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Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 6-November-2026.


The Irish state media, RTE, reported that the prominent academic Tom Felle had faked his academic credentials. He has no doctorate and yet was employed by Galway University as a senior lecturer and was lauded as an expert on Fake News. You really couldn’t make it up. Well, Felle could and he seems to be quite the expert on faking it.

We have yet another scandal about low standards in high academic places. Lots of people have been exposed either faking their qualifications or plagiarising. Manaj Kumar faked his PhD from Cambridge and was exposed in 2015.[1] More recently, the chair of the King’s Foundation, Dame Ann Limb, admitted that she never completed her PhD at Liverpool, which was listed on her CV as having been awarded in 1978, nor does she have an M.A. from the Institute of Linguists, because it does not award M.A.’s. She proffered the defence that she had received honorary doctorates from other institutions and that was really why she used the title Dr.[2] Of course honorary doctorates are part of the official academic fake awards. Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and other entertainers have honorary doctorates.[3] Felle is now another one to fake his academic record and get away with it. At the time of writing he was still listed as a senior lecturer on Galway University’s staff list[4] and elsewhere on the site as an Associate Professor, though this may change.

Felle is a chancer and a well-placed and respected one, at that. He has made submissions to the Irish government, worked with the UN and ironically, he has published articles on disinformation. He has been part of the Russians and Chinese are coming rubbish that is so prevalent in the media. He, like many academics marches in step with the EU position on the war in Ukraine and in celebrating an agreement between his university and Ukraine stated that “Democracy relies on informed citizens and a resilient media system.”[5] Just not too informed, it would seem. Felle is as transparent as Ukraine’s accounting practices for EU largesse. He has however, done some good work on actual fake news spread by the Right on migration. That work has now been undermined. It is best to leave the chancer stew in it and not lend any credence to him as his work can now only undermine causes. Though I expect the usual suspects to defend him, as they are part of the system that allows grifters like Felle to climb up the greasy pole, stepping on hard working people who deserve a step up but get passed over for conmen like him.

The other thing that stands out is the lengths RTE had to go to in order to check that he didn’t have a PhD from City St George’s. They filed a Freedom of Information request. The university refused to confirm or deny he had a PhD at all, citing spurious data protection concerns. Felle however, had claimed his PhD was by prior publication which means he presented a shorter thesis along with previous journal articles etc. It is still a PhD, though not the most common route. So RTE asked the university how many such prior publication PhDs had been awarded in the period Felle claimed to have obtained his. Bizarrely, they claimed they didn’t have that information on record. RTE appealed the decision and was eventually told that no such PhDs had been awarded for the period concerned. This is bizarre as the university library has, as is common, online catalogues which include theses by students. I checked them and there are some journal articles by Felle in them, including a submission to the Irish government, but no PhD.

That the university would go to such lengths to protect a chancer is remarkable and tells us a lot about academia. In the debate around Jason Arday, some on the Left who were ensconced in the upper echelons of academia defended Cambridge and Liverpool John Moore’s and demanded we take the universities at their word. That is a foolish exercise.

Political issues now arise around Felle’s work on disinformation and no doubt some on the Right will raise it whenever the Left and NGOs cite his work on racist fake news. In that he has done a great disservice to migrants. It would be best if he kept quiet, but he probably won’t. If your ego is that big to lie about a PhD, you will probably tough it out. The Left should have no truck with this chancer, he will only undermine anti-racist work. His Russians are coming nonsense should also be ignored, though I suspect there are those on the Left who will continue to cite him and if not him, the likes of him.

What now for the university? Its courses and initiatives on journalism and disinformation are tainted, to say the least. A man who faked it till he made it was a key player in it all. It deserves to be ignored as well. I am not sure where Felle stands legally. He got a job that is funded by the public purse by falsifying the record. He should be charged, the state should be reimbursed and he should not be let anywhere near the education sector ever again. And hard questions need to be asked of academia.

References

[1] BBC (01/12/2015) Cardiff college head revealed as PhD fake. 

[2] BBC (21/12/2025) King’s Foundation chair and nominee peer admits misleading doctorate claim. Amy Walker. 

[3] People (18/09/2024) 18 Celebrities Who Have Received Honorary Doctorate Degrees (Including Taylor Swift, Céline Dion and More!). Skyler Caruso and James Mercadante. 

[4] See 

[5] University of Galway (02/12/2025) University of Galway partners with Government of Ukraine to strengthen democracy and media education. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Faking It At University 🪶 Galway Fake News Expert Goes The Extra Mile

Enda Craig ⬟ In older combined sewer systems, stormwater and domestic, commercial, and industrial wastewater are carried through the same pipes. 

Under normal conditions, wastewater treatment plants can process these flows provided the combined volume remains within the plant's treatment capacity.

Many treatment plants connected to combined sewer systems are equipped with retention basins designed to temporarily store excess rainfall. Once the rain subsides, the stored water is gradually released for treatment.

However, during prolonged or intense rainfall events, or periods of rapid snowmelt, these systems can quickly become overwhelmed. When both treatment plant capacity and retention basin storage are exceeded, overflow structures discharge a mixture of untreated sewage and stormwater directly into nearby rivers, estuaries, lakes, or coastal waters.

The environmental and public health consequences can be severe. Sewage-contaminated waters may contain harmful bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants, affecting water quality, marine ecosystems, bathing waters, and beach sand. Such contamination can render recreational waters unsafe for public use.

In a recent video, a respected Professor of Microbiology expressed serious concerns that beaches affected by sewage contamination may not always be tested before being declared safe for continued public use. If accurate, this raises significant questions about public health protection and whether beach users could unknowingly be exposed to contaminated water and sand.

Modern sewer infrastructure avoids many of these problems by separating wastewater and stormwater into different pipe networks. Wastewater from homes and industries is directed to treatment plants, while surface water runoff is conveyed separately to rivers, lakes, or the sea. By preventing large volumes of rainfall from entering treatment systems, separate sewer networks significantly reduce the risk of sewage overflows during extreme weather events.

Key Point: Combined sewer overflows are not treatment failures caused by negligence; they are a predictable consequence of ageing infrastructure that lacks the capacity to handle increasingly intense rainfall events. The result is that untreated sewage can be discharged directly into the environment precisely when water quality is already under pressure.

Lady's Bay Waste Water Treatment Plant in Buncrana is a perfect example of this fundamental underlying design fault which has destroyed the town's most important asset.

This important issue should be front and centre for discussion of any proposal to locate a WWTP inside the environs of Lough Foyle when Irish Water and Donegal Co Cl return to Moville in the near future.

⏩ Enda Craig is a Donegal resident and community activist.

How Outdated Sewer Systems Cope With Heavy Rainfall

Christopher Owens 🔖“All entertainment is political. Artists are like mirrors to the world, to society. We have to name things … it’s, like, such an important, intrinsic part of our job.”


This quote (from loser She-Hulk actor Tatiana Maslany) sums up the sheer contempt that a lot of people working in creative arts today have towards their respective mediums, seeing them as platforms for espousing their politics without any thought about creating something everlasting, beautiful or compelling.

It’s all about relevancy these days and the notion of things being "relevant/irrelevant" (boke) fucks me off. To simply dismiss something because it’s not in fashion/doesn’t line up with the current school of thought/isn’t commercially viable is not just the act of a dunderhead, it’s a confession that those doing the dismissal cannot process anything for themselves and need explicit approval from others to enjoy art.

This attitude has been evident for the last 25 years but it’s only since the mid-2010's where politics really began to equal relevancy. Be it climate change, Trump, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Gaza, if artists weren’t in line with the prevailing narrative (or worse, didn’t comment on politics at all) then they were in trouble.

It’s not sustainable, and this timely book from Alexandra Wilson offers us common sense on the topic.

Describing the current landscape, she paints a bleak picture:

We read of curators castigating the very art works they have been charged with looking after for historic sins. We hear of arts festivals being boycotted, either for platforming speakers/ artists of whom other speakers/artists disapprove of, or for taking money from sponsors whose investments are deemed to have failed a strict purity test...artistic spaces have become political battlegrounds, with theatres, concert halls and galleries now the go-to forum for protests about everything from distant war to climate change. What is going on?

Underpinning a now widespread insistence that the arts must constantly attend to politics is the notion that ‘everything is political’. This is an idea with its roots in academic theory, which has entered the mainstream conversation over the last decade. It is voiced not only by outspoken people with a drum to bang on social media or by journalists touting for clicks but also, in some cases, by the very people who run our arts institutions, as the arts find themselves at a strange intersection between managerial bureaucracy and progressive activism. There is no coordinated campaign, yet it is a way of thinking that has taken grip extremely widely in a short space of time.

Throughout the book, Wilson tackles issues related to a self-loathing arts sector that cannot argue for its existence, condescending approaches to the ordinary person, classic works being used as a springboard for the latest fashionable cause and a defence of art for art’s sake.

It’s a worthy topic and Wilson does a fine job in demonstrating how officials perpetuate the idea that art is an elitist hobby in order to try and make it more appealing to the masses by dumbing it down. It’s a genuinely maddening cycle of self-perpetuation. Crucially, she never makes a claim that all art must be devoted to the rehabilitation of the soul but that there should be room for both.

Although not the definitive take on the subject, it’s still a passionate polemic that should be used as a conversation starter when it comes to these issues.

Alexandra Wilson, 2026, Culture Vultures: When Activism Meets the Arts. Polity Books. ISBN: 978-1509571956

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Culture Vultures 📚 When Activism Meets The Arts

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Forty Six

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 23

 

A Morning Thought @ 3316

Jim Duffy ✍ I used to work as a tourist guide. 


We had a ghost - a monk with a badly cut tonsure. My colleague and I never saw him, but we repeatedly had the first tourist arriving in (and there is only one way in, past us) coming back and asking "who is the old monk with the cut on his head at the end of the slype?"
 
The first two times my colleague and I panicked, thinking that we had accidentally locked someone in the previous night, and rushed down there to find there was nobody there - and there is only one way in and out.

It always happened on Tuesday mornings around 10am. I took down details of the tourists in case it was some hoax being perpetrated, with a hotel telling tourists to claim they saw a ghost. The tourists were unrelated, staying in different locations, and often were in the country at different times. They all described him identically.
 
My work colleague and I never saw him but we noticed that on Tuesday morning the place would be unearthly cold. It was in the middle of a heat wave but we would have to put on our jackets and gloves. Then the cold would suddenly disappear.
 
The place was cold anyway. We had to wear winter clothes working there, then change to summer clothes to go outside to get something to eat. But this man, about five foot three, with a tonsure and a cut on it, was continually seen by tourists, always in the one spot where a blocked up door was. He'd be looking at the posters explaining the history of the building.

I was fascinated that tourists from the US, Canada, the UK, all across Europe and Asia all saw the man. It was always the first tourist on Tuesday morning who saw him. They all described the same man, and all thought he was a visitor. As I said there was only one entrance. We were sitting there. We knew for a fact the tourist who saw him was the first person in.
 
We presumed he was a monk who lived and died there and probably was buried there. The two of us there weren't unnerved by him. We never saw him ourselves and presumed he was just someone who lived there and kept coming back to visit a place. The spot he was seen standing in was a blocked up corridors. Monks had been buried a few feet away. The old abbey was demolished centuries ago but the chapter house survived in the middle of industrial buildings and was used as a grain silo. A hole had been cut in the roof to pour in the grain. The hole has since been concreted over.

The chapter house features in Irish history. It was the place where the Lord Deputy and privy council met, and into which Silken Thomas stormed to challenge the Lord Deputy when he wrongly thought his father, Gearóig Óg FitzGerald had been executed by Henry VIII. My work colleague and I used to say "can we not have the ghost of Silken Thomas or a Lord Deputy, rather than just an unknown small monk with a badly cut tonsure?"

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Ghostly

Anthony McIntyre ⚽There was little appetite for this final home match of the season.


A clash, with nothing depending on the outcome - Drogheda will still have to win the play off against UCD in Tallaght Stadium this Saturday to stay in top flight soccer - we turned up nonetheless. We didn't take the car this time, or Jay, which allowed Paddy to have a few drinks. First stop, Ollies at the bottom of the steps just short of the main Dublin Road. A shot of Paddy's for me and the black stuff for him got us in the mood to make the walk across the Boyne and onto the next watering hole, the Market Bar. More Guinness for Paddy and a Jameson for me made the bar stools that little bit harder to get out of. As we sipped or slurped the clock hands crept ever slowly up to kick-off time. By the point we stepped outside the Market warmth the ref's whistle had launched proceedings. Drogs v Galway in a dead rubber fixture just didn't have the same pull as the pub but we persevered,

Paddy left his phone in the pub. I rang it hoping it was not irretrievable. The bar staff had it safely tucked away behind the bar. I suggested to Paddy that we return and grab it, but he wasn't fussed, making the very wise suggestion that it would give us an excuse to take up where we left off on our way home. We walked into the ground and despite it being packed we managed to get two seats next to each other.

Then the hip flask came out. For this occasion I had filled it with Famous Grouse, a Scotch blend not of the preferred peated variety. We shared it. Next time we don't take the car, I'll fill two flasks.

The match was about twenty minutes in when we took our seats, with the score at 0-0. We were less interested in the outcome than we were in the final appearance for the club of Ryan Brennan who would be hanging up his boots for the last time. By sheer chance I bumped into his partner, Stephanie, and their daughter, there to cheer their beloved on for one last game. A late substitute, his entry to the fray was met with a standing ovation. He was always a wily player who led from the front while reading the game with the eye of accumulated wisdom. 


Drogs fans will always remember him fondly for captaining the side to victory in the FAI Cup final two seasons ago. Then it seemed that a corner had been turned. Six days after the Aviva victory over Derry we gathered at Tallaght to watch the Drogs, again led by Ryan Brennan, demolish Bray Wanderers to keep their place in the Premier Division. Now, the worm has turned and the sudden death battle for survival has to be fought again, this time without the wind of an FAI cup at Drogs backs.

Galway travelled to Louth safe in the knowledge that they would play Premiership soccer in 2027. Five points clear of their opponents going into the game, they knew they could not be caught. They had opened up their campaign against Drogheda back in February but suffered a defeat on their own turf. Another defeat in the their final game of the season reduced the gap to two points but it might as well have been a hundred. The maths simply made it all but impossible for the Claret and Blue. A big win over the Tribesmen had to be complemented by a huge defeat of Waterford by Shelbourne. Neither happened and the play-off grimly beckons.

The Drogs played well in a game where they didn't need to play at all. If only they would play well in the games where they need to they would not be in the precarious position of second from bottom, Sligo the only side with a worse record and destined for the drop. Despite our late arrival we were fortunate enough to see a brilliant long range strike from Brandon Kavanagh in the 35th minute. That lead was doubled in the second half with a fine lob of the keeper by Mark Doyle who had also provided Kavanagh's assist.

It was nice to see the return of Frantz Pierrot to Sullivan and Lambe, only this time turning out for a different tribe. It was even nicer to see his headed effort saved by Fynn Talley.

Game over, I walked across the aisle to bid goodbye to Stephanie and her daughter. As good fortune would have it Ryan came across the pitch to see them both. We shook hands and I wished him well. While he didn't always start in this his final season, when he did his passion and leadership on the field always meant that the Claret and Blue would not be the whipping boy for other teams looking an easy three points. 


We walked home from the game, calling into the Market for a swifter and to collect Paddy's phone. He stayed consistent as he did the entire evening, apart from the hip flask, whereas I made yet another swerve, on this occasion opting for Jack Daniels.

Our last call of the night was to my local, The Pheasant. This time it was Jim Beam while Paddy stayed in his lane. We parted company, each of us upright and steady on our feet. We knew we would see each other shortly for a clash we had hoped would never materialise: this Saturday's game against UCD. We'll give the juice a miss this time, building up a thirst for the following day's cup final clash between Derry and a resurgent Waterford. That's an all day session, one we perform routinely every year. If there is a hangover at the weekend it will arrive on Sunday morning courtesy of Drogheda being relegated. I don't get hangovers, so here's hoping it is a tradition that continues. 

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Drogs ⚽ Galway ⚽ Dead Rubber

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ On Friday 30th October a Judge at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin jailed for between eight and ten years three racist activists styling themselves the ‘Irish Defence Army’. 

For the record this group of miscreants are nothing to do with the 26 County Defence Forces in any way, shape or form. The Irish Defence Army is a violent extremist group that broke away from the very misleadingly called online network calling itself the ‘Irish Citizen Army’. This name for the online group is no coincidence, naming the group after the original Irish Citizen Army formed during the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout as a worker’s defence force which later, under the command of James Connolly, took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. 

The ICA of days gone by and James Connolly were an antithesis to everything this group of far-right activists represent, no doubt funded by the business fraternity or elements within. The Irish Citizen Army back in the early 20th century was Marxist led and staffed by trade unionists and James Connolly who was, judging by his writings and practices, anti-racist, and opposed sectarianism and anti-Semitism. While he was in the USA Connolly remonstrated with the descendants of George Washington over that family’s treatment of black people and their support for chattel slavery while talking of freedom in the next sentence. He also argued with Irish migrants over their verbal and physical attacks on Chinese and Italian workers, arguing the host workers had issued the same assaults, threats, and insults to Irish immigrants when they arrived claiming the Irish were ‘taking American jobs.’ Ring any bells? The use of the name Irish Citizen Army and therefore indirectly invoking the name of James Connolly is no coincidence and is no doubt the brain child of somebody with a knowledge of Irish history which probably rules out the foot soldiers. If Connolly was around today, he would undoubtedly oppose such neo-fascist organisations as these.

The three jailed racists, Garrett Pollock, Darren Gorman, and Karolis Peckauskas were planning to bomb a Mosque in Galway. The sentencing Judge maintained the men did not represent the majority of Irish people. On this point she was correct but the unsavoury question must be asked how much support do these racist groups have in the Twenty-Six-Counties? Looking at some responses on so-called social media that support appears not as isolated as once thought. Of the jailed men somebody called Darryl Millar claimed they are ‘3 legends’ while Neil Bagani said; ‘Can’t get that song “god save Ireland said our heroes” out of my head all day’. I doubt very much those who the song is about, William Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O’Brien hanged in Manchester 1867 and became known as the ‘Manchester Martyrs’ would have anything in common with people like Neil Bagani! Another fool, Gavin Linden, added:

Don’t know who the judge was speaking for when she described them as “embarrassing Ireland”. Certainly was not speaking for me nor anyone I know personally or familiarly. 

These are just a few of the many messages of ignorant support for the would-be bombers and I would hazard a guess that none of these ‘would-be-heroes’, bombing people who have never done them any harm, would lift a finger to remove the British presence in the Six-Counties.

Passing sentence on Friday 30th October at the Special Criminal Court Justice Caroline Biggs stated; ‘modern Ireland is a multicultural and diverse country’ adding these men’s ‘actions bring shame on it’. Obviously, our social media warriors do not share the Judges opinions of the sentenced men’s actions if as one stated they are ‘3 legends’ or should that perhaps be 3 leg ends? Nevertheless anti-fascists cannot ignore the fact that cowards they may be, hiding behind their little mobile phone and Facebook, the numbers of respondents on social media supporting such acts are increasing. Or perhaps being politically illiterate these modern wannabe SA men (Hitler’s thugs during the 1920s) have not worked out how this far-right pecking order works. Firstly those at the very top do not get their hands dirty, that is what the men sentenced are for. The top people in these organisations, and those in the Twenty-Six-Counties are very much the junior partners in the broader scheme of things, remain faceless until such time as a real push for power is within their grasp. They are very often financed by medium to large business concerns who see fascism as their insurance against socialism and threats to their wealth, usually obtained through the principle of exploitation. 

In the meantime populist politicians like Herman Kelly, Malachy Steenson, and Gavin Pepper fill the void but will have no place in any future far-right administration, they too are mere tools of the times. The foot soldiers having served their purpose are then arrested and, just like now, put in prison only for longer. The far-right will use them to instigate trouble, get their candidates elected, then when they continue to cause street problems because nobody has told them not to do it anymore it’s thanks a million and ten years. Malachy Steenson, once considered by some on the left-wing of republicanism now viewed on the far-right, would probably have his leftwards political past evaluated and denied any responsible position in the future neo-fascist regime. 

We are, however, a long way from this scenario and, hopefully, will never live under a right wing ‘terroristic’ regime. For the men sentenced on Friday I would advise they read how Hitler in the Third Reich used foot soldiers just like themselves, a bit lacking when it comes to politics, then claiming ‘only he could stop the violence on the streets,’ (Marine Le Pen is presently claiming in France) or so he told the electorate, was voted into government and threw such street troublemakers into a concentration camp which make any prison on the island of Ireland (now Long Kesh is closed) a picnic!

Any protests against the far-right are dealt with by the Gardai much more aggressively than racist groups protesting against migrants. This is always the case, and always has been, simply because the neo-fascists and racists are no threat to capitalism. The anti-fascists tend to be also anti-capitalists, though not exclusively, and the state view them as a serious threat to the ‘economic stability’ of the ruling-classes. 

Fascism, orthodox or the updated neo-fascism, is an extension of capitalism in crisis. For that reason the bourgeoisie need this form of ‘the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital’ as their defence of class positions against the communists and socialists. 

The media seldom report the times anti-fascists reportedly kicked the likes of neo-Nazi Justin Barret and his cohorts off the streets but they do show the increase in support for racists albeit in a guarded, for now, manner. Of all the isms capitalism fears only one, and that is true communism. Fascism might not be its preferred form of capitalism but if push came to shove, as was the case in Germany and Italy during the 1920s and 30s, the bourgeoisie would lean heavily on this ideology. The time is not right for the likes of the men thrown into jail which is why they were given long prison sentences, their thuggery is not yet needed. Hopefully they will catch themselves on before it’s too late.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Is Racist Extremism On The Rise In The 26 Counties?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Forty Four

 

A Morning Thought @ 3315

Andrew Quinn ☭ Writing in Red Network.

The late great revolutionary trade unionist James Connolly said it best: “As Long as I live I will have no rest, only fighting to destroy the forces that produce poverty”.


Many of us working class people now find ourselves in that very same position as the ongoing cost of living crisis drives up inflation across the board affecting all the everyday workers who keep this country going day in and day out.

This brings me to the news of the upcoming November 12th strike Day across the public sector on account of government and unions failing to come to terms on a real public sector pay increase.

Both the government and our union leaders have been left with egg on their faces for different reasons.

The Government as per usual have shown their true colours not even bringing a credible offer to the table for the unions to ballot their members on. The offer of 1.75% this year when inflation is at 4.1% is a joke.

The same goes for the 2.5% a year for next year and the year after. The governments offer turns out to be a pay cut and they want “productivity” in return?

Yet the government claim its the unions' fault and in turn unions are blaming the government in a cat and mouse game.

The truth is both sides are to blame after two weeks of fruitless talks with no end in sight to this dispute. Unions were wrong to call off the follow up stoppage on October 21st after the first Oct 14th stoppage. They pulled pickets prematurely.

The Oct 14th strike showed great community sprit across the country, however their was a feeling of disappointment from people like myself out on picket lines that union communication needed to be massively improved.

Lack of organising was evident on the 14th. Issues such as not enough union banners, placards and lack of reps on some picket lines and workers not knowing where to go and for how long.

Then came the unions collective mistake off calling the October 21st strike to enter talks when a deal wasn’t even on the table!

Rule number one of negotiations is have something to bargain with and this wasn’t the case at all, and that left a sour taste in workers mouths including mine as many workers were not being kept informed on talks between the unions and government officials.

Merely just email and WhatsApp messages plus whispering information giving little to nothing away and being very vague on how talks were progressing - this only frustrated workers even further and rightly so.

Which begs the question should workers be in the negotiations room?

The answer is yes as the workers are the bread and butter of this country. We are all the means of production and distribution in our workplaces and the unions need to do better.

I’m in the Red Network because the Red Network’s message is simple: put workers in the driving seat of a planned economy. The same needs to happen in our unions. Put the grassroots in control and we’d have fighting unions.

It starts with educating workers on the topics that affect them and holding workshops that target these type of closed door negotiations. Instead of union bureaucrats selling out members to the government we need open democratic discussion at every stage.

Many workers feel let down and misinformed and that’s unacceptable. We will enthusiastically build the November 12th strike. But the power to pull that picket is still in the hands of our leaders. not the members. It would be a huge mistake if they cancelled this strike too.

As we’ve seen across other EU countries such as France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium Italy and Netherlands workers are in the same boat as us they are protesting all throughout November for the same reasons we are in Ireland which is to fight back against an anti-worker government.

Either union officials step up or step aside and put workers in the driving seat, grassroots workers that will hold the government accountable for their mismanagement of the public sector pay deals.

Let’s get ready for the strike on November 12th. The best steps to take are the following ahead of strike.

Keep up the pressure on your union reps to make sure their doing everything in their power to achieve the best deal for workers. Email HQ, get onto your reps, let them hear us loud and clear.

Stay informed, opt in to receive all union information via emails, Whatsapp group chats, email newsletters, as well as following all union based social media outlets.

Stay mobilised in your workplaces, elect a strike committee, discuss the deal, stick together as there is always strength in numbers.

Make sure your adhering to your work to rule protocols as they can be upgraded at any time.

We all collectively need to learn from past mistakes do better in the present in order to have the future we all need and deserve not only for ourselves but for future generations to come. See you on the picket lines!

⏩Andrew Quinn is a public sector worker and Red Network activist.

How Do We Get Consistently Fighting Unions?

Heartlands Tribune ☭  Written by Paul Knaggs

“Expand or Die”: Biden’s 1997 Plan to Save NATO And The Consequences

The Soviet Union collapsed, and NATO’s job was done. Instead, the alliance went looking for customers, and Joe Biden read out the prospectus in 1997.

I served in the British Army during the Cold War, in a regiment whose entire purpose rested on the darkest calculation of that age: that the final line against nuclear escalation was the absolute certainty of what would follow it. Mutually assured destruction. MAD. A terrible doctrine, but one designed to prevent an even more terrible reality. Our purpose was never to win a nuclear war. It was to ensure nobody dared start one.

We trained for a war that must never happen. And it didn’t.

The Warsaw Pact dissolved. The Soviet Union ceased to exist. The Third Shock Army, which we had spent our working lives preparing to confront, folded up and went home. And when the Cold War was over, our regiment was disbanded. Its job was done.

There is something in that transition which our political and military institutions seem to have forgotten: when the threat that justifies an institution’s existence disappears, its continued existence ought to be questioned.

Continue @ Heartlands.

We Won The Cold War 🪶 We Were Never Allowed To Win The Peace

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