it’s only 60 odd miles (120 round trip) between the cities, it’s far enough on a Sunday to watch your side do bugger all.

Rangers v Hibs, and a chance to see the McInnes era at Ibrox take off. Having spent almost €17m euro (roughly £15m pounds) and bringing in Shankland and Devlin from Hearts it was the new boys time to shine. Hibs had other ideas though.
 
The opening penalty to be honest was a little harsh and if I’d been on the receiving end of the decision I’d have been “pure raging” but after Don Robertson was called to the monitor there was only ever likely to be one outcome and a spot kick awarded to Hibs. Taken with aplomb by Campbell the atmosphere inside Ibrox became hostile. Whilst chances came and went for Rangers, at half time the boos from the home fans could be heard across Scotland.
 
Second half and it has to be said Rangers were better but Hibs upped their defensive game and had chances themselves to extend their lead. It seemed on the cards as the clock ticked round to 80 minutes that Hibs would hold on for all three points. Then the sucker punch - a ball rifled in from Gassama deflected off the valiant Chaiwa and past his keeper, giving Rangers what looked like a lift and definitely a lifeline.
 
With commentators in full cry that “Rangers can still win this” Ian “I’m not a Rangers fan but …” Crocker led the cries. Tucked away in a quiet Scottish village one scribe wrote on Bluesky “c'mon Hibs there’s still time, c'mon you can still win this”, the prophetic words of this unassuming scribhneoir came to pass as in the last minute of stoppage time Hibs' Wright fired past the new Rangers keeper Pandur and sent the away fans into ecstasy. Three points secured, a victory over Rangers and a victory over Hearts' former manager and captain, rounded off the perfect afternoon for the Edinburgh men.

One note from the game was the what appeared to be a very serious injury to Rangers' Chermiti. Rivalry aside I wish him well in his recovery.

So that’s it for another weekend in the SPL/SPFL summed up as Celtic impressive, Hearts admirable, Rangers poor, and Dundee United rank rotten.

Enjoy your week

Til next time ……

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Høghs Better, Høghs Best?

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★ I am encouraged, by the recent podcast by Gerry Adams ( Joe.ie ) in relation to the rise of the far right i Éireann but I’m not fully convinced.

Is Gerry now, directly challenging the Far Right’s attacks, violence and killing; and is he calling out his own party's failure to challenge the Blueshirts’ ideology that is now on the march across the country?

Remember how the Blueshirts violently attacked and tried to kill Republicans back in the 30s?

I would hope to see all progressive people and groups come together, in alliances, to closely examine what Adams has said, and to hold him and Sinn Féin, to account; and formulate a stronger action group to fight against this Right Wing 'cancer' in our society.

The Proclamation of 1916 states very clearly that society holds humanity, justice and religious freedoms for all, as its clear identity. We must be certain of one thing. We must not fall into the trap of the working class, fighting the working class; which only, has ever benefited the powerful and wealthy.

I certainly do not agree with the political direction of Sinn Féin. But progressive groups should come together in strong alliances, with a clear revolutionary understanding, to fight against the rise of the Right Wing, both i Éireann and across the world.

I call on Gerry Adams to go further and clarify his latest podcast, about the Right and Racism; and to assure everyone that it was not just tokenism. I would ask Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin to follow up on the podcast content, with action. That is, direct action against this 'cancer' in our society, on the streets.

And other questions arise here. Is Gerry Adams speaking for himself or for the Sinn Féin party? Will he now ensure that Sinn Féin changes direction so that the party moves away from it's conservative, safe, bourgeois politics; and the consistent move to the centre right, by some senior Sinn Féin politicians. That must end, if we are to take seriously what Gerry Adams has said.

I Dún na nGall we had a number of anti-racist demonstrations when fascists and some racists tried to organise i Leitir Ceanainn agus Gaoth Dobhair. Unfortunately and predictably, Sinn Féin did not support our Anti-Racist counter demonstration. Why?

Go Raibh Maith Agat to all the other politicians who did show up and took a clear stand against racism and fascism on those days.

Furthermore, will Sinn Féin stop, trying to ride two horses and clarify their thinking on migrants and migration, at the very least or is the centre right element within the party that's now in full control?

Are the consequences of imperialism and capitalism being considered, or discussed, around these issues, by Sinn Féin?

A fairly recent document on migration issues that was published by Sinn Féin called, 'International Protection: A Fair System That Works', does not exactly inspire confidence either, or indicate that they are going to go 'all out' to directly confront anti-migrant, Right Wing nationalist groups i Éireann. In fact, it reads more like a pacification document to these groups; and that SF will 'deal' with migrants and migrant issues, inter alia, to the satisfaction of the Right Wing forces, (if and) when they (ever) get into power. What could that mean? Is it a 'vote catching' document?

On the basis of Gerry A's podcast on the Right Wing groups, is Sinn Féin now going to review it's thinking on this major issue?

Will we soon see, well organised, politically clear anti-Right Wing and anti-fascist, street demonstrations by Sinn Féin? Will they, also, show solidarity and work with, all of those who oppose Right Wing politics and it's origins?

As a part of all of that will they show their total support for all minority groups i Éireann; who are regularly and viciously attacked by these same Right Wing groups?

Will we, also, now see, the clear Republican line of class struggle, anti-fascism, anti imperialism, anti capitalism and anti-Zionism, coming to the fore?

Only time will tell, but, of course, 'actions, always, speak louder than words'.

#SinnFéin

#AlwaysAntiFascists

#SinnFéinIreland

#MaryLouMcDonald

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig 
is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

Gerry Adams And The Far Right

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Fifty Eight

 


A Morning Thought @ 3230

Catherine McGinty ✍ Conor Cruise O'Brien did it. Margaret Thatcher and Douglas Hurd did it. Even Féile an Phobail did it.

They censored voices and attempted to stifle opinions with which they disagreed and of which they were afraid.

Belfast’s Hilton Hotel was the venue on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, for the Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s Voices from Ireland and Europe event organised by Women’s Rights Network NI (WRN NI).

The event was originally scheduled to take place in St Mary’s University College Belfast as part of Féile an Phobail 2026. However, on July 21, 2026, Féile an Phobail, in response to an online campaign, cancelled the event, claiming in a social media post “it would promote campaigns against rights for the Transgender community”.

A sold-out audience which had travelled from all over Ireland and England, listened to and engaged with a stellar panel: Nora Calder (WRN NI); Danielle Loughrey (Gaels For Fair Play), Sorcha Nic Lochlainn (The Countess), Marianne Driessen (Athena Forum) and Fiona McAnena (Sex Matters), moderated by Derry journalist, Catherine McGinty.

Opening the event, Ms Calder described WRN NI as representing “the majority of women in Northern Ireland who believe biological sex is immutable”.

“Women who understand, when we stop recognising biological sex, we start rolling back women’s rights,” she said.

“This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Order. For half a century, it has protected women (in Northern Ireland) because of our sex, just as it has done across the rest of the UK,” she added.

However, there is one important difference - the Windsor Framework. Following Brexit, the UK Government agreed Northern Ireland would continue to keep pace with six EU equality directives.
After the Supreme Court's judgement in For Women Scotland, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) asked the High Court whether the Windsor Framework changes the legal position in Northern Ireland.


“We say it does not,” said Ms Calder. Those directives require men and women to be treated equally. They do not redefine sex. Ms Calder said:

We have heard the argument applying the Supreme Court's judgement would diminish the rights of men entering women's single-sex cases but a right that has never existed cannot be diminished. Our concern is the opposite. If Northern Ireland becomes the only part of the UK where the Supreme Court judgement doesn't apply, it will be women's rights that are diminished. That is why WRN NI is involved in three legal cases currently before the High Court. 

Highlighting the real-life implications of removing a person’s legal right to hold gender critical beliefs, Ms Calder continued:

Whilst one woman is denied female intimate care, we won't be silenced. Whilst one lesbian is told that she must include men in her dating pool, we won't be silenced. Whilst one woman seeking help from a rape crisis centre is told that she must reframe her trauma, we won't be silenced. And whilst one female police officer in PSNI is told she must intimately search a man, we won't be silenced.

She concluded: "Whilst women are told that our rights, our privacy, our dignity, and our safety must come second, we won't be silenced.”

Following Féile an Phobail’s de-platforming of Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s Voices from Ireland and Europe, Geraldine McGahey, chief commissioner of Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) issued a statement in which she said:

Commentary, whether on social media or elsewhere, is misleading and wrong if it suggests that people who hold protected ‘gender critical beliefs’ or ‘gender identity beliefs’ are not entitled to hold those beliefs or should not be able to express them respectfully.

The guest speakers at ‘Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s Voices From Ireland and Europe’,
from left: Marianne Driessen, Danielle Loughrey, Fiona McAnena, Sorche Nic Lochlainn and Nora Calder.

Ms McGahey added: 

Employers and service providers should be encouraged and supported to ensure that their policies and their implementation are operating in a way that affords everyone dignity while at work or accessing services.
Public debate that fails to respect everyone’s dignity or that mispresents the law can make these responsibilities under equality law more difficult to meet. Ultimately, equality law in Northern Ireland protects everyone’s right to be treated with dignity and respect.

Danielle Loughrey, co-founder of Gaels For Fair Play - a network of players, coaches and volunteers - spoke about its advocacy for fair and safe sport for women and girls who play Gaelic Football and Camogie.

Ms Loughrey said: 

We continue to campaign for the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) to return to protecting the female category. Sport Ireland and the UK Sports Council have both agreed, through thorough consultation, the majority of people want the single-sex categories protected and to remain as they are.

She added:

Sports bodies really should be looking to protect those categories by providing open or other categories to prioritise fairness for all. The GAA sports bodies can look into making their male categories more inclusive. They should be looking to welcome non-conforming males and make them comfortable within the male category.

Ms Loughrey said the LGFA’s policy of “allowing trans-identified men to play on women’s teams had thrown the safeguarding of children and adults out the window”.

She continued:

Not only is this policy creating the risk of extra injury on the pitch, it is forfeiting our right to build safety and dignity within our changing rooms and within our facilities.
The LGFA policy was introduced without any consultation at grassroots level and with no guidance provided to the clubs on how to deal with changing facilities.
Club and county officials have been deterring and blocking members from even raising their concerns with LGFA management because they [officials] fear repercussions.
A parent at one club came to Gaels For Fair Play about a serious safeguarding concern they had regarding their underage daughter’s team. The girls faced a number of clubs with a juvenile male player. At one match, the girls came over to their parents and said, ‘Please, we don’t want to play against boys’.

Ms Loughrey, who warned girls under 12 and under 14 were already starting to self-exclude from their sport added:

30 parents have since signed that letter from that club and sent it to the LGFA National Safeguarding Officer. As of yet, parents still haven't received any information on whether the LGFA opened an investigation into it or if it is looking at creating any review. The parents are sitting in limbo wondering if, going into next season, they are going to be faced with that same scenario.

Sorcha Nic Lochlainn, director and sport spokeswoman for The Countess, focused on the reality of what happens when women’s rights are not respected.

It has become quite clear there is a major clash of rights where trans-identified men are demanding to be treated as if they are actually women, and given access to women's spaces and women's sports.

She continued: 

The simple fact remains: humans cannot change sex. Women cannot become men, and men cannot become women. Having a transgender identity does not change one's sex.
Effective safeguarding requires that no one be above suspicion. This was a hard learned lesson and should never be forgotten.
The shocking revelation that a violent male prisoner was being held in the women's wing of Limerick Prison was the focus of the first ever tweet by The Countess.
Barbie Kardashian had a harrowing upbringing and a history of violence against women. He had previously attacked a social worker and was charged with threatening to rape and murder his own mother. He was placed in the women's wing of Limerick Prison upon conviction because he had a gender recognition certificate, making him legally female.

Ms Nic Lochlainn added: 

No women's organisations or civil rights NGOs said anything about this. The Countess spoke up instead. Their response to the tweet was swift condemnation. Not of the practice of housing violent men with women but of us for calling attention to it, for not understanding this was acceptable collateral damage, the price to pay for inclusion.

She explained:

A petition was started, an open letter was penned, condemning us for our bigotry, and calling for women, for us, and for women like us, to be disenfranchised within media and politics.
This petition was signed by individuals and organisations such as Amnesty International Ireland, the National Women's Council of Ireland, and the Irish Penal Reform Trust - a powerful few.
This petition has now closed. I looked the other day; it has 974 signatures. In comparison, a petition to remove Barbie Kardashian from the women’s wing of Limerick Prison had more than 7,000 signatures when it closed.

Based in The Netherlands, education specialist Marianne Driessen represented Athena Forum at Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s Voices from Ireland and Europe.

Ms Driessen has written on the protection of women's sports, lesbian visibility, and reform of the gender care for youth.

She said: 

Last May, I spoke at a Dutch educational symposium, arguing that schools should teach about the biological reality of sex rather than the activist concept of gender identity. 
Afterwards, teachers lined up to thank me, not for saying anything radical, but for finally saying something true.

She added: "They told me how much they self-censored. I got comments such as, ‘If I said even half of what you just said, I would be fired’."

‘Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s voices from Ireland and Europe’ question and answer session, from left: Fiona McAnena, Sorcha Nic Lochlainn, Danielle Loughrey, Marianne Driessan, Nora Calder, and Catherine McGinty

She continued: 

Across Europe, we know self-censoring and cancellations very well. Contrary to what some might think, they have not died down, and the EU continues to develop new instruments to label speech as hateful when it comes to sex and gender.
While much attention focuses on the European Union, the Council of Europe, whose primary role is to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and in which the UK continues to participate fully, has been an even earlier driver of the gender identity concepts, not through binding legislation, but through soft power, recommendations, resolutions, strategies, funding programmes, expert forums, and partnerships with NGOs.

Marianne Driessen explained:

Instead of seeking democratic majorities at a national level, these activist organisations focus on influencing international institutions, where highly specialised policy processes often attract less public attention and very little organised opposition. From there, these recommendations and policy frameworks filter back into national law and more into the wide array of public sectors with the authority of so-called European standards. One of the most profoundly affected fields is education. Contested concepts, in confusing language, like for example, sex can vary, children are assigned sex at birth, and that children can be born into the born body have made their way into teaching materials and even into the core curriculum objectives of children as young as four.

While: 

At the same time, European institutions have increasingly promoted the idea that certain forms of speech about gender identity should be regarded as harmful, hateful, and discriminatory. Genuine harassment should never be tolerated, but the boundary between protecting people from abuse and protecting ideas from criticism has become blurred.

Originally from the Pennyburn area of Derry City, Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters, which promotes human rights where they relate to biological sex, closed the presentations, with the observation "blatant discrimination” such as the Marriage Bar (against women) was outlawed by the 2010 Equality Act and “a set of consistent laws in Northern Ireland”.

Ms McAnena said:

Sex discrimination is outlawed in principle, but the law recognises sometimes the fair or safe thing to do is to treat men and women differently or separately, and that is because of reality. We’re intellectually equal. Some women can be stronger than some men, maybe, but the reality is that, on average, men are bigger and stronger than women. We all know that. That’s why we need separate sports’ categories.

She continued: 

In boxing, the difference between a man and a woman of the same weight, so the sex difference alone, is equivalent to eight weight classes. You can’t train away from that, it's a biological reality. That takes us into male violence, and in particular, male sexual violence. Of those prosecuted for violent crimes in the UK, 91% are men, for sexual crimes, it is 98%.
It is one reason we have single-sex spaces as separate across society, anywhere strangers take their clothes off or are vulnerable. This was never contested. Everyone accepts the constraint you don’t go into the other sex’s spaces, and that’s for everyone’s privacy and peace of mind. And of course, for women and girls, it is about more than that.

For Fiona McAnena:

Some people talk about human rights and claim it is all very complicated, but it’s simple. Everyone’s human rights are being considered and factored into the laws we have and they work on a group or category level. There can be no exception for men who claim they are not a risk. I am furious this has become a negotiation. It isn’t branding all men as predators. It is all men because it is some men, and we can’t tell which ones.The vast majority of men don’t complain they are being labelled predators. They know they are not. They understand and accept the Social Contract.

“The problem,” she added, “is if anyone can claim to be a woman, then any man, even the wrong’uns can access women’s private spaces, single-sex services and support just by claiming to be trans."

‘Respect, Rights and Reality: Women’s Voices From Ireland and Europe’ hosted by WRN NI in Belfast’s Hilton Hotel.

She claimed that: 

It is not opening the door to a small number of trans people, it is opening the door to all men.
So, for the sake of 51% of the population, the female majority, the boundaries must be based on sex, not on identity. We still need single-sex provision to help keep us safe.

Ironically, Féile an Phobail amplified the voices of the women they sought to silence.

And, the law of unintended consequences served only to give veracity to Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai who said: “We realise the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.”

⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.

Respect, Rights And Reality 👭 Women’s Voices From Ireland And Europe

Seamus Kearney 🎤 Thomas McElwee - died on Hunger Strike, 8th August 1981.

His strong voice echoes with me still
Tommy two cups we named him
Standing six foot tall, clenched fists
Always ready to defend himself and the Republic He so fervently seen through his one remaining eye
♞♜♝
Despite the harshness of the prison years
The winter of 78', the meagre food rations
He battled on, through snow and ice
The sweat of a summer sun
The nakedness of a concrete tomb, he refused to yield
♞♜♝
As the seasons changed, he never did
His weakening body turned into a human armalite
Confined to the punishment block
♞♜♝
He continued to hold the vision of a better dawn within his Irish heart
When it came his turn to die, he turned his face into the wind 
His bravery unparalleled,
And defying the natural urge to live
♞♜♝
He died on hunger strike and did it with such grace
That others might one day sing and dance
To the beat of a different drum
♞♜♝
And now many years later
As I see him in my dreams
I walk the cells barefooted
The ghost of him still lingers
Scolding me for doubting
♞♜♝
The victory he always envisioned for us and our people
A dream that eventually came true

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Never To Be The Same Again

Dr John Coulter ✍ We may be in the midst of the summer holidays and the so-called silly season in journalism, but for many political parties, candidates and wannabe candidates, the 2027 Stormont and council elections campaigns have already begun.


I was recently flicking through some of the memorabilia from my late dad’s - Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE - elections campaigns over the years, when I came across a few stickers from his 1983 Westminster General Election campaign in North Antrim - the seat once held for decades by the Paisley dynasty.

A few years ago, I wrote about nearly getting into trouble when Dr Paisley rang my dad at home during that ’83 campaign to get him to stand aside. 

Whilst that campaign was the only election he lost in his political career in North Antrim, it was for me one of the most memorable because of the impact a few ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers caused.

Since Paisley senior had won the Westminster seat in 1970, defeating the then sitting MP Henry Clark of the Ulster Unionists, the UUP had struggled to put up an electoral fight against the Paisley bandwagon.

In the two General Elections of 1974, Paisley senior had been the agreed Unionist Coalition candidate.

In 1979, the year Maggie Thatcher stormed to power, the North Antrim UUP had parachuted in the lawyer Jeremy Burchill (later an UUP Assembly member for East Belfast in the Prior Assembly of 1982-86), but by then Paisley senior was well entrenched in the constituency and romped home with a majority in excess of 18,500.

Boundary changes were to see two new Westminster seats created for the ’83 campaign - East Antrim and East Londonderry. The DUP had its eyes on all three.

Assuming the UUP would fly in another parachute candidate, the original DUP plan was for Paisley senior to run in East Antrim (which comprised a large chunk of his original North Antrim seat), with North Antrim Assembly member Jim Allister (later to become TUV MP for North Antrim defeating Paisley Junior) to run in North Antrim, and high profile Coleraine councillor James McClure to run in the new East Londonderry.

However, the cat was thrown among the political pigeons when the North Antrim UUP association selected dad as the candidate. Whilst dad heralded originally from Tyrone, by 1983, his roots were firmly established in North Antrim through his role as a Presbyterian minister, Loyal Orders chaplain, and lecturer in Ballymena Technical College. In short, he was viewed as a ‘home grown’ UUP candidate rather than a parachute candidate.

The selection of dad as UUP candidate resulted in Paisley senior changing his mind and wanting to run in his original North Antrim, and shifting Allister into East Antrim.

Whilst the UUP knew dad could not snatch North Antrim from Paisley senior, the Jim Molyneaux-led party knew that if dad had a fairly high profile campaign in UUP terms, it would tie down Paisley senior to North Antrim, thus preventing him from spending time canvassing for Allister in East Antrim and McClure in East Londonderry.

The UUP strategy worked. Roy Beggs senior took East Antrim and William Ross took East Londonderry. Ironically years later, the DUP captured both Westminster seats.

The ’83 canvass was literally a bruising campaign for dad. That was the era of the old Fair Hill Saturday market in Ballymena. One Saturday as polling day neared, when dad and his team were electioneering in the market, he was punched and kicked by Paisley supporters.

This is not to say that Paisley senior himself condoned the physical abuse; merely to record that those attacking dad would have been Paisley voters. That specific attack ended abruptly when one Paisley supporter punched dad in the ribs only to hit the butt of dad’s personal protection weapon.

Once the Paisley supporter realised that dad was ‘carrying’, he backed off immediately.

But it was the emergence of dad’s ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers that was to have the unusual effect on the DUP camp and Paisley senior in particular.

It all started when a copy of Paisley senior’s North Antrim constituency canvassing itinerary ‘fell into the hands’ of the UUP team! We knew where and when Paisley senior would be electioneering.

Dad and his fellow canvassers immediately altered their own schedule and would visit the towns, villages, hamlets and estates ahead of the DUP team. The UUP workers would give the kids ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers as those were the days when the primary electioneering technique was a car fitted with loudspeakers.

The car would enter the housing development playing patriotic music followed by someone then using the loudspeaker to announce the arrival of the UUP canvassing team.

It was sometimes known as ‘the ice cream van technique’ in much the same way as an ice cream vendor would announce their arrival in a housing development.

Whilst a party worker would operate the loudspeaker system booming out the benefits of voting for the UUP, dad and fellow canvassers would go door to door. Naturally, all the fuss of the canvass would bring out children. Whilst their parents or guardians would be given election literature, the kids would be given the stickers.

So imagine how Paisley senior must have felt, arriving in a development a short time later to be greeted by kids wearing ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers! During that ’83 campaign, the UUP team handed out as many stickers as they did election leaflets!

But it had an unusual effect. Paisley senior issued a press statement calling on dad to stand aside so that the DUP could give Sinn Fein a hammering at the ballot box.

But in 1983, North Antrim Sinn Fein was a political fringe party - what could sarcastically be described as a ‘two man and a dog outfit’.

Sinn Fein came fourth and polled less than 3,000 votes, well behind the SDLP’s Dr Sean Farren on just over 6,000 votes.

Paisley senior even rang dad at home to ask him to stand aside! It was me who answered the telephone that evening and I honestly thought it was a practical joke when the man on the end of the line said he was Ian Paisley!

Yes, the UUP took a hammering in that election in North Antrim, and dad got a thumping in the Fair Hill market, but thanks to the ‘sticker campaign’, the DUP’s clean sweep strategy of taking three Westminster seats that year across the north west and north east of Ulster literally came unstuck!

In spite of all the in-depth academic electoral strategies at hand, its amazing what a few stickers can achieve!
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

Getting Into Sticky Times With The DUP!

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