In hard cash terms, the Government has been forced to increase the threshold for inheritance tax on farms from £1 million to £2.5 million - a massive climbdown by Labour by any standards.
It has also given the entire agricultural industry another impetus to make one tremendous push in 2026 to get the entire family farm tax completely abolished.
The whole campaign throughout last year has reminded me of my days half a century ago as a young teenage preacher’s kid and my at times uneasy relationship with a farming organisation known as the Young Farmers’ Club (YFC).
Agriculture is - and always has been - one of the main industries in that north east Ulster Bible Belt, but as the Presbyterian minister’s son, I had absolutely no interest in farming and its associate organisations.
During Boys’ Brigade camps, when us country lads first came in contact with a tee-shirt printing shop, while I got my schoolboy nickname - Budgie - emblazoned on my tee-shirt, most of the other BB boys got the make of a tractor on theirs’.
Indeed, your dad’s tractor preference crossed the sectarian divide in the Seventies. There were fights on our school bus - not between Catholics and Protestants, or between rival schools.
The main fights centred around those lads - both Catholic and Protestant - whose dads farmed used a Massey Ferguson, and those lads whose dads drove a Universal or a Ford!
The answer to a question which could get you a right kicking was certainly not - what religion are you? The key question was - what make of tractor does yer da drive?
Being the Presbyterian minister’s son, dad didn’t even have a tractor so I was exempt from joining one of the so-called ‘tractor gangs’! Indeed, in later years when dad began building a new manse and borrowed a retired farmer’s tractor, when I said the make of vehicle, the ‘tractor gangs’ just laughed as they said it was a ‘vintage’!
But in that north east Ulster Bible Belt, the overwhelming majority of my farming friends joined their local YFC. Such was the attractiveness of the YFC, even some chums whose dads were not farmers signed up.
I personally could not see the point of me joining as I had no interest in agriculture – apart from the occasional bout of paid potato gathering in October, or strawberry picking in the summer.
Every year, some club would write to me kindly inviting me to join. Some of my fellow preacher’s kids did join a club, but I suspect that was more to placate their parents or a club rather than any burning desire to develop their agricultural skills and knowledge.
My friends talked about their stock judging skills. I tended to adopt a very flippant view of what they saw as an essential youthful art. For me, when you’ve seen one sheep’s ass, you’ve seen them all!
It would not be until I became a full-time journalist covering the annual agricultural shows that I would gain a proper understanding of how important such activities were to developing a new generation of farmer.
This was especially emphasised to me as during my time as a staff journalist at the Belfast News Letter, when the annual North Antrim Agricultural Show in Ballymoney became an essential part of my reporting duties.
The clubs who invited me to join all tended to meet on Monday evenings – but that was a big homework night for me personally, and the start of the school week’s training for cross country.
The last thing I wanted to do was go to a farming club and discuss sheep, cows, crops or tractors all evening. It became a source of mutual irritation that I would not ‘join the club’. Some of their leaders could not understand my unwillingness to sign up, especially as some other preacher’s kids had joined.
I did not want to be rude and tell them – I find farming boring! What has judging sheep got to do with heavy metal? I was more interested in talking about the latest AC/DC, Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin albums, or who might want to join the line-up of my own heavy rock band, The Clergy.
There was also a perception that clubs in the Seventies located in that north east Ulster Bible Belt had two key factions. One was involved with stock judging, competitions and drama; the other was a hard-drinking, partying lot.
Of course, I must emphasise that as I write this in 2026, I’m talking about perceptions from over 50 years ago. I’m sure the now outdated perceptions of YFC activities from the Sixties and Seventies are no longer relevant!
In later years as a tabloid journalist, I also had the perception that the YFCs, no matter what the rows and rivalries, had the abilities to ‘close ranks’ every time us nosey hacks tried to probe allegations of fights at barn dances!
Unfortunately, the latter’s boozing activities were getting the former’s craft and competition factions a bad name. It was another excuse for not getting involved in the club. I always harboured the suspicion the leaders just wanted my name; just to say: ‘Oh the minister’s son is one of our members’.
The worst times were after church on Sundays after dad had taken services in predominantly farming congregations. For weeks on end, some member of a club would approach me and politely invite me to meetings. I generally always had an excuse, usually to do with schoolboy cross country training.
A few clubs in that later 20th century era, unfortunately, had been getting an alleged poor reputation for heavy drinking at so-called ladies’ night functions, which generally descended into binge-boozing sessions.
Finally, one Sunday in the mid-Seventies, one leader from a particular club asked me point blank after a church service why I refused to join the YFC.
Frustrated with his persistence, I blurted out: “Because I don’t drink beer!” A totally daft and childish answer I know, but it did the trick.
However, it almost got me a hammering in that church in the process. That particular YFC leader knew I was making a jibe about the organisation’s alleged problems with binge drinking.
He momentarily lost his cool, grabbed me by my jacket lapels and slammed me up against the church wall. Then he realised what he was doing. He set me down and walked away.
Never again was I invited to join the YFC. But it came at a price. The movement effectively shunned me for daring to talk about the unspeakable. Alleged booze-bingeing was to be quietly whispered - not mentioned loudly openly in public, and especially by a preacher’s kid!
Maybe if I had joined, I would have had a better chance of dating a particular farmer’s daughter that I had a teenage crush on in those days half a century ago. In my puppy love mis-spent youth, she epitomised the most beautiful woman in the world.
She knew I had the mother of all crushes on her, but could I persuade her to go on a date with me? Not a chance. She was the one girl that telling I was a preacher’s kid would not work. I could have been the son of the Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly and she would have said ‘no’.
Some girls would simply go out with me, not because I was a hunk male model, but merely to keep on the right side of their mums and grannies. It allowed these women to boast that their daughter or grand-daughter was ‘dating the minister’s son’.
Having dodged membership of the clubs, there was, I must confess, only one YFC event which I thoroughly enjoyed - a club’s annual concert, which allowed club members to demonstrate their talents at singing and drama.
Such events could give the annual Presbyterian Sunday school soirees a run for their money in terms of variety acts. And, of course, there was those delicious YFC suppers afterwards.
In spite of my constant opposition to joining a club, I generally was given a ‘by ball’ in terms of attending such YFC events because dad would have been invited to either give the opening devotions, say grace before the supper, or give the epilogue.
I had an alternative motive - the annual YFC concerts provided me with perfect opportunities to ‘chat up’ a few farmers’ daughters and arrange some dates!
And, equally importantly, enjoy the endless supply of Presbyterian egg and onion homemade sandwiches on offer during the supper. For one night only, jibes about ‘heavy drinking’ would be forgotten by one and all and the minister’s son could become a ‘farm boy’ for the evening. Yeeehaaaaa! Now where did I park that tractor?
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
Increasingly, right wing capitalist nation states - Russia, the US and Israel - are deferring to the only law they respect: might is right.
With the US invasion of Venezuela my mind drifted to an old tutor of mine who died at the end of August. Bill Moffett in his role as an Open University tutor guided me through the final year of an honours degree which I completed a year before release. Each night after lock up, from February to October, and over eight years, I immersed myself in studying for a general degree in politics with the bulk of it in international relations. Throughout 1991 Bill was the tutor on the Global Politics course. Once a month he would come into the H Blocks. I'd arrive in the classroom between the wings and the circle with his beverage of choice and biscuits. The hour following was devoted to coursework accompanied by probing conversation.
I loved working with Bill. He was warm and erudite, totally lacking intellectual arrogance. He didn't concern himself with the misplaced comma, the absent semicolon. His forte was intellectual, never seeking to impose a schoolmarmish regime. While, like all my tutors, he most likely struggled with my handwriting, he never complained about it and always gave me strong grades. He finished off where the brilliant Jenny Meegan, my first tutor, had started when I first set out on a degree course in February 1984.
Initially the prison education system was viewed with suspicion by republican prisoners. In Long Kesh it was effectively boycotted but after the blanket protest, prisoners in both the Cages and the Blocks began engaging with it. Many emerged with degrees. It could not have been easy for the tutors coming into the jail. The prison staff would often seek to fill their heads with horror stories about the type of person they would be educating. Whatever the political and personal view of the tutors, I think the prisoners won their respect and that was reciprocated. The tutors of the Open University displayed a commitment to education that republican prisoners found themselves at ease with, many of whom had familiarised themselves with the groundbreaking work of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich. And so it was with Bill - he placed the emphasis on learning, teaching was merely an aid to that.
With the US invasion of Venezuela my mind drifted to an old tutor of mine who died at the end of August. Bill Moffett in his role as an Open University tutor guided me through the final year of an honours degree which I completed a year before release. Each night after lock up, from February to October, and over eight years, I immersed myself in studying for a general degree in politics with the bulk of it in international relations. Throughout 1991 Bill was the tutor on the Global Politics course. Once a month he would come into the H Blocks. I'd arrive in the classroom between the wings and the circle with his beverage of choice and biscuits. The hour following was devoted to coursework accompanied by probing conversation.
I loved working with Bill. He was warm and erudite, totally lacking intellectual arrogance. He didn't concern himself with the misplaced comma, the absent semicolon. His forte was intellectual, never seeking to impose a schoolmarmish regime. While, like all my tutors, he most likely struggled with my handwriting, he never complained about it and always gave me strong grades. He finished off where the brilliant Jenny Meegan, my first tutor, had started when I first set out on a degree course in February 1984.
Initially the prison education system was viewed with suspicion by republican prisoners. In Long Kesh it was effectively boycotted but after the blanket protest, prisoners in both the Cages and the Blocks began engaging with it. Many emerged with degrees. It could not have been easy for the tutors coming into the jail. The prison staff would often seek to fill their heads with horror stories about the type of person they would be educating. Whatever the political and personal view of the tutors, I think the prisoners won their respect and that was reciprocated. The tutors of the Open University displayed a commitment to education that republican prisoners found themselves at ease with, many of whom had familiarised themselves with the groundbreaking work of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich. And so it was with Bill - he placed the emphasis on learning, teaching was merely an aid to that.
Bill was the last of my OU tutors and one that I have fond memories of. I guess it is safe to say I learned much more from him than he did from me. I think where I may have hit the spot with him was reinforcing a view that republican prisoners were not mindless gunmen and bombers as the NIO liked to caricature us.
Around two years ago Bill's daughter Jenny got in touch with me, telling me that her dad had spoken to her quite a bit about our interactions. He said he would like to read my book Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism. Delighted to be able to return a long standing favour, I managed to obtain a copy, signed it and posted it off to him.
Then we had a chat on the phone. It was so pleasing to be back in touch with Bill because I was forever grateful to him for providing what soccer aficionados call 'an assist' to my intellectual development. In 1991 Bill had a firm grasp of the foreign policy of the then superpowers. The year he tutored me also happened to be the one in which the sole superpower rival to the US threw the towel in, causing a shift from a bipolar world to a unipolar one, with the US now the supreme global hegemon, much as it always wanted. While I was certain he would have had tightly reasoned views on the turn that world affairs were taking in recent times, he was in and around 90 years of age, so there was no way I was going to bother him with my curiosity about the state of global politics.
Prior to his illness Jenny and her husband Dru called to the house one Sunday afternoon. They were on their way to the airport and it was convenient to drop in on us in Drogheda which is close to the main Belfast-Dublin arterial route. It was a most rewarding feeling for me to have met Bill's daughter. When Bill passed Jenny sent me a link so that I could watch the funeral service online. On the morning of the funeral somebody called to the house and by the time they had left I rushed to get online but had problems signing in which Jenny had previously said might happen. To my regret I missed the service.
Then we had a chat on the phone. It was so pleasing to be back in touch with Bill because I was forever grateful to him for providing what soccer aficionados call 'an assist' to my intellectual development. In 1991 Bill had a firm grasp of the foreign policy of the then superpowers. The year he tutored me also happened to be the one in which the sole superpower rival to the US threw the towel in, causing a shift from a bipolar world to a unipolar one, with the US now the supreme global hegemon, much as it always wanted. While I was certain he would have had tightly reasoned views on the turn that world affairs were taking in recent times, he was in and around 90 years of age, so there was no way I was going to bother him with my curiosity about the state of global politics.
Prior to his illness Jenny and her husband Dru called to the house one Sunday afternoon. They were on their way to the airport and it was convenient to drop in on us in Drogheda which is close to the main Belfast-Dublin arterial route. It was a most rewarding feeling for me to have met Bill's daughter. When Bill passed Jenny sent me a link so that I could watch the funeral service online. On the morning of the funeral somebody called to the house and by the time they had left I rushed to get online but had problems signing in which Jenny had previously said might happen. To my regret I missed the service.
There was a great bond within the H-Blocks. Even today many former blanketmen keep in touch, meet up for drinks and so on. Many of us like to echo the August 1994 sentiment of Bernadette McAliskey that the good guys lost. Bill Moffett made such an impression on me, demonstrating that republican prisoners were not the only good guys to cross the portal of the H Blocks.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
As Zelensky flies to Mar-a-Lago, MAGA and Britain’s far left simultaneously designate Europe the aggressor. What’s going on?}
The background music to the Trump-Zelensky meeting at Mar-a-Lago was ominous: two nights ago Russia carried out a mega-strike, hitting civilian homes and energy plants, leaving one third of Kyiv without power.
And Russia has hit civilian ships in the port of Odesa and tried to cut off road access to south-west Ukraine from Romania through strikes on transport infrastructure.
It feels like a non-nuclear version of “escalate to de-escalate”: attacking Ukraine throughout the depths of its infrastructure to signal to the West what comes if it does not force Kyiv into semi-surrender. [1]
But the worst thing is the cognitive warfare being practised within the Trump administration targeted at weakening NATO’s resolve to back Ukraine to the point of victory:
- Trump’s National Security Strategy peddled the myth that Europe is the aggressor in the Ukraine conflict.
- Just before Christmas, the USA sanctioned five European citizens, two of them Brits, for their work exposing far right disinformation and enforcing European counter-hate speech law.
Continue @ ESSF.
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| 25-November-2025 |
In Ireland the Catholic church uses the word ‘indoctrination’ to mean forcing children into Catholicism. The education system goes along with this definition. But that is not how the European Court defines the word.
The European Court uses the word ‘indoctrination’ in relation to Article 2 of Protocol 1 (the right to education) of the European Convention. It and the UK Supreme Court use it as a synonym for evangelism and proselytising, devoid of any negative connotations.
Supreme Court in the UK
The Supreme Court in the recent UK case said the following about the word ‘indoctrination’.
10. One of the issues on this appeal is whether teaching of religious education, which is not undertaken in an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner, amounts to pursuit of the aim of “indoctrination.”
It is important when addressing that issue to emphasise that Christians wish to encourage others to believe that “[t]here is but one living and true God” and to encourage others to practise the Christian faith as the only path to salvation: see the first Article of Religion in the Church of Ireland, see the first Article of the Church of Ireland 2009 Declaration on the 39 Articles of Religion, and see John 14:6, and Acts 4:12.
The word “indoctrination” ordinarily has negative connotations but in the context of the Christian faith it is a synonym for evangelism or proselytising. It means winning others over so that they believe in and practice the Christian faith. In that sense indoctrination is an entirely proper Christian missionary process which seeks to secure salvation for others.
The word “indoctrination” is used in this judgment as a synonym for evangelism and proselytising devoid of any negative connotations.
In essence, the Court found that if education and teaching is not objective, critical and pluralistic then the state is pursuing an aim of indoctrination by not respecting parents’ convictions.
Irish Schools
All Irish Schools indoctrinate children into either one religion or to a religious understanding of the world.
Schools do not respect all parents’ religious and philosophical convictions, by ensuring that any education and teaching is objective, critical and pluralistic. Specifically, they do not recognise the positive aspect of the right, of parents with philosophical beliefs, to respect for their convictions.
- All primary schools Patron bodies have their own Patron’s course, and every one of them claims that it is inclusive.
- At second level the State has a religious education course. The main aim of this course is to develop values to enable students to come to an understanding of religion and its relevance to life and relationships, that is indoctrination.
- In addition schools can deliver the curriculum according to their ethos. In Catholic schools at second level, the RE curriculum course is delivered through the Guidelines for the Faith formation and development of Catholic students. Parents are never informed that this is happening. Both the education and the teaching is indoctrination.
If all parents’ religious and philosophical convictions are not respected, then the state is pursuing an aim of indoctrination by not respecting them. There is both a positive and a negative aspect of the right to respect all parents’ convictions under the European Convention.
You can read our Article here on what the European Court has defined as ‘respect’ under the Convention.
No legal guidelines
The Department of Education has no statutory guidelines in place on respecting all parents’ religious and philosophical convictions in state aided schools.
The Catholic Church Guidelines on other faiths in Catholic school stated that:
The general programme of the school will be considered as a form of pre-evangelisation. This promotes a human development that focuses on the emotional and aesthetic, thus enabling the young person to experience God at a deep and spiritual level.
In the updated version of these Guidelines that sentence was removed. That does not mean that Catholic schools are not places of missionary activity. The updated version of these Guidelines makes clear that the education and teaching is not objective, critical and pluralistic.
The Supreme Court held in 1998 in the Campaign case that if parents choose to send their children to a school with a religious ethos, then they can expect them to be influenced by the ethos in the general atmosphere. of the school. Of course, the vast majority of parents have no choice but to send their children to their local publicly funded school.
Conclusion
The Irish state does not protect children from ‘indoctrination’ when they are accessing their right to education. Instead:
- The state ‘provides for’ the education of all children in either denominational, interdenominational or multi-denominational schools.
- It does not require schools to deliver any education and teaching in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner.
- No Patron body claims its ethos is objective, critical and pluralistic and in accordance with Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention .
- None of them recognise the positive obligation to respect atheist, humanist and families from secular backgrounds.
- There are no non-denominational schools in Ireland. Schools are registered as either, denominational, interdenominational or multi-denominational. Atheism, humanism and secularism are not denominations.
The Irish state has failed to recognise its positive obligation to respect all parents’ religious or philosophical convictions, and therefore is pursuing an aim of indoctrination.
Atheist Ireland continues to campaign for a secular education system based on human rights principles that respects everyone equally regardless of their religious or nonreligious beliefs.
A Christian megachurch pastor linked LGBTQ people to child traffickers while telling his congregation to support ballot initiatives that would make it harder for transgender people to receive health care. He added that if they didn’t do it, they would be considered a “traitor” to Jesus.
All of this happened at Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette, Colorado (near Boulder). It’s one of the largest churches in the country with over 10,000 people attending one of its five campuses.
In early November, Pastor Jim Burgen used part of his sermon to tell a series of lies:
That Christians were being silenced.
That millions of babies were being slaughtered annually.
That the government was allowing people to choose their gender and sex.
That kids in kindergarten had to sit through “gender/pronoun awareness puppet shows.”
That school libraries were filled with pornographic instruction manuals.
He lied to his congregation because he presumably believes it’s okay to lie to advance a conservative message.
Continue @ Friendly Atheist.
That Christians were being silenced.
That millions of babies were being slaughtered annually.
That the government was allowing people to choose their gender and sex.
That kids in kindergarten had to sit through “gender/pronoun awareness puppet shows.”
That school libraries were filled with pornographic instruction manuals.
He lied to his congregation because he presumably believes it’s okay to lie to advance a conservative message.
Continue @ Friendly Atheist.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
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| Alfie Gallagher |
Alfie, a chara,
I held my father’s hand as he shed a tear above your grave as the ornate box carrying the vessel that once held you was lowered into the earth.
I did not know you the way my father did, but I have seen how he loves you, and my love for you extends from that.
I watched your family welcome the world into their home to bid you farewell on your final journey. I watched your sister’s heart escape from her mouth in a cry of grief, and watched your mother find comfort in the many faces of those who loved you. I watched as they caressed her face with remnants of that love which will exist for as long as all who knew you shall live.
I got to know you so intimately in two long days through stories and memories shared over whiskey drank in your whiskey-sipping-chair in your childhood home, and can only wish that it had, and regret that it had not, happened before you were gone.
There is so much that can be said, and it brings a further sense of finality to stop speaking, but all things, good or bad, we know come to an end.
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Why the Forced Removal of a Head of State Is a Declaration of Imperial Lawlessness
There are moments when history does not whisper. It shouts.
If it is true that the United States has sent elite forces into the capital of Venezuela and removed its sitting president and his wife, then we are no longer talking about diplomacy, pressure, sanctions, or even covert destabilisation. We are talking about imperial abduction in plain sight.
This is not regime change by persuasion. It is regime change by kidnapping.
And no amount of media varnish can make that acceptable.
Let us strip away the fog. The language of “narco state,” “criminal president,” or “failed election” is not new. It is the same script the empire has read from for over a century. Delegitimise. Criminalise. Isolate. Then act as if international law were an optional accessory.
The closest historical parallel being offered is the US invasion of Panama in 1989 and the seizure of Manuel Noriega. That comparison is meant to reassure. It should terrify.
Panama was flattened to make a point . . .
. . . Panama was not an exception. It was a precedent.
There are moments when history does not whisper. It shouts.
If it is true that the United States has sent elite forces into the capital of Venezuela and removed its sitting president and his wife, then we are no longer talking about diplomacy, pressure, sanctions, or even covert destabilisation. We are talking about imperial abduction in plain sight.
This is not regime change by persuasion. It is regime change by kidnapping.
And no amount of media varnish can make that acceptable.
Let us strip away the fog. The language of “narco state,” “criminal president,” or “failed election” is not new. It is the same script the empire has read from for over a century. Delegitimise. Criminalise. Isolate. Then act as if international law were an optional accessory.
The closest historical parallel being offered is the US invasion of Panama in 1989 and the seizure of Manuel Noriega. That comparison is meant to reassure. It should terrify.
Panama was flattened to make a point . . .
. . . Panama was not an exception. It was a precedent.
Continue @ Mr Lee Jasper Snr.
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