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Gary Robertson ⚽ August 20th, 2026 marks the 45th anniversary of the passing of hunger striker Michael Devine. Thoughts are with his family, friends and comrades. 

European football returned to Celtic Park. Wednesday the 19th of August saw the champions of Scotland face the champions of Austria in the first leg of a Champions League qualifier.

As with most things Celtic I’m usually pretty nervous come kick off time. And so when LASK scored in 29 seconds I feared for the night ahead. Thankfully this goal, a cracker BTW, was flagged offside. The score remained 0-0 and I was able to breathe one very large sigh of relief.
 
Shots from Duran, the first Colombian to play for Scotland's premier club, in the 7th and 9th min showed Celtic were capable of getting behind the LASK defence and causing problems.
 
However at the other end the speedy Nigerian Moses Usor made life difficult for a Celtic defence lacking pace.
 
The breakthrough coming from the boot of Benjamin Nygren in the 26th minute was well worth the wait. A left foot half volley into the top corner of the LASK net sent the stadium into raptures along with the millions watching at home, in bars and other places around the world.
 
A moment of warning for Celtic as a beautiful cross into the box met the head of LASK's big USA striker Samuel Adeniran who fortunately for Celtic fans was rightly judged to be offside. A second LASK celebration cut short.
 
Then the second moment of pure footballing magic: a volley from the 18 yard line thundered from the boot of star man Duran and crashed into the net. The Hoops were 2-0 ahead. The stuff dreams are made of. His first at Celtic Park and one we and he will never forget.
 
Celtic were in the driving seat and in the second half a McGregor shot came crashing back off the post showed the Bhoys were in the mood for more. And so it transpired in the 67th minute when some world class link up play between Nygren and Duran created the opportunity for the South American to fire home his second.
 
On the night Celtic were formidable and probably the best they’ve been for a quite some considerable time.
 
Martin O’Neill's men have one foot in the champions league group stage. It’s all in their hands with the return leg played on Tuesday 25th August.
 
Here’s hoping 🤞
 
Meanwhile the picture is less rosy on the other side of the city. Regular readers will know that despite by obvious preferences I try to remain unbiased. But right now it’s difficult to look at The Rangers as anything other than a very very poor imitation of the great teams of the past that played at that stadium in those shirts.
 
McInnes has spent money, a lot of money and still the threat appears to be missing. One swallow does not make a summer and as pointed out last week beating a poor St Mirren side may have looked good on paper but the football isn’t a great watch.
 
Rangers are floundering in the Conference League, most certainly not where they hoped to be but a situation of their own making.
 
So when they took to the pitch against a team ranked outside the top 150 in UEFA rankings, Rangers themselves ranked 49, I’m sure the home fans expected an easy goal-laden Thursday evening.
What transpired was pitiful to say the least.
 
Don’t get me wrong there are players at the club who can turn on the magic but honestly, and I’m sure Rangers fans would agree, most look well out of their depth.
 
There’s a massive difference playing for a club like Hearts where finishing in the top six and perhaps a trophy every few years will suffice, to turning up at Ibrox where you’re expected to win every game, where fans desperate for success put enormous pressure on the players. It can be all too much for some.
Rangers scrambled over the line in this one. After the half time boos, an all too common phenomenon at “The big hoose” , the second half was only slightly better. Some nice interplay managed to land the ball at the feet of Naderi, and the big German (whom we pointed out as one to watch last season - little self promotion here 🤣 - I need it believe me as you’ll see)) tapped home to give the home side a 1-0 victory. A horror tackle by Cammy Devlin in the 74th minute was originally missed by the referee but having been called over to the monitor the man in the middle saw what we all saw and Devlin walked. All I’ll say about this is if you lunged at someone on the street like this you’d have been arrested for assault and in all honesty the victim of this is incredibly lucky not to have sustained a very serious injury.
 
In other European news Motherwell's disastrous week continued as they lost 3-1 at home to Frieburg. With an away leg to come it’s an uphill task for the Steel men. Hibernian managed a respectable 0-0 against Belgian side Gent.
 
Hearts also gained some credibility with a 2-2 home draw with Rapid Vienna.

Outside of Scotland,Shamrock Rovers drew 1-1 at home with Finnish side KuPS and Larne took care of Lincoln Red Imps with a comfortable 2-0 away victory.
 
Celtic lost away to Lincoln Red Imps on July 12th 2016, so I guess it’s only right I acknowledge Larne doing what Celtic couldn’t.

Anyhow . . . 

With second leg European ties to look forward to the SPL was postponed this weekend with only one game taking place but a mouthwatering prospect (or so it seemed) of a Dundee derby to wrap up your Saturday night.
 
I don’t like to climb down, I’d rather hide than admit I was wrong but I was so wrong about Dundee United.
 
Against Celtic, despite coming out on the wrong side of a 4-0 drubbing, I could see promise in their play. This was however absent completely from their game at home to their rivals. They looked disjointed, disorganised, never looked like a threat to the Dundee defence and got everything they deserved.
 
A 2-0 victory for Dundee was fully deserved and questions must be asked about Goodwin's management of the club. I suspect he’s living very much on borrowed time.
 
Whilst scouring fan forums and reports on this game I was desperately trying to find some words of encouragement for fans of the club once known as Dundee Hibernian. Sadly there’s nothing. United were outdone in every department and the five minute walk back to Dens Park for the away team (tradition has it that teams walk to the opposition's ground in this derby such is the proximity of both grounds) must have filled them with confidence going forward.
 
For fans of United it looks bleak and while it’s early days, losing as well as winning can become a habit and, in the words of the band “Chicago”, a hard habit to break.
 
Scottish Championship news: last weeks giant killers Stenhousemuir remain top of the table after a 2-0 victory over bottom of the table Queen’s Park.
 
Partick and Raith Rovers also share top spot, with Partick having drawn with Inverness on Friday night, dropping two points in the process, and Raith Rovers taking care of business with a 2-0 victory over the men from Somerset Park, Ayr United.

League One and Hamilton remain a point clear at the top after a less than convincing 0-0 draw at The Bayview Stadium, the home of East Fife. Second place Ross County closed the gap to within a point with a comfortable over Airdrie. East Kilbride in third however crashed to an unexpected humiliation at the hands of Montrose, who proved my fears of last week to be unfounded, in a 3-0 victory that lifts Montrose “The Gable endes” as they’re known, off the foot of the table.

Finally last but not least League Two.
 
Clyde continue to head the table with a 3-0 victory over Forfar who now sit third. Second place Elgin fought out a thrilling 3-3 draw with Spartans. Much to keep the 445 in attendance with both sides awarded a penalty and incident galore with the away fans having to endure a 234 mile round trip if not the score they hoped for. As Maximus Decimus Meridius yelled in the 2000 movie Gladiator “were you not entertained”? The answer must be a resounding yes.
 
Keilty Hearts overcame Dumbarton 3-1 to remain within touching distance of the top of the table with three points separating the four clubs.

Premiership action returns on the 29th with Celtic at home to Falkirk, and on Sunday Rangers away to Aberdeen which will be shown on Sky Sports at 12pm.

So that’s a week that belonged to Celtic, to Duran in particular. Onward and upward troops.

Have a great week, whatever you’re doing have fun, stay safe and take care.

Til next time ……

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Duran Duran

Heartlands Tribune ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs. Recommended by Mark Hayes. 

Broken Rules, Silent Leaders: The Institutional Rot Inside UNISON

When UNISON allowed a biological male to stand for a seat reserved for disabled women, it broke trade union law and its own constitution. When seven nurses were harassed in their changing room, it looked the other way. Britain’s largest union has not merely lost its way; it has actively turned on the female members who fund it.

An institution is never truly tested by the glossy rhetoric of its annual conference, nor by the high-sounding platitudes of its press releases. It is tested by its rulebook. We understand instinctively that when a person breaks a solemn promise, that failure becomes the measure of their character. Yet we extend a strange, forgiving leniency to our institutions, whether they are governments, churches, or trade unions. We allow them to wrap themselves in the language of moral righteousness while ignoring the binding contracts they wrote when nobody was striking a pose.

UNISON, a union built on the dues of more than 1.3 million members, three-quarters of whom are women, wrote its constitution with unusual precision. Its drafters knew exactly what they were doing.

Continue @ Heartlands Tribune.

The Ideological Capture Of UNISON 🪶 A Crisis Inside Britain’s Trade Unions

Barry Gilheany ✍ In what has been greeted as a victory for academic freedom and freedom of speech . . . 

. . . or seen as valediction for contemporary antisemitism masquerading as antizionism, depending on one’s opinion or stake in this controversial saga, David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol, won his case for unfair dismissal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against his former employer who had dismissed him for his post because of their determination that he had not met the standards of behaviour expected from staff. 

The dismissal related to allegations from students that Professor Miller had engaged in antisemitism during one of his lectures. He was ultimately cleared of any unlawful behaviour and in August 2026, after an appeal by Bristol University authorities against the earlier judgement, the EAT upheld the 2024 employment tribunal findings that Professor Miller’s anti-Zionist beliefs constituted a protected philosophical belief under Section 10 of the Equalities Act 2010.[1]

The finding that Professor’s Miller’s beliefs had statutory protection goes to the heart of the debates surrounding his actions. For his supporters, the EAT ruling upheld the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech against a concerted campaign by Zionist and Israeli backed lobbies to silence him. For his opponents, Miller was an avatar for the rising antisemitism on and off campus, noting his stigmatisation of Jewish communal organisations like the Community Security Trust (CST) as agents of the Israeli state. Exactly which antizionist beliefs have legal protection and to what extent and precisely what sort of philosophical beliefs enjoy this privilege are also raised by the EAT ruling. At the outset, I wish to state that the bar of academic/scholarly/literary opinion and judgement is a much better forum for the resolution of or judgement on the types on intellectual imbroglios like the Miller case than the blunt instrument of the law. That Professor Miller has been vindicated in law and intends to return to his post should not preclude critical scrutiny of the ideas he promotes and his research methodology.

But first it is necessary to give an outline of how the controversy played out. In 2019, Miller said that Israel was supporting interfaith events involving Muslims and Jews as a trojan horse to increase the acceptance of Zionism in the Muslim community. As an example, he mentioned a gathering of Muslims and Jews at the East London mosque.[2]

Sabrina Miller, Campaigns Officer at Bristol University’s Jewish Students Society (JSoc) and who had campaigned for Miller’s dismissal, wrote a number of articles about him. According to Ms Miller, JSoc had complained about Miller’s “Harms of the Powerful” lecture module. Miller had used a Powerpoint slide during one lecture, which he had created in 2013, aiming to demonstrate the existence of a Zionist network in Britain. Among this presentation was a description of Zionism as one of “The Five Pillars of Islamophobia. The University rejected the complaint on the grounds that Miller’s lectures did not contain any material that was hostile to Jews and therefore could not be considered antisemitic.[3]

On 17 March 2021 Bristol University announced that it had begun an investigation into Miller on the basis of a series of comments Miller had had made in the recent past on Zionism and its influence on British politics and Jewish communal life. The probe focused largely on a nine-minute video he posted on You Tube in which he accused Israel of an “all out onslaught on the left globally” and demanded “the end of Zionism as a functioning ideology”. He further accused the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) of endangering the safety of Muslim students on campus as it “is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel” and the alleged “UJS lobbying for Israel us a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students as well as of Jewish students and indeed of all critics of Israel”. He went on to asset:

There is a real question of abuse here – of Jewish students on British campuses being used by a violent foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.

He said that the complaints by Jewish student groups against him were part of “a drive to stop anyone speaking out about Palestine”.[4]


In that video also he condemned the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism as “manufactured controversies around Judeophobia – such as in my case – are being used to silence criticism of Zionism and Israel” which was the purpose of the definition “in practice”. He mused that “If Saudi Arabia was engaged in a similar censorship campaign on British campuses, we would laugh it out of the room.”[5]

In my view, it is appropriate at this juncture to point out that that the surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party of Chinese students and the violent targeting of dissidents on British campuses by tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes like Iraq under Saddam Hussein; Libya under Colonel Gadaffi and the Islamic Republic of Iran would hardly qualify to be laughed out of court as they have actually occurred.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary launched an investigation into possible hate crime but found no evidence with which to pursue it. Battle lines soon formed for and against the main protagonist in this latest cause celebre over free speech, antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Marie van der Zyl, then President of the Board of Deputies for British Jews, said in a letter on 19 February 2021 that Miller’s “increasingly hysterical attacks on British Jewish organisations were raising the prospect of real physical harm”. She cited Miller’s “particular obsession” with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body which monitors and collates attacks on British Jews and arranges security for Jewish communal buildings like synagogues and schools, which he had said, “should be under investigation for its ties with the State of Israel.” The then Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, whose constituency included Bristol University, denounced Miller’s remarks as did the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.[6]

On 4 March 2021 historian David Feldman, a critic of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, wrote that Miller’s work on Israel and Zionism was in the tradition of ‘conspiracy theorists [who] have pointed to Jews as the malign force driving the modern world. In April 2021, 550 academics including Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore signed a letter condemning Professor Miller. Support for Miller came from the Iranian regime backed Press TV network which wrote that there was a concerted campaign against Professor Miller” and “intense activity by the Zionist lobby across the length and breadth of the British political landscape”.[7]

Bristol University terminated Miller’s employment with “immediate effect” on 1 October 2021 as “he did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff." The precise reasons for the university’s conclusion were confidential but the Guardian reported they were understood not to cover the content of lectures. The university disciplinary hearing involved a third-party investigation by a QC who found Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”[8]

In response to Miller’s sacking, a Change.Org petition was set up which gathered over 40,000 signatures. An open letter to the university was signed by hundreds of public intellectuals and academics including world renowned figures such as Noam Chomsky and Professor Judith Butler as well as several dozen Bristol University academics calling for his reinstatement. This letter stated that 

Professor Miller is an eminent scholar, is known internationally for exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates including on racism.

A separate letter signed by hundreds of Jewish supporters of Miller, stated that:

Jewish opinion on Zionism has always been diverse and that the attacks on Miller will chill free speech on Israel if left unchallenged.[9]

In 2023, Miller commended employment tribunal proceedings, claiming “unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination on grounds of religion or belief” and was duly vindicated by the tribunal on 5 February 2024. A statement from Miller’s solicitors said that Miller successfully claimed discrimination based on his philosophical belief that Zionism is “inherently racist, imperialist and colonial” was a protected characteristic under equality legislation. The judgement did say that there was a thirty per cent chance he would have been sacked for additional social media comments he made two months after his sacking had he still been employed by Bristol University. In August 2026 the EAT dismissed the university’s appeal, confirming the protection of his philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act. Professor Miller has since stated his intention to return to his former post.

So ran the course of an employment dispute which became a crucible for the discussion of so many issues related as to what exactly are the boundaries of academic inquiry and the integrity of it and free speech generally versus the sensibilities of an ethno-religious community or some constituent parts of it which in turn raises the questions of the plurality of thought and the arbiters of opinion within that community – British Jewry. Writing from a Jewish and Zionist perspective, Gill Levy gives a candid and refreshingly clear analysis of the issues at stake. He starts from the observation that:

a functioning democracy has to protect thought and belief it dislikes, not just thought it likes. Take away the principle that lets any ugly belief be protected and you take away the same principle that protects Jews’ beliefs in Israel’s religious significance or in Jewish self-determination from being treated as a sackable offence.[10]

He goes on to make the point that the tribunal had found David Miller’s philosophical beliefs “to be a qualified protection, not a license.” Miller’s belief “passed the legal test in large part because, cross-examined other oath, he said he was not supportive or open to the use of violence as a means of opposing Zionism” which the tribunal accepted. He states that tweets he posted after 7 October, including #FromtheRivertotheSea “were kept out of the case precisely because they lay outside the narrower belief he had pleaded and defended.”[11]

So, in Levy’s interpretation, the main takeaway in the Miller case, belief is protected not the use of violence (and I would argue the advancement of undemocratic means to pursue it). To take this logic further, Islam is a protected belief, but the outpourings of hate preachers like Abu Hamza are not. Belief in a United Ireland or the maintenance of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, Scottish, Basque, Catalan independence are protected by the Equality Act; the use of violence or armed struggle in pursuit of these goals are not.[12]

Levy concludes by stating that if Antizionism clears the bar as a protected belief, then Zionism does too. Furthermore, when the Public Sector Equality Duty applies in the very act that protects David Miller every police force, local authority and public body must eliminate discrimination against holders of that belief, advance their equality of opportunity and foster good relations between Zionists and everyone else.[13]

To conclude, no matter how offensive David Miller’s beliefs are to those affected by them, they should be challenged using the weapons of intellect, reason and scholastic evidence not the law. Bearing in mind David Miller’s record in contributing to conspiracy theories over the Syrian White Knights as agents of Al-Queda and Western intelligence services and the denial of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons assault on the town of Douma in 2017 (proved conclusively as regime atrocity by Bellingham Open Source intelligence), it should not be too difficult for competent scholars to bore holes in his conspiracist narratives around Zionism and the antisemitic tropes about Jewish global influence that they echo.

References  

[1] Wikipedia

[2] Wikipedia

[3] Wikipedia

[4] Lee Harpin, 2021. Academic calls Bristol JSoc ‘Israel’s pawn’ Jewish Chronicle.18 February.

[5] Ibid

[6] Wikipedia

[7] Wikipedia

[8] Wikipedia

[9] Wikipedia

[10] Gill Levy, 2026. David Miller’s win is not our loss – it is the law protecting even repugnant beliefs. Jewish Chronicle. Opinion 11 August.

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid

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

The Miller’s Tale 🪶The David Miller Case, Academic Freedom, Freedom Of Speech And Contemporary Antisemitism

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3244

People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani.. Reposted from the Fare Free London web site.

20-August-2026

The government could make all bus journeys in the UK free, at a cost of about £5.6 billion per year, a report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) shows.

That £5.6 billion is less than one-eighth of the £50 billion that tax justice campaigners say could be raised each year by taxing wealth more effectively.

Fare Free London joined a picket of the department of energy last month, organised by
Fuel Poverty Action, demanding action on energy bills and the cost of living

The NEF report, Getting Moving on the Cost of Living, shows that bus and rail fares have risen faster than the rate of inflation over the last 25 years, and “a high, and growing, level of car dependency has resulted”.

That leaves households “exposed to the high costs of car ownership, particularly when fuel prices spike”. And so transport is the largest expense, excluding mortgage payments, for rural households, and the second largest for urban households.

“Universal public transport provision can be one of the most foundational and transformative approaches to addressing inequality”, authors Paula Castro Rodriguez and Alex Chapman argue. It is “also key to a fast green transition”.

The report’s authors looked at three policy options aimed at cutting the cost of bus travel: free bus travel for all, a £1 fare cap, and free bus travel for under-25s. They also checked on the cost of a £1 fare cap plus free travel for under-25s.

They argue that a big expansion of bus services would be needed, reversing the drastic cuts of the last few decades.

Their projections assumed that abolishing fares would produce 884 million new journeys in the first year, and more than double that in the long term; that more than 15,000 new buses would be put on the road; and that bus users of all ages would save £110 per year on average; young people’s savings would be greater, at least £150 per year.

Such a scheme would cost the government an estimated £4.3 billion in the first year and £5.6 billion per year after that, the report says.

Among those who would benefit most directly from free bus travel are young people, the NEF report says. They are “particularly exposed to the transport cost of living”, with the high cost of car ownership pushing it out of reach for many.

Young people need mobility to access work and education opportunities.

Schemes in Scotland, and around the world, show that free, or ultra-cheap, public transport can open up opportunities for young people and support them into good work.

We in Fare Free London believe that, if the government was committed to free public transport, it would find the money somehow.

It is not hard to raise it by taxing wealth, for example – and, given the gigantic leap forward that it would be for social justice and climate action, well worth it.

Think about the £5.6 billion a year that NEF reckons free buses would cost. That is less than one-eighth of the £50 billion per year that the government could raise by “closing unfair loopholes and implementing credible, achievable reforms”, identified in a recent report by Tax Justice UK and Patriotic Millionaires.

“The UK’s unequal tax system is stacked in favour of the super-rich”, the report says:

Unfair loopholes and far lower rates of tax on income from wealth than work mean the wealthiest in our society often pay proportionally lower taxes than the average person.

The two groups propose a 2% tax on assets over £10 million (to raise up to £24 billion a year); reforms to the Capital Gains Tax to close loopholes (£11.3 billion a year); extending National Insurance to non-dividend investment income and partnership income (£6.1 billion a year); and other measures.

Other tax campaign groups have come up with similar numbers. The Taxing Wealth Report showed how £90 billion could be raised each year from straightforward reforms to the existing tax system, focused only on those who earn money from investment or rents.

Just putting a charge analogous to national insurance on investment income would close a tax avoidance loophole and raise £18 billion, the report’s author Richard Murphy writes.

The research group Positive Money says £12.5 billion could have been raised this year, just by a windfall tax on the four largest banks.

And all the tax justice campaign groups say that money invested in reducing cross-border tax evasion would bring handsome results. The UK loses about £33.5 billion a year that way, the Tax Justice Network reckons.

🔴 On Tuesday 29 September, at 7.0pm, Fare Free London is holding an event on “How to Make Public Transport Free”, at the Golden Lane community centre, London EC1Y 0SA. We will hear from councillor Julie Frêche of the Montpellier metropolitan area in France, where public transport has been free since 2023, and hold our annual meeting. All welcome! See details and register here.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

Effective Taxes On Wealth Could Fund Abolition Of Bus Fares

Independent Dublin Republicans 🏴 are to commemorate the ten republican hunger strikers who died in the H Blocks resisting British state terrorism.

Date: 30-August-2026.

Time: 1400.

Venue: Garden of Remembrance, Dublin.

Hunger Strike Commemoration 🏴 45th Anniversary

Dr John Coulter ✍ With both the A level and GCSE results issued, and with the next school year only a matter of days away from kicking off, many Christian churches will also be contemplating their activities for the winter session.

While many places of worship will be congratulating themselves on the success of their summer schemes and holiday bible club activities, those same churches will face the same challenges come September - how do we compete with the secular world’s activities?

Put bluntly, how do we make the Christian faith and its organisations relevant in an increasingly pluralist society? For many communities, especially in the Sixties and Seventies, life was built around two buildings - the school and the place of worship. But this is 2026, not 1966 or 1976.

Even as a Presbyterian minister’s son growing up in the heartland of the north east Ulster Bible Belt in that late 20th century era, I will openly admit I lived a very sheltered upbringing.

My life revolved around two buildings - my school, Ballymena Academy and its cross country and athletics clubs, and Clough Presbyterian Church, in the north Antrim hills, with the Saturday youth club, Friday night company section of the Boys’ Brigade, Sunday Bible class, Sabbath services and Sunday evening youth fellowship.

But that era of church dominance has sadly passed into history. The competition which Christian places of worship now face in this third decade of the third millennium are much more challenging.

In the Sixties and Seventies, community organisations would generally organise their activities to suit the local church’s calendar of events. But in 2026, the churches are having to compete for attention with many other organisations - as well as the internet and satellite television.

Sunday sport has gone well beyond Gaelic games. Gone are the days in many homes when Sunday television was banned. In soccer terms, Super Sundays are now the order of the day. The number of places of worship which run a Sunday evening service seems to be diminishing, even among the mainstream Christian denominations.

Even those few churches which have Sunday evening worship, the service can begin just as the final whistles are sounding in many English and Scottish Premiership soccer games with some younger folk checking the scores on their mobile phones, much to the annoyance of the dwindling older generation!

The debates will still rage as to how to attract more folk into the pews, especially on Sundays, let alone the mid-week Bible studies and prayer meetings. The Covid pandemic of 2020 saw churches closed and many going online.

That online provision still exists in many places of worship. Why go to the bother of getting dressed for church when you can roll out of bed on a Sunday morning, press a few buttons, and share worship online with your fellow Christians. Your tithe can also be paid via online banking.

Folk naturally don’t need to put on their ‘Sunday best’ to watch the service online. When face to face services resumed after lockdown, there seemed to be a more noticeably relaxed dress code among worshippers in some denominations.

Even among the clergy, the clerical collar and robes were replaced in many cases with either a shirt and tie, or even an open-neck shirt. Of course, many in the pensioner brigade would continue to wear the ‘Sunday best’, but the concept of the casual Christian was most notable among the younger generation where even sporting tops became acceptable, much to the annoyance of the so-called older ‘tut-tut’ brigade!

More modern translations of the Bible, compared to the traditional King James Version have become common place in many churches. Many places of worship now have a praise band rather than just the piano or church organ for singing.

The churches which seem to be thriving are those who invest in their young people and make attendance at worship attractive. Traditionalists may argue that making church more appealing to young folk is diluting the Christian message.

Whilst these traditionalists are entitled to their opinions, the fact remains that young folk are the lifeblood of a future generation of a place of worship. If a place of worship constantly focuses on the needs of the pensioner brigade, what happens to that church when that generation eventually literally dies off and the cash flow stops?

Could we see more denominations having to close buildings, merge congregations or curtail their activities because it is becoming financially impossible to maintain the premises?

Perhaps the bitter medicine many places of worship will have to face is that if they wish to survive as an integral part of the community, they will have to abandon the ‘holy huddle’ mindset and go out into the communities they supposedly seek to serve.

Abandoning a strict dress code for Sunday worship may well be the solution to attracting more poverty line families or single parent families into places of worship. Allowing women to attend Sunday worship without having to wear a hat or giving women a greater role in church life would be two positive solutions. Could churches invest in esports and computer games to attract more young people and adults?

Churches may also have to evaluate their Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision and make their buildings more disability friendly. More importantly, places of worship need to carry out detailed surveys as to what folk in their communities are interested in in terms of activities.

This leads to the simple question - are there activities and functions which the churches could provide which would attract more folk into the pews without diluting the Christian message?

In an increasingly secular society, the evangelical message of becoming ‘born again’ may not be as popular as the great traditional missions in churches and tents of the Sixties and Seventies.

Is it sadly a case that for some places of worship, all they want is their church to become the bowling club at prayer on the Sabbath, and if the cleric continues to preach a staunch evangelical Gospel message, just drive them out?

For some churches this September when considering their activities, it could be a case of mapping out the long-term survival or existence of that place of worship.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

How To Make The Christian Church Relevant In 2026

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy One

 

A Morning Thought @ 3243

Kate Rice ✍ Like most people, I have seen the recent social media posts condemning those who have defaced the mural dedicated to Brendan Hughes in Twinbrook.

I have also seen the comments going back and forth, blaming agents of Sinn Fein, youth branches, or some anonymous person with a spray paint can.

I am not here to cast blame. It can’t be said definitively who has done it, though the reasons behind the accusations have their standing in history - Sinn Fein and friends are no strangers to turning their backs on Brendan Hughes, or using his memory to bolster their image. The image of Gerry Adams holding his coffin despite Brendan’s expressed wishes against this comes to mind.

Regardless of where the finger of blame can be pointed, the act itself deserves condemnation, no matter who committed it. Areas like West Belfast are filled with murals committing to the memory of Volunteers, all of which have their place. Why then does a mural of Brendan Hughes bring such internal debate? Because of the stance he took in his later years?

It is easy for us, with our perfect hindsight, to make blanket statements about this man. This doesn’t make them correct. I have heard people condemn Brendan Hughes for being against the peace process. He was not against peace, but he was against peace that was “won” on terms that had been hashed out and refused much earlier on in the conflict, because the terms were not enough. He was against peace that saw Volunteers like himself thrown to the wayside, paid unfairly in work that came after, with no offering of support for the mental toll that followed their campaign and prison conditions. A peace that saw men who were happy to give the orders and wave their hands while never getting those hands dirty - boosted into the stars of high politics and public esteem, while the working people of the North were left standing and wondering exactly what they fought for. All of this comes from Hughes’s own words and grievances, his experience with cowboy construction sites and the uncomfortable world he stepped into upon leaving prison.

I similarly make no claim that Brendan Hughes was a man carved from sainthood. He was a normal man, capable of error and capable of mistake. He was a man who was able to reflect on the actions of his younger years and ask himself and the people around him if it had been worth it. And truly, was it? The Good Friday Agreement resembled many points refused in the Sunningdale Agreement - in 1973, when the toll was still high enough, it was suggested and Republicans deemed it not enough for what cost had already been paid. If all was to come to the same political conclusion, was it truly worth it for the conflict to continue, for the toll to rise even higher on all sides? It’s a question that entities like TPQ have deliberated over many years.

Brendan Hughes could be criticised for many things, as all figures of political and public visibility can and should be. But he should not be condemned for this. One main point of socialist ideology should be to question leadership, to ask if the boat they are taking us in is big enough and strong enough to carry us all to better places. If you must deem Brendan Hughes a tout for the interviews he gave and the views he shared, you must in turn ask yourself for what reason you take issue with a working class man asking the system “why?”

If you believe that the defacing of a mural to Brendan Hughes is a just action, you must ask yourself 'why?' too. Murals exist all over West Belfast, murals that remain respected and visited and pictured even now. Should we only take the pieces of a person that are suitable to the present political narrative? Do you truly value the voice of a Volunteer? Or can you only extend that value to a voice that tragically fell quiet before it had the opportunity to ask itself questions?

⏩Kate Rice is a peace baby.

The Dark Mural

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ Liverpool's first match of the new season.

Away to Newcastle, it was never going to be the easiest of fixtures.

The Magpies had been rattled as a result of losing their manager Eddie Howe on top of the heart of their midfield being ripped out with Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonalis seeking out pastures greener. Anthony Gordon off to Barcelona left the forward line less sharp than it would like to be. It was the youngest Newcastle side to take to a field in more than a decade, and it seemed as long since Newcastle last beat Liverpool at St James Park. All things considered, it was a game a slightly better than average Liverpool side would be expected to take three points from even if the game was tough. In the end they were lucky to take a point, Dominik Szoboszlai doing in the closing seconds of the game what Rio Ngumoha had done last season. It was hard on Newcastle and their fans but no less than a dull but worthy Liverpool deserved given the possession they had.

But possession is not penetration. Up front Liverpool were poor. This is the season where both Wirtz and Izak must deliver but neither showed any indication of being able to do so. If Ngumoha is to lay claim to the mantle of Salah, now extracting Turkish money, he will have to do much better than he did today. Ariola's side has more energy than Slot's ever did but a busy fool has has plenty of energy which just can't be turned into productivity.

If the Liverpool fans were expecting a quick transition under a new coach, they can put it on hold. Unfortunately, in the post Slot era the side played too much like a Slot team. The Slot rot has burrowed deep and it will take time for the new coach to weed it out.

I was in Dublin visiting my daughter and had rushed back home to make the game which I had promised my son I would watch with him. It is one of those things we like to do - watch soccer together. I am more restrained about it than he is. He reminds me of my earlier years when I both played and watched it avidly in the prison where I was a lippy pest on the jail's all weather pitches, always on the back of others. Not that I had any right to - my own performances were hardly top drawer.

The train was on time so I arrived four minutes into the game, missing the joint tribute to the late Kevin Keegan, my favourite all time Liverpool player. When I met him at an event in Dublin prior to his cancer I said to him that I felt he was the best Liverpool player ever. He smiled and said most would say that about Kenny. The two never played together, Dalglish taking Keegan's place when he moved to Hamburg. 

Both players wore the coveted number 7 shirt. No one on the field today could fill it. 


⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Hard Work

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