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TPQ
Enda Craig ⬟ The shameful truth of the Donegal Defective Concrete Scandal has been smothered beneath carefully curated figures pumped out by Donegal County Council and the Government’s Housing Agency. 

The official narrative is neat, sanitised, and utterly disconnected from the lived reality of thousands of families whose homes are still crumbling.

Most victims have now given up hope of ever receiving genuine 100% Redress. They are simply trying to rebuild or patch their homes before the relentless progression of structural failure destroys their lives beyond recovery. This is not “support” — it is abandonment.

Every attempt by community groups, campaigners, and affected homeowners has barely dented a Government machine fixated on minimising the cost to the Exchequer. The so‑called “grant” is a partial subsidy that only the well‑heeled can top up. Everyone else is stranded in no man’s land, left without the means to rebuild, repair, or recover.

The Core Failure Has Never Been Investigated

Until there is a Public Inquiry into the deliberate misattribution of the cause to “MICA”, and a Judicial Review challenging the legality and validity of IS 465, nothing will change.

The system will continue protecting itself.

The victims will continue paying the price.

A Two‑Tier Scheme By Design

A small minority with access to substantial private funds will continue to navigate the Enhanced Grant Scheme successfully.

The majority — ordinary families, pensioners, single‑income households — will remain trapped in distress, unable to bridge the financial gap the State refuses to close.

This is not an accident.

It is a policy choice.

The Final Verdict Will Be Damning

In time, the Donegal Defective Concrete Scandal will be recognised as one of the most significant failures of public oversight in modern Ireland. No amount of slick accountancy, selective reporting, or bureaucratic spin will conceal the truth:

Those responsible failed — and the people of Donegal were left to carry the consequences.

⏩ Enda Craig is a Donegal resident and community activist.

The Reality Of Donegal’s Defective Concrete Scandal Is Being Buried

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ It was not the result we wanted but very much the one we expected.


Drogs go marching out, not on . . . no longer competing for the 2006 FAI Cup.

Normally, the Drogs would be given a fighting chance in this sort of game. A home fixture against a Galway side which while positioned above Drogheda in the league table are not one of the formidable Dublin sides, nor are they regarded as belonging to the big guns club. So, fans could arrive at Sullivan and Lamb Park anticipating a quarter final victory. That would leave the side knocking on the door of the Aviva with a real possibility of crossing the portal come November cup final day. A most welcome vista on the back of a dismal season thus far. We will still make the journey to Dublin on the day but it won't be in the claret and blue. A Dublin pub crawl has its own lure regardless of who is playing. 

Jay, who will be with us on final day, has outgrown dependency on adults and is more than happy to go to the games with his friends. It reminded me so much of being let loose with my own buds at his age, turning up at the Oval on a Saturday afternoon to watch Glentoran. I would not want to have been accompanied and constrained by my da, particularly when it came to Big Two games - the Glens and the Blues. Not exactly the equivalent of the Glasgow Old Firm but the rivalry and resentment was both real and tabid.

I made the prediction for this one, no longer remembering at this stage whether Paddy concurred with me. The Drogs would not have an extended cup run. Galway would return to semifinal action after a three year absence.

What lit up the night for me was action not from the pitch but from the terraces, and it did not come in the form of flares. The Ultras by now seem sick to the teeth of the profiteering owners who shafted Joanna Byrne. She was forced to walk the plank for taking a principled stand against the FAI over its refusal to boycott the national team of the country of child killers. The Ultras held aloft a banner calling time on Trivela's involvement in the club. While this protest was probably more a reaction to the lowly league position than it was to do with the Byrne issue, it was uplifting all the same.  


On the field The Drogs started as if they meant business, even going ahead three minutes after being forced to replace Keegan Ancelin twelve minutes in due to an injury. A Conor Kane throw in, Galway failed to clear their lines, Brandon Kavanagh pounced and the Aviva in November seemed that little bit closer. But like the oasis in the desert it turned out to be a mirage. The Tribesmen drew level midway through the first half courtesy of a headed effort by Stephen Walsh. The Drogs almost snatched a lead in the dying moments of the half when Alfie Bates whipped in an inch perfect cross which Doyle failed to convert. 

Dpyle again came close in the 57th minute but his shot rebounded off the post. That it was not his night was underscored by a second yellow card for diving. They call it simulation these days. With almost thirty minutes remaining on the clock to our right, the Drogs reduced to ten men were up against it. Our tribe looked certain to lose to the Tribesmen. This was put beyond doubt eight minutes from time when Lee Devitt cracked home a worthy winner. 

On the way out, we engaged in conversation with the father of one of the Drogheda players. Knowledgeable about the game and fiercely proud of his son, his no nonsense insights into the club's predicament as it roots around the drop zone were invaluable. Not the worst end to an otherwise disappointing evening. 

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Drogs ⚽ Tribesmen ⚽ Cup Exit

Geordie Morrow ðŸ–Œ with a painting from his collection of art work.




 
⏩Geordie Morrow is a Belfast artist.

Colours

Muiris Ó SÚilleabhÃĄin ✍ Before going any further, I think I should reiterate my own position.

I don't buy into the border poll mania that has infected the discussion about the journey to an Irish Republic. I don't believe a border poll offers a solution to the more pressing political, social and economic problems we face. It will never bring the Republic. I don't believe the British government will call one in the foreseeable future and, even if it did, I don't believe we are remotely close to a majority capable of winning it.

That does not mean the questions raised by Louth Forever should be dismissed. Quite the opposite. The discussions being generated in TPQ are the discussions that those who claim ownership of the New Ireland debate should be having. They cannot and will not.

The Vice ðŸŠķ Everyone Can Name The Problem ðŸŠķ Nobody Will Pay For The Answer is another challenging and insightful contribution to that discussion, and, even for those of us sceptical of the current obsession with border polls, it poses a question that goes considerably beyond the mechanics of calling one.

What are those who advocate constitutional change actually prepared to give in order to achieve it?

I found the distinction between an “ask” and a “remedy” particularly pertinent. It is relatively easy to identify what Britain should do, what unionism should concede, what Dublin should prepare for or what the Secretary of State should clarify. It is considerably more difficult to identify what those advocating constitutional change are themselves prepared to concede, surrender or pay in order to achieve it.

There is, however, another question which perhaps precedes even that one.

Who has been paying the cost until now?

Louth Forever's reference to Michelle O'Neill and the prospect of nurses taking industrial action is perhaps the perfect example. Nurses in the North are once again demanding pay parity with their colleagues in Britain. There is a particular irony in O'Neill now blaming the British and warning of the consequences of decisions she herself took as Minister for Health.

Those inside the room still make the decisions. Those outside it still pay the cost.

And perhaps that is where any serious discussion about cost has to begin. Before asking what republicans, nationalists or unionists might have to concede in some hypothetical future settlement, we should acknowledge that the political arrangements of the past three decades have already carried a price. We need to acknowledge that those who have benefited most from those arrangements have not been the people who paid for it.

The Fleadh meant different things to different people

I don't wish to get into semantics about the Fleadh itself. The return of the northern Assembly this week saw both the DUP and Sinn FÃĐin claim its success as vindication of their respective political positions. Both are wrong. It was a magnificent victory for all the people who call Ireland home.

I deliberately pitched my original comments on the Fleadh in constitutional terms. Any line of reasoning which assumes that Irish nationalists somehow have ownership of Irish culture in all its manifestations makes me uncomfortable. Likewise, the contention that allowing “others” access to that culture constitutes inclusion. It does not.

Irish traditional music, song, dance and culture do not belong to nationalist Ireland. Culture is multidimensional and complex, and Protestant Ireland and unionist Ireland have shaped our shared culture to the same extent as Catholic or nationalist Ireland.

A Protestant playing Irish traditional music is therefore not being generously admitted into somebody else's culture. It is his culture too. The very suggestion that nationalist Ireland somehow owns Irish culture and can then demonstrate its inclusivity by allowing others to participate in it perpetuates the division we claim to be trying to overcome.

Isn't that part of how we ended up in this mess in the first place?

For me, that was the real significance of the Fleadh. It wasn't nationalist Ireland demonstrating that it could accommodate British or unionist identity. It was people from multiple traditions participating in a culture that belongs to all of them equally. They are not being included. They are already part of it.

As Louth Forever argues, that becomes a much more difficult proposition when we move from culture to constitutional politics. The fact remains that the Fleadh was held in the United Kingdom. I deliberately made that point in my original piece because my argument was constitutional, not cultural.

My contention is that, in the post-GFA North, most of the grievances which fuelled the civil rights movement have been addressed. The northern state in which Irishness was once regarded with suspicion, and its outward expression routinely met with hostility, has changed considerably. Irish language, music, sport and culture can now be expressed openly in this part of the United Kingdom in ways that would have been almost unimaginable to earlier generations.

That was precisely my point about the Fleadh. Its success does not demonstrate that the constitutional question has been resolved in favour of Irish unity. If anything, it demonstrates something rather more uncomfortable for republicans, and that is the North has become considerably better at accommodating Irishness.

None of that makes the North less Irish. Nor does it make the Union desirable. But it does remove many of the everyday cultural and political grievances which once made the northern state intolerable to a substantial section of its population.

And that matters enormously when we move from culture to constitutional politics. If people can live openly as Irish, speak Irish, play Irish music, attend the Fleadh, follow the GAA and carry an Irish passport while remaining constitutionally within the United Kingdom, then cultural Irishness cannot itself provide the argument for constitutional change.

Something more has to be offered, and that, I think, is where Louth Forever's challenge really begins to bite.

If a different constitutional future is ever to be constructed, people from the Protestant and unionist tradition cannot simply be invited into a project designed by nationalists and republicans and presented with a list of guarantees about how generously they will be treated. They have to co-design the project.

They are not guests in Ireland. They are not planters. They are the co-owners of Ireland.

And that brings us back to Louth Forever's question about cost.

A guarantee which costs us nothing is not much of a guarantee. Would republicans, for example, be prepared to defend the right of an Orange parade to walk along the Garvaghy Road?

I have previously questioned, in Remembering, how the issue of remembrance might be dealt with in a new Ireland. Whose dead would be remembered, how would they be remembered, and would we be prepared to accord legitimacy to forms of remembrance which make us deeply uncomfortable?

These are not peripheral questions. They go directly to Louth Forever's argument about cost.

Is there an appetite to pay these costs to secure a new Ireland? More fundamentally, are these discussions even taking place?

I choose these examples precisely because they are uncomfortable. There is little value in demonstrating our tolerance by promising to protect only those things with which we already agree.

If the guarantees offered to unionists require nothing of nationalists and republicans beyond accepting things they already find acceptable, then very little has actually been guaranteed. The real test comes when protecting somebody else's identity, tradition or rights requires us to accept something we would rather not.

That is when a new Ireland begins to carry a cost.

But there is another potential cost, and for Sinn FÃĐin it may be considerably greater.

It may have to give up ownership of the unity project.

In The 2% Club, I hypothesise on the early writings of Gerry Adams and, in particular, The Politics of Irish Freedom. The political strategy articulated by Adams in the 1980s was not simply about making Sinn FÃĐin sufficiently large that it could deliver Irish unity on everybody else's behalf. The objective was to help create a mass political and social movement that extended far beyond Sinn FÃĐin itself.

The objective was not to build a mass Sinn FÃĐin. It was to build a mass movement for radical change.

Almost forty years later, for those who remain predisposed to building the Republic, perhaps the remedy remains that original objective. It simply needs to be rediscovered.

Personally, these days, I am more predisposed to gardening, but the point remains.

Sinn FÃĐin has built Sinn FÃĐin. What it has not built is that mass movement.

A genuine mass movement for radical change cannot simply be Sinn FÃĐin with a few extra chairs around the table. It must not be “Irelands Future” mark two.

That is why I fundamentally disagree with Declan Kearney's proposal for a forum bringing together what he describes as “Irish national democratic opinion”.

I understand the thinking behind it, but his language draws me back to the Free State/Brit isolationist policies of the 1970s and 1980s. It begins by defining who is entitled to participate and, by implication, who is not.

Not only does his proposal exclude republicans who fall outside his definition of acceptable “national democratic opinion”, it excludes a significant section of the population who do not consider themselves Irish at all.

Declan, it appears, has already decided what constitutes acceptable “national democratic opinion”.

Democrats and nice people are welcome.

People like me, presumably, need not apply.

But neither, presumably, need many of the people whose participation would actually be essential if constitutional change is ever to command majority support in the North.

That seems to me precisely the wrong starting point. You cannot build a genuinely national movement by first deciding which parts of the nation are entitled to participate in it.

It would necessarily have to include constitutional nationalists, republicans who rejected the Provisional settlement, socialists, social democrats, conservatives, independents and people with no particular party allegiance at all.

More importantly, it would have to include people from the Protestant and unionist tradition who are prepared to contemplate a discussion about constitutional change without first being required to become nationalists or republicans. Unionism cannot simply be invited into somebody else's project. They have to co-design it.

And that means Sinn FÃĐin giving up something considerably more difficult than another political concession. Control.

Such a movement would therefore have to be independent of Sinn FÃĐin. It would have to be capable of disagreeing with Sinn FÃĐin and, when necessary, telling Sinn FÃĐin no.

If the objective is radical constitutional change rather than the continued electoral advancement of Sinn FÃĐin, there may come a point at which the interests of the party and the interests of the wider project diverge. At that point, Sinn FÃĐin would then have to decide which matters more.

Border Poll Mania

As I have already said, I don't share the faux enthusiasm for a Border Poll. But Sinn FÃĐin does, and it has accepted the constitutional mechanism through which such a poll would be triggered by signing up to the GFA in 1998. It therefore seems reasonable to examine the argument on Sinn FÃĐin's own terms.

I hold an unorthodox view on Sinn FÃĐin's increasingly insistent demands for a border poll. My belief is that the demand owes rather more to the limitations of the Provisional strategy than to any serious expectation that a referendum is imminent.

There is nowhere else left for the Provos to go.

The IRA ended its campaign without achieving its stated objective, it decommissioned its weapons. Sinn FÃĐin simultaneously accepted the consent principle and entered the institutions of the GFA.

Sinn FÃĐin has become the largest party in the North, holds the office of First Minister and has achieved levels of electoral support across Ireland that would have been unimaginable when the strategy was first developed.

Yet none of that, in itself, has brought Irish unity any closer. Under the mechanism Sinn FÃĐin accepted in 1998, the determining factor is not how large Sinn FÃĐin becomes but whether a majority in the North can be persuaded to vote for constitutional change.

The border poll has become the final destination of a Sinn FÃĐin strategy where all other options have been closed down.

Additionally, there is something remarkably cost-free about demanding a border poll when you are reasonably confident that the British government will say no. Sinn FÃĐin demands one, the British refuse, and Sinn FÃĐin can point to that refusal as further evidence of British obstruction. As Dixie would say, keeping the deluded happy.

But what if the British said yes?

Suddenly the cost to Sinn FÃĐin becomes very real.

Sinn FÃĐin would have to fight the referendum it has spent years demanding, and it would have to win it. A defeat would not simply postpone Irish unity for another few years. It would call into question the entire strategic trajectory through which the compromises of the past four decades have been justified.

The potential cost to Sinn FÃĐin would be existential.

This makes the continuing argument about the criteria for calling a border poll even more perplexing.

The party repeatedly demands that the British government clarify the criteria by which a Secretary of State would determine that the threshold for calling a referendum had been reached.

Perhaps Sinn FÃĐin and its proxies should answer the question itself. What evidence would persuade Sinn FÃĐin that the criterion it signed up to in 1998 has actually been met?

Opinion polls? If so, what percentage and sustained for how long?

Election results? If so, which votes constitute votes for unity?

Demographic change? If so, why should religious or community background be assumed to determine constitutional preference?

Or some combination of these?

Before asking the British once more to tell us what evidence would persuade them that a majority exists, Comrade Kearney should tell us what evidence would persuade Sinn FÃĐin.

But there is a cost attached to doing that also. Once Sinn FÃĐin states its own benchmark, its rhetoric of momentum becomes publicly measurable.

And what happens if Sinn FÃĐin's own reasonable test tells us what most numerate people already suspect: that the majority required to win a border poll simply does not exist?

Then the central strategic question is no longer why the British government will not call a referendum. It is much more difficult, and it is being played out in Scotland as we speak.

How do you create a majority for unity in the North?

To Conclude

This is where Louth Forever's argument ultimately takes me. Not towards another demand upon Britain. Not towards another timetable for a border poll. And certainly not towards another Sinn FÃĐin initiative designed to demonstrate that Irish unity is just around the corner.

It takes me back to the question of cost.

Who has paid until now and who has benefited?

What are those who have benefited most prepared to surrender if achieving their stated objective requires it?

Republicans may have to surrender some old assumptions about ownership of Irishness. We may have to make guarantees which genuinely cost us something.

And Sinn FÃĐin may ultimately have to surrender something it has spent forty years acquiring: ownership and leadership of the unity project.

If the mass movement envisaged all those years ago is ever to exist, it cannot belong to Sinn FÃĐin. It should not even be a republican movement. Sinn FÃĐin can participate in it. It can argue within it. It can contribute enormously to building it. But it cannot own it.

Sometimes leadership is about knowing when it is time to stop leading.

⏩Muiris Ó SÚilleabhÃĄin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fÃĄs.

The Remedy For Border Poll Fever

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ninety Seven

 

A Morning Thought @ 3269

GearÃģid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 4-September-2026.

The Jason Arday affair has left few standing, least of all those who think they are not only standing but standing tall. Lots of people came out of it very badly. Nathan Cofnas is one, as is Jason Arday himself as well as the media, Cambridge University and academia in general and also the Left.

Before the story broke Nathan Cofnas was even by academic standards an obscure figure. He is now a household name, not just in Britain, but globally. He describes himself as a “race realist” something the media and others are treating as something respectable or new. It is neither. Race Realism and the search to find a biological link to intelligence is not new. Biological Determinism goes back a long way and enjoyed social and even scientific support in the 19th Century through the work of Francis Galton (Darwin’s cousin), the father of eugenics who unsurprisingly had studied at Cambridge. It reached ridiculous levels assigning all sorts of nonsensical biological criteria by which to measure intelligence. Farcically at one point the size of certain bones was seen as a biological (racial) sign of intelligence: the ratio of the radius to the humerus to be precise. 

This rubbish never went away and resurfaced time and again. The genetic discussion is just a modern version of it, which found its expression in The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in 1994.[1] At the time many liberal and left wing scientists demolished the arguments and Stephen Jay Gould even debated Murray, something most on the Left would be now ill-prepared to do after years of cancel culture and “winning” arguments by saying they are offended. Cofnas has added nothing new to the debate, not even from a right-wing perspective, though as Gould pointed out in his updated edition of The Mismeasure of Man, Murray too had only regurgitated old arguments with lots of charts and stats to accompany them, something Cofnas also does: style over substance. But he has exposed the shallowness of what is considered intellectually worthy in academia, both in terms of his own contributions and also Arday’s.

I am all in favour of free inquiry at universities and in life in general, but Biological Determinism or its modern synonym Race Realism is nothing short of quackery. It belongs in the same category as Flat Earth Science or even Creationism, though Cambridge actually has a Faculty of Divinity i.e. quackery. That Cambridge and Ghent took it seriously is a damning indictment of both places. All education is political, what is taught, what courses are offered, the range of opinions etc. Education is a battleground for ideas, some of which seem obscure and irrelevant but which end up shaping our society, albeit indirectly in some cases.

Given the level of moralistic hysteria doing the rounds on this topic it has been impossible to ask certain sectors to step back and take a look at the facts and then proceed on that basis. Cambridge has belatedly set up an independent review of how it handled the Arday affair and also how it came to appoint him in the first place.[2] Was racism a factor in what happened to Arday? Almost certainly. The question is to what degree; and none of that takes away from the fact the racists had the goods on him. When I say racists I mean the right wingers like Cofnas. Though I could mean the racists who hired him. 

It is clear that Cambridge is institutionally racist. It could not be any other way given its history, current links to the arms trade, the low number of black academics etc. So they hired Arday, as a poster boy, as Jason Okundaye put it:

Arday was treated not as a scholar but as a mascot, one who was particularly expedient for an institution that had been regularly embarrassed by its historic record on race.[3]

They were saying look at what we have done. It is the academic equivalent of “I am not racist, some of my friends are black”. It is clear that Cambridge sought to deflect criticism by hiring someone regardless of whether they met the requirements. Maybe they thought this offset having “race realists” like Cofnas, or right wingers like Reform UK’s James Orr on the payroll and even inviting people like Murray to give talks at the university.

But Cofnas was not the first academic to question Arday’s record. Another academic, David Harris, whilst researching a book he was writing on race tried to raise questions the way academics do, gently, politely through the system and was accused of harassment and reported to the police by Arday. He had been told that he should read Arday’s work for his own research. He did and found some problems with it.[4] Had his questions received the consideration they deserved, the whole affair might not have played out the way it did and Arday might not have a job, or he may have received some disciplinary sanction, but he might still be alive. It was the reaction to Harris, a mild mannered academic who unlike Cofnas has no agenda in the matter, that increased the pressure in the pot and helped set the scene. There was also the police persecution of Times Higher Education journalist Jack Grove, where the police acted like a private security firm for Arday putting him under investigation for four months.[5]

As a result of the affair, other issues have come to light, or rather have gained wider traction than they otherwise would. Academia is hardly an enthralling newsworthy issue at the best of times. It has been pointed out that other white people at Cambridge had been found guilty by Cambridge itself of plagiarism and nothing happened to them, just mild disciplinary sanctions in the best of cases. One of them even plagiarised his own student! Cambridge protects its own. 

Arday, despite being their poster boy was not and when it came time to cut him loose they let him resign, something which seems to have genuinely shocked many on the Left. It has other problems with sexism. Coming just days before Arday’s suicide the courts found in favour of Professor Wyn Evans, a lecturer in astrophysics, who fought a long battle against Cambridge over the treatment of a female colleague, Dr Tausch-Pebody. The case revolved around a complaint made against Dr McMahon who had held up the disbursement of funding to her by 37 weeks, refusing to sign the appropriate release form and had bizarrely used her IP address and that of other colleagues. The university used its insurance funds to fight the case, and was nasty about it, with Wyn Evans saying “At one point the university’s barrister accused me of crying crocodile tears about an employee who committed suicide”[6] which is a bit rich given the howls around Arday’s suicide. Following the tribunal report, other academics posted a picture of Judas on his door, and Cambridge announced it was reviewing its HR procedures, following its bullying of this whistleblower.[7] This judgement came in the midst of the furore surrounding Arday’s appointment clearly showing that Cambridge is not the type of employer which facilitates internal criticism of its decisions.

The Left responded by defending Arday and when backed into an indefensible corner said “Well lots of people plagiarise and embellish their CV”. To be clear he didn’t embellish his CV, he fabricated it. Embellishing it would mean exaggerating accomplishments, not completely inventing them. But on the plagiarism issue they have also pointed to various academics found guilty of plagiarism who were not sacked. Yes, those academics should be sacked. Saying white upper class people got away with plagiarism is not a defence, it is an accusation levelled at the academic institution. Unwittingly they have exposed part of the corruption at the heart of academia. The Left’s proposal was that if whites can commit crimes, or falsify records the solution is to demand equal rights for everyone to do so, rather than say this should be rooted out. This is partly because the identity politics industry is not controlled by working-class blacks or Asians but by the white, black and Asian middle-class and they have no intention of upsetting the apple cart they are eating from.

However, it is disingenuous to believe that it was all about racism. Arday fell on his sword because he was not qualified for the job and his backstory was the work of a fantasist whose skills would have been better suited to writing sci-fi literature or something. If it was just racism, why did the racists not manage to force the other black academics at Cambridge out of a job. The racists had a field day with Arday, but only because the patronising racists who employed him overlooked his qualifications and backstory.

Surprisingly, Liverpool John Moore’s university that awarded Arday his PhD has fared better than can be expected, but only because it has received less attention. But at some point Cambridge will wash their hands entirely of Arday and pass the buck downstream to Liverpool John Moore’s and then perhaps they may not look so well. This may happen at some point during the review when their defence will most certainly be that Arday and Liverpool John Moore’s conned them.

The media haven’t come out of it well either. I don’t say that because of the pile on but because as I have pointed out lots of issues arose in the course of the discussion, which the media decided not to pursue, like the plagiarism of other academics, like Cofnas’ modern Flat Earth Science type of stuff on intelligence actually getting recognition. None of which was raised, nor will it be, by either the Left nor the media.

The Left also don’t come out of it well. Their response to the media coverage was to deny the facts of the case. If Arday was treated unfairly by the media, then that argument can’t be made on the basis that he did no wrong. Even some identitarians have argued this. One of the few left papers in Britain to examine the issue rationally, The Weekly Worker (CPGB) made the point:

He was undoubtedly the tragic victim of an openly racist attack dog and a baying mainstream media. However, maintaining that Jason Arday was not guilty of plagiarism is worse than useless. We need the truth about him and, more importantly, the whole neoliberal university system.[8]

Instead of asking for that, the Left has now proposed a law limiting media coverage of individuals. The utter stupidity of the Left never ceases to amaze me. Some of the repression of the Palestinian solidarity movement around the world is being carried out through just the type of measures the Left has called for around hate speech, personal offence etc. You would think they would learn about it coming back to bite them. But no. Right now Tommy Robinson and other right wing activists are floating in Cypriot swimming pools laughing and thinking about the Left pushing for a law they will be able to use to restrict media coverage of their pool trips and other less than savoury activities. Even the practicalities of the law have not been thought out. Would it be overall coverage? Could The Sun use up all the media quota, leaving others with no right to comment on an issue? Or will it be per media outlet? When an outlet used up its quota, could it talk about new developments? The stupidity of it all is beyond comprehension.

Though many of the Left organisations say they stand by Arday, they don’t. They stand by Cambridge, first and foremost, along with its handling of Arday’s appointment, and they are standing by academia and its identity politics tokenistic approach to inequality. Many on the Left actually earn a living from the tokenism and some of the leaders are well ensconced in academia, so they were never going to say much in any case. They are standing by the identity politics industry, academic corruption and their own grifting.

The Arday affair has exposed academia and the Left as having little to really say about inequality or access to university for working-class people of any race, and not much to say about racism either.

Referemces

[1] For an in-depth analysis of the history of Biological Determinism see revised edition of Gould, S.J. (1996) The Mismeasure of Man. W.W. Norton & Co. New York.

[2] University of Cambridge (04/09/2026) University of Cambridge launches independent review following the death of Professor Jason Arday. 

[3] The Guardian (06/08/2026) The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left. Jason Okundaye. 

[4] See The Professor who warned Cambridge about Jason Arday.

[5] The Heartlands Tribune (06/08/2026) The Case of the Journalist, the Professor and the Police Investigation. Paul Knaggs. 

[6] The Times (30/08/2026) Inside Cambridge bullying row that Judas pinned to professor’s door. George Odling & Nicola Woolcock.

[7] The Telegraph (13/08/2026) Cambridge to review all HR procedures. Albert Tait. 

[8] Weekly Worker (27/08/2026) Fraudsters, great and small. 

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

Jason Arday ðŸŠķ Does Anyone Come Out Of It Well?

Cross Talk 📚 in discussion with Stanley Cohen.

No plan, no peace. 

This is where the U.S.-Israel war on Iran stands. 

This state of affairs has profound implications for the global order. American military force has reached an important limit. 

Today military might does not insure domination, particularly when there is no coherent strategy.




Stanley L. Cohen is lawyer and activist in New York City.

No Plan ðŸŠķ No Peace

Christopher Owens ðŸ”– “A contemporary variant of the horror film with a particular focus on human bodies that are subject to torture, mutilation, mutation, decay, degeneration, and transformation, usually shown in graphic detail..” 




. . . as well as “A science fiction genre focusing on a blurring of distinctions between humans and machines in bleak dystopias with lawless subcultures.”

That’s how the Oxford Dictionary of science-fiction refers to both body horror and cyberpunk, and they’re pretty spot on.

Although normally separate genres, the combination of the two has steadily increased in popularity over the last number of years, perhaps tapping into our own fears surrounding mortality, the future, health and beauty.

Does Warm Fusion do this?

Read on and find out.

The plot is fairly simple, as seen by this blurb on the publisher's website:

After a series of murders rip through the city’s brothels, an escort named Vin Young, who cosplays as the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White—and is one of the generation of deformed victims—pursues the killer, or killers, joins forces with Jarrod Hannover, the lone cop assigned to the case. The two eventually arrive at a biotech megacorp developing Warm Fusion, a pioneering technology meant to replace prosthetics limbs—and soon confront the sociopathic scientist Nicholas Fleischer, his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Barnaby, and the hideous monster that he’s been secretly developing.

Not the most innovative plot, admittedly, but it’s all about the execution after all. Does the writing and art combine to suck the reader into the world envisaged?

Yes and no.

While it cannot be denied that Alberto Ponticelli’s artwork and Lee Loughridge’s colours are exemplary, they cannot hide the fact that the main protagonist (Vin Young) is not a particularly interesting or compelling character. While she has a backstory, it’s not developed enough to make the reader care. Similarly, Jarrod Hannover (the cop) has little to no character traits besides operating an AI that can transcribe his thoughts at a crime scene, as you can see below.


And as for the bad guys?

Similar story.

It is disappointingly light on transgression as well: characters have sex while having robotic arms or missing limbs but this is very familiar terrain for the genre. Having characters mouth off about feeling nothing but chasing extremities does not give it added context.

Finally, it’s a three-issue story that feels like it could have done with a fourth. There could be something in this as there were reports that the publisher had problems with distribution at one point so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they decided to cut the run short to ensure it could be published as a graphic novel.

Passable reading but falls short as a cyberpunk story and as a body horror story. 

Scott Hoffman (Writer), Alberto Ponticelli (Illustrator), Lee Loughridge (Colourist), 2026, Warm Fusion. DSTRLY ISBN-13: 978-1962265256

⏩ 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”.

Warm Fusion

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ninety Six

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 16

 

A Morning Thought @ 3268

Cam Ogie ✍ “Money doesn’t give you the right to own the conversation.” - Lukas Graham

There is something particularly hollow about declaring yourself above politics at precisely the moment when taking a position might actually cost you something.

Ed Sheeran’s response to the removal of Macklemore from his US tour is a striking example. Faced with the exclusion of an artist who had used Sheeran’s stage to say “Free Palestine” and speak about Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Sheeran sought refuge in the reassuring language of moderation: unity, dialogue, diplomacy, sanctuary and the suffering of “both sides”. It sounds compassionate. It sounds reasonable. Above all, it sounds safe.

And perhaps that is precisely the problem.

Sheeran wrote that he was “appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine” and described the suffering and pain on both sides as a human tragedy. There is nothing objectionable about acknowledging Israeli suffering. Israeli civilians murdered, injured or taken hostage by Hamas are not somehow less deserving of compassion because of what the Israeli government subsequently did in Gaza. Hamas's deliberate attacks against civilians cannot be sanitised simply because one supports Palestinian rights.

But acknowledging equal human worth is very different from presenting the political and military circumstances producing that suffering as though they were symmetrical.

Hamas is an armed organisation. Israel is a sovereign state possessing one of the region's most sophisticated militaries and exercising enormous military power over Palestinians. Palestinians and Hamas are not interchangeable, just as Israeli civilians and the Israeli government are not interchangeable.

Sheeran called Palestinian and Israeli violence “equal”; it is that his language — “the suffering and pain caused on both sides” and his appeal to “multiple approaches” to peace — can be criticised for flattening major differences in power, scale, state capacity and civilian harm into an apparently symmetrical tragedy. Reducing this enormously unequal relationship to tragedy occurring on “both sides” risks replacing political reality with an emotionally comforting symmetry. It allows everyone to mourn and nobody to explain.

The Convenient Discovery of Being Apolitical

Sheeran's explanation deserves particular scrutiny. He said that he chooses to use his fame and music as a “place of safety and sanctuary”, maintaining diplomacy and keeping conversations open rather than turning his concerts into political forums. It is an attractive philosophy until one examines Sheeran's own history:

As Laura Snapes pointed out in The Guardian, Sheeran's relationship with politics has not always been quite so distant. He participated in the 2022 Concert for Ukraine, an explicitly humanitarian response to Russia's invasion. Snapes also notes his previous intervention over Brexit, his support for Jeremy Corbyn and his support for equality legislation in the United States. So the issue cannot simply be that politics has no place on Ed Sheeran's stage.

Politics apparently can have a place. The more uncomfortable question is which politics, under what circumstances, and at what personal or commercial cost?

Supporting Ukraine in 2022 placed an artist alongside an enormous coalition of Western governments, broadcasters, corporations and cultural institutions. Speaking about Palestine in an American stadium environment can generate very different pressures. That distinction matters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with an artist deciding which causes to support. Nobody is obliged to become a spokesman for every injustice on Earth. But once someone explains his silence through a general principle of political neutrality, his previous willingness to engage politically becomes relevant. “I don't do politics” is a difficult defence when the historical record demonstrates that sometimes you do.

Neutrality After Someone Has Been Silenced

More importantly, neutrality becomes extremely difficult to maintain once another person's political expression has already produced consequences. Had Sheeran simply declined to discuss Gaza from the beginning, one could reasonably describe that as political reticence.

But that is no longer what happened. Macklemore spoke. Powerful interests objected.

A billionaire stadium owner and strong Israeli supporter refused to allow him to perform. Other venues objected. The promoter removed him. The headline artist continued. At that point, the choice was no longer between politics and no politics. Politics had already entered the arena. The remaining question was what everyone involved intended to do about it. That is why Laura Snapes's observation that there is ultimately no neutral position in circumstances such as these is so pertinent. She also draws attention to Robert Kraft's political connections and longstanding support for Israel. Kraft is a friend of Donald Trump and a major supporter of Israel. At the 2019 Genesis Prize ceremony honouring Kraft, Benjamin Netanyahu praised his commitment to Israel and declared that Israel had no “more loyal friend”.

None of that automatically makes Kraft's decision illegitimate. Kraft has defended his position by referring to what he regards as antisemitic rhetoric and imagery associated with Macklemore and by insisting that advocacy for Palestinians should not obscure Hamas's responsibility.

That explanation should be recorded rather than caricatured. But it does not make the political dimension disappear.

When a billionaire with publicly documented political connections and a longstanding commitment to Israel determines that a musician advocating for Palestine will not perform in his stadium, describing everything that follows as merely a promoter's decision hardly removes politics from the equation. It simply relocates political power from the microphone to the boardroom.

“It Was Not My Decision”

Sheeran's other defence is technically important.

“Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter's decision; it was not mine,” he said.

That may be entirely true. But there is an enormous difference between making a decision and accepting one.

Sheeran may not have possessed the contractual authority to force a stadium owner to host Macklemore. He says he attempted to mediate between promoters, venue owners and activists and was unable to reach a solution. That should be acknowledged. But the actions of the considerably less powerful musicians around him demonstrated that another choice remained available. They could walk away. And they did. Finneas withdrew. Lukas Graham withdrew. Aaron Rowe withdrew. Beoga — Sheeran's Irish backing band — withdrew.

All cited solidarity with Palestine or opposition to Macklemore's exclusion among their reasons.

Suddenly Sheeran's apparent powerlessness looked rather different. Because these musicians did something wonderfully uncomplicated: they accepted that having principles occasionally involves losing something.

Principles That Cost Something

Aaron Rowe's decision is particularly significant because he possesses nowhere near Sheeran's commercial power.

For an emerging musician, supporting one of the world's biggest recording artists in American stadiums represents an extraordinary career opportunity. Yet Rowe withdrew, invoking his Irish background and Ireland's historical experience of colonialism and occupation. Beoga likewise referred to their Irish identity and understanding of colonialism when explaining their decision.

Lukas Graham made the broader point that wealth should not determine who controls public conversation, while Finneas objected to artists being silenced for speaking for oppressed people.

Whatever one thinks of their political analysis, their actions expose the weakness in the argument that there was simply nothing meaningful Sheeran could do.

There was. They did it. They relinquished the opportunity.

That does not mean Sheeran was morally obliged to cancel his tour. Cancelling stadium concerts affects thousands of people who have nothing to do with the dispute: employees, contractors, musicians, local workers and fans who have spent considerable amounts travelling and booking accommodation. Sheeran explicitly cited those responsibilities when explaining why he would continue. That is a legitimate consideration. But it is not the same thing as neutrality. It is a decision that the consequences of cancellation outweigh the reasons for refusing to continue. And that is itself a choice.

The Problem With “Both Sides”

This brings us back to perhaps the most troubling aspect of Sheeran's statement: the language of suffering on “both sides”. There is a seductive simplicity to that phrase.

At the level of individual human beings, of course there is suffering on both sides. A murdered Israeli child and a murdered Palestinian child are equally dead. Their parents experience grief rather than geopolitics. But recognising equal human worth does not require pretending that every political, military and historical relationship surrounding those deaths is equal. Nor should the phrase “Israeli state violence” be allowed to create the impression that a state is some autonomous machine operating independently of human beings. States do not drop bombs. States do not pull triggers. States do not demolish buildings. States do not formulate military strategy. People do these things through governments, armed forces, bureaucracies and political institutions. And those institutions can be sustained by varying degrees of public consent, electoral support, political participation, acquiescence and opposition.

States Do Not Commit Violence Without People - History makes that distinction important

When historians speak about Nazi state violence, they do not imagine that some abstract entity called “the Nazi state” independently invaded countries, deported populations, operated concentration camps and committed mass murder. Human beings did those things.

Political leaders ordered them. Bureaucrats administered them. Soldiers and police carried them out. Businesses and institutions sometimes facilitated or benefited from them. And the regime enjoyed varying degrees of support and acquiescence within German society.

But historical accuracy also demands recognition of Germans who resisted Nazism, Germans who opposed Hitler, Germans persecuted by the regime and Germans who cannot reasonably be assigned responsibility for crimes they neither supported nor committed.

The lesson is therefore not one of inherited or collective guilt. It is that the phrase “state violence” should never become a linguistic device for removing human agency from state actions. The same principle must apply when discussing Israel.

Israeli military operations are determined by political leaders and military commanders and implemented by human beings serving within Israeli institutions. Israeli citizens elect governments, participate in political life and can support, oppose or attempt to influence the policies undertaken in their name.

Consequently, it would be equally misleading to speak about Israeli state violence as though Israeli society were entirely detached from it. But Israelis are not a single political mind.

There are Israelis who strongly support their government's conduct of the war. There are Israelis who oppose aspects of it. There are Israelis who have demonstrated against their government. There are Israelis who campaign for Palestinian rights. There are Israelis who refuse military service or object to particular policies, and many whose positions cannot neatly be placed into any of these categories.

Recognising those differences does not require pretending that Israeli state violence somehow exists independently of Israeli society.

It requires something more intellectually demanding: distinguishing between individual responsibility, institutional responsibility, political support and collective identity.

And the Same Standard Must Apply to Palestinians

That distinction must work in both directions.

Palestinians cannot collectively inherit responsibility for Hamas's atrocities simply because Hamas is a Palestinian organisation.

A Palestinian child does not become responsible for October 7 by being born Palestinian. A Palestinian civilian does not become responsible for the murder of Israeli civilians merely because Hamas claims to act in the Palestinian cause. And an Israeli civilian does not become personally responsible for the killing of Palestinian civilians merely by being Israeli. But neither should “the state” become a linguistic shield that makes political and military violence appear detached from those who authorise it, implement it, defend it or politically support it.

There is therefore an important distinction between saying:

Israelis are collectively responsible for Israeli state violence

and saying:

Israeli state violence is conceived, authorised, implemented and, to varying degrees, politically supported by human beings within Israeli society.

The first assigns collective guilt. The second recognises political reality. And exactly the same intellectual standard should apply to Palestinian society, Hamas and every other state or armed political movement.

Why the Symmetry Still Fails

This is why Sheeran's “both sides” formulation ultimately feels so inadequate. It takes millions of individual people, governments, armed organisations, soldiers, civilians, hostages, political movements and radically different levels of military power and compresses everything into two apparently equivalent blocks:

Israelis on one side. Palestinians on the other.

Reality is considerably more complicated. Hamas's murder of Israeli civilians does not become defensible because Palestinians have suffered occupation, displacement or bombardment. Conversely, Hamas's atrocities cannot function as an unlimited moral credit against which every subsequent Israeli military action is charged. One can condemn October 7 and still scrutinise the scale and conduct of Israel's subsequent military campaign. One can demand the release of Israeli hostages while simultaneously demanding protection for Palestinian civilians. One can reject antisemitism absolutely while rejecting the proposition that criticism of the Israeli government, Israeli military conduct or the political support sustaining those policies is inherently antisemitic.

Indeed, Macklemore explicitly attempted to make precisely that distinction, telling Jewish members of his audience that his criticism of Israel was not criticism of them and framing his position around equal dignity for human beings.

The genocide allegation also requires precision. Palestinians, human-rights organisations, scholars and others have characterised Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide, while Israel emphatically rejects that allegation and says its military campaign targets Hamas rather than the Palestinian population. Genocide also has a specific meaning under international law, and political assertions about it should be distinguished from legal findings.

But none of that requires pretending that the underlying distribution of power is symmetrical.

Compassion can be equal. Civilian lives can possess equal value.

But power, military capability, political agency and responsibility do not therefore become equal.

That is precisely what the comforting language of “both sides” risks obscuring.



When Billionaires Decide What Can Be Said

There is another issue here that extends well beyond Israel and Palestine. Who gets to decide what artists are permitted to say? Macklemore was not demanding that Kraft endorse his politics. He was expressing his own.

Kraft owns the stadium and has interests, rights and responsibilities of his own. But when ownership of cultural infrastructure allows an extremely wealthy individual to determine which political positions may be expressed within it, questions about freedom of expression and economic power become unavoidable. And that is where Sheeran's language about keeping “conversations open” becomes almost paradoxical. The conversation wasn't kept open. One participant was removed from it. Calling what remains “dialogue” does not change that. If Macklemore had been permitted to perform and Kraft had publicly condemned his remarks, there would have been disagreement.

If pro-Israel organisations had protested outside the stadium while Macklemore performed inside it, there would have been disagreement.

If Jewish organisations had challenged Macklemore publicly and Macklemore had answered them, there would have been disagreement.

That is what an open political conversation looks like. Removing the speaker is something different.

Escapism for Whom?

Sheeran says his concerts are about “unity, joy, escapism, love” and creating somewhere everyone feels welcome. Again, it sounds admirable.

But escapism is considerably easier for those who have something to escape to. For people whose families are living through war, displacement or bereavement, politics is not a discussion that conveniently ends when the stadium lights come on. That does not mean every concert must become a political rally. It means only that “leave politics outside” is itself much easier to demand when the existing political arrangements are not destroying your world.

And once Macklemore had been removed because of political speech, the fantasy of an apolitical concert had already collapsed. The politics remained. Only the dissenter had disappeared.

The People With Less Power Showed More Willingness to Sacrifice

Perhaps the most damaging part of this episode for Sheeran is therefore not anything Macklemore said. It is what Sheeran's own supporting musicians subsequently did.

They were presented with essentially the same moral problem and reached a different conclusion. The smaller artists had considerably less commercial power and potentially much to lose professionally. Yet they walked. Sheeran stayed. That does not establish that their political analysis is automatically correct, nor does it prove that Sheeran secretly supports Kraft's position. It establishes something much simpler.

The claim that there was no meaningful alternative becomes difficult to sustain when several people standing beside you immediately demonstrate one. Principles are extremely easy when they cost nothing. Solidarity is easy when everyone in the room agrees. Free expression is easy when nobody powerful objects. And political courage is easiest when the politics concerned have already been approved by governments, corporations, broadcasters and the cultural establishment.

The test arrives when saying something — or refusing to accept someone else's silencing — carries consequences. Macklemore accepted consequences. Rowe accepted them. Beoga accepted them. Finneas accepted them. Lukas Graham accepted them.

Ed Sheeran chose a different course. And he is entitled to defend that decision. But describing it as apolitical does not make it so.

Silence Is Not Always Neutral

Perhaps that is the lasting lesson from this episode. Neutrality is not simply something we declare ourselves to possess. It has to be examined in relation to the power operating around us. There is an enormous moral difference between refusing to participate in a political argument and standing aside after somebody else has already used political and economic power to determine who is permitted to participate in it. There is also a difference between recognising the humanity of everyone caught in a conflict and reducing that conflict to an emotionally satisfying equivalence between “both sides”. Israeli civilians are not the Israeli government. Palestinian civilians are not Hamas. Jewish people are not collectively responsible for Israel. Palestinians are not collectively responsible for October 7.

But governments, armies and political movements do not exist independently of human beings either. Their decisions are conceived by people, carried out by people, supported by some people, opposed by others and ultimately judged according to what those people actually did. That distinction is more difficult than simply saying “both sides”. But it is also considerably more honest.

And when one artist speaks, a billionaire objects, institutions respond by removing the speaker, and the world's superstar at the centre of it all retreats behind the language of sanctuary, diplomacy and neutrality, perhaps the question is not whether politics should have entered the concert. It already had.

The only question was who would be permitted to speak about it.

When power determines that answer and everyone else carries on as before, the resulting silence should not automatically be mistaken for neutrality.

Sometimes silence is simply what power sounds like when nobody is prepared to challenge it.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.


The Courage Of Conviction ðŸŠķ Until It Costs Something

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