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Gary Robertson ⚽ Saturday July 11th and the return of actual competitive domestic football.

Ignoring the distraction that is FIFAs corruption taking place in the land of the free, providing you’re white and Christian, back home the Premier Sports Cup/League Cup group stages got underway with sixteen matches taking place on Saturday. Perhaps the biggest shock being Lowland League winners Linlithgow Rose beating Championship Morton by a solitary goal in front of nearly 1100 people at Morton’s Cappilelow Park.
 
Sadly though for fans of the Rose their promotion to the Scottish Second Division was blocked by the SFA due to club not holding a SFA Bronze licence.
 
It's all official red tape I won’t bore you with details of what this entails as it’s all very dull, to be honest. For instance, the manager and at least one first team coach must hold a UEFA B licence. I'm sure some people find this stuff fascinating so I’ve added a link here where, if you’re a nerd or insomniac you can investigate this yourself. I wish you well.

Suffice to say, I feel sorry for the players and the fans who won’t get to watch their club competing at a higher level, this season at least.
 
Other results of note include Dundee United relying on a penalty to get past Stirling in the 93rd minute.
Who says the bigger teams don’t get preferential treatment eh? 🤣
 
Other Premiership clubs took care of their opponents with wins for St Mirren by four against Dumbarton, Falkirk putting five past Edinburgh City and Dundee coming out victors with a 4-2 win over Airdrie

In other news: finally Celtic have made a signing, not a contract renewal but, no, not one, but two new faces. Camilo Duran, the 24 year old Colombian forward landed on a five year deal from Qarabag. A potential replacement for Daizen Maeda who whilst is still a Celtic player, fans are resigned to the fact that he’s likely to be gone soon.

The other new face is a brand deal with Christophe Duchamp luxury watches - the official timepiece of Celtic FC

Yes, while other teams rebuild, the Celtic board continue to look for money making opportunities.
I know it’s a business etc etc but FFS, seriously, Celtic what are you doing?
 
Your average fan couldn’t afford one of these watches, they’re clearly for “monied people” and while us peasants look for players, the Celtic board through their official X account “are pleased to announce”… fancy fucking watches.

I gave up alcohol for a number of reasons, and despite my son buying me whisky and a decanter for Father's day I’ve so far managed to avoid drinking it even though right now it may be the only way to get through the day. It’s draining being a football fan, it’s certainly draining being a Celtic fan.

As I finish writing this I’m acutely aware that in the last few days we’ve had the 45th anniversaries of the passing of Joe McDonnell and Martin Hurson. On July 8th and 13th respectively. I extend my condolences to their family, friends and former comrades. May they rest in eternal peace.

Til next time ….

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Fitba's Back . . . Kinda

Tinfoil Tuesday 🧪 Sci Man Dan addresses Young Earth Creationist pseudoscience on the age of the earth. 

Earth Is No Spring Chicken

Barry Gilheany 🏴The deaths of any public figure does arouse mixtures of emotions. 

Ken Bates

The past few days have seen welters of condemnation by conservative writers and commentators on the glee allegedly being expressed online by lefties/progressives/woketards on the deaths of former Conservative and latterly Reform UK politician Ann Widdecombe and US Republican Senator Linsey Graham.

I must state at the outset that the death of any human being leaves their loved ones in a state of grief and so any comment on the recently deceased must in the first instance acknowledge that fact and express sorrow for those who mourn their loss. Death and its impact on relatives and friends is a universal which will affect all of us on this planet. Any reflections on the passings of public or private figures must always incorporate this unchangeable truth. That is as true for those for those who have whooped with glee at the deaths of the aforementioned big beasts of the political Right either side of the Atlantic as it would be for Donald Trump reacting to the death of Robert Mueller, former Head of the FBI and his would-be nemesis by saying “good” and that “he wasn’t a very nice person”.

However normal human decencies should never preclude honest reflections on the conduct and character of any public figure who has departed this temporal existence. That Ann Widdecombe was the elderly female victim of an appalling act of homicide and who had in her post-Westminster life achieved a partial national treasure status due to her participation in reality TV shows such as “Strictly Come Dancing” and “I am a Celebrity” should not deflect from critique of her views on abortion, same sex marriage, capital punishment and Brexit (all views which are polar opposite to mine but which I recognise the sincerity in which they were held) and her actions as Prisons Minister in John Major’s Conservative administration in the mid-1990s which included the shackling of pregnant female prisoners. 

Likewise, Linsey Graham’s staunch support for Ukraine needs to be balanced against his cynical volte face on his views on Trump’s unsuitability for the US Presidency and his enthusiastic backing for his illegal war on Iran and for Netanyahu's war of obliteration in Gaza. Yes, it is a truism that the deaths of universally admired personalities such as the broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan and the tragic passing of young athletes in their prime such as 25-year-old Jayden Adams who made his debut for South Africa recently in the World Cup will generate much more outpouring of sadness that partisan political figures. But the rule in obituary and tribute paying should always be play the public persona.

Which brings me to the dilemmas for Leeds United supporters such as myself posed by the death at the age of 94 in Monaco of another notable figure last weekend: Ken Bates, former Leeds and Chelsea Chair. For in death as in life he has provoked division among Leeds fans. It is undeniable that he saved the club from almost inevitable liquidation as a result of the catastrophic financial mismanagement by the PLC board headed by Peter Ridsdale by investing £10m in January 2025 and for this he earned eternal gratitude from one section of the fan base. But for others, most likely the majority, his tenure which ran to 2013 was another dark chapter in the history of the club which saw relegation to the third tier for the first time, and the club being put into administration the manner of exit from which earned us a 15-point deduction at the start of our first season in League One in 2007-08. 

Even after we returned to the Championship three seasons later under the stewardship of fan and ex player Simon Grayson, actions taken by Bates would serve to delay our return to the Premiership by almost a decade. From these fans, the reaction was as vituperative as those of the woketariat to the demise of Miss Widdecombe and Senator Graham with “Rot in Hell” being amongst the more family newspaper printable comments. While I belonged to the latter faction and abhorred everything he done after promotion from League One my reaction was “Let bygones be bygones” as, to paraphrase Amy Winehouse, hate is a losing game.

Ken Bates, a self-made millionaire from haulage and readymade concrete whose own football career was ended by a knee injury entered football chairmanship in the 1960s first as Chair of Oldham Athletic for five years before becoming owner and vice chair at Wigan Athletic and then really establishing his reputation at Chelsea. When he bought the club for £1 in 1982, it had become a ramshackle club far removed from the Kings Road glamour era on the late 60s and 70s with debts of £1.5 million and who had reached such nadirs on the field as a 6-0 defeat at Rotherham and a 7-3 home defeat to Leyton Orient in 1979. 

It is fair to say that he rescued Chelsea from extinction, and he can boast of setting them on the road to modernity by securing the freehold on its Stamford Bridge Ground from property dealers Marler Estates, enabling its conversion into a 40,000 plus capacity all seater stadium. His business acumen attracted quality players like Pat Nevin, Dave Speedie and Kerry Dixon, and by 1984 the club had returned to the then First Division suffering only one more one season in 1988. With the advent of the Premier League in 1992, Chelsea regained the glamour factor winning trophies such as FA Cup in 1997 and 2000 and the old European Cup Winners Cup with star continental imports such as Ruud Gullit (he of the “sexy football” vibe), Gianfranco Zola, Marcus Desailly and Gianluca Vialli along with English grit such as Dennis Wise and Michael Duberry (both eventually Leeds bound).

But his time at the Bridge was also characterised by grandiose gestures such as the construction of an electric fence around the Bridge to deter hooliganism (Chelsea fans had a particularly notorious reputation in that dark era of the 80s in English football) which was never switched on due to a refusal of permission by Greater London Council on safety grounds. His period in charge also say spectacular ruptures with friends such as Vice Chair and lifelong Blues fan Matthew Harding who was crucial to their revival, but who Bates banned from the boardroom in 1995 and who died the following year in a helicopter crash with no reconciliation with his erstwhile ally. Ruud Gullit who had steered Chelsea to the FA Cup in 1997, their first major trophy in sixteen years, was sacked the following year reportedly by teletext. Bates’ match programme notes became compulsive reading as he played out his feuds to the wider Chelsea community. It was a playbook that Leeds fans were to become used to.

Bates eventually sold the club, again in a parlous debt situation, to Roman Abramovich in 2003 and the rest, as they say, is history.

As a member of the FA Executive Board, Bates was a prominent figure in the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium being appointed chair of Wembley National Stadium Limited in 1997 only to resign in 2001 owing to what he felt was lack of progress on the project.

And so the unlikeliest White Knight arrived to save Leeds United oblivion. To reprise briefly what was the lie of the land then in January 2005. Leeds had been relegated from the Premier League in May 2004 with debts amounting to £100m as a result of the boom-and-bust era under Peter Ridsdale which saw scintillating form on the pitch leading to four successive top four finishes, a UEFA Cup semi-final place and, the piece de resistance, a Champions League semi-final appearance in 2001. It seemed only a matter of time before trophies started rolling in as David O’Leary’s young team (his “babies” as he cringingly called them) with young stars like Harry Kewell, Alan Smith, Stephen McPhail Jonathan Woodgate who had broken into the first team from the youth squad who had won the FA Youth Cup in 1997 augmented by established first teamers Lucas Radebe, Gary Kelly and Lee Bowyer and then joined by exciting arrivals on transfer such as Rio Ferdinand, Mark Viduka and Robbie Keane enthralled fans and football lovers generally with attacking, fearless prowess. 

The trouble was that the sunny uplands of the present and future were built on a pyramid of high interest loans from hedge funds secured against twenty years of season ticket sales; HP payment arrangements for new arrivals such as Mark Viduka, five year deals with excessive wages and a culture of excess and extravagance throughout the club with directors flying in private jets to away matches and 17-year-old youth players on wages of £6k a week. All this was mortgaged against annual participation in the Champions League and when Leeds failed to secure this objective for the second successive season in 2002, the whole edifice was to crumble with the departures of Ferdinand, Woodgate, Bowyer, Keane, Smith and Danny Mills in the next two seasons and the sacking of O’Leary as manager in June 2002. The cull was completed after relegation with only Gary Kelly and Michael Duberry remaining.

When Bates arrived, the club was run by a group of local businessmen headed by insolvency practitioner Gerard Krasner who had mortgaged their own properties to keep the club running but clearly lacked the wherewithal to carry on for the long haul. The Chelsea connections were always going to rankle with elements of the fan base but after false hopes had been raised by the prospects of rescue by Bahraini sheiks or Ugandan property developers; it was patently obvious that Bates was the only show in town. The prospect of administration averted (for now) Leeds ended the first of what was to be a sentence of sixteen years exile from the top flight in fourteenth position.

The arrival of reinforcements to the squad such as Rob Hulse, Richard Cresswell, Eddie Lewis and David Healy led to optimism that we could get promotion in the 2005-06 season. However the goal of securing the automatic route back to the Premiership was undermined by Bates’ decision to sell another homegrown starlet Aaron Lennon to Spurs who subsequently went to play for Everton and England. The absence of Lennon’s pace on the right flank was arguably the crucial difference between us going up automatically and having to do it through the play-offs. And so it was that thousands of us flocked to Cardiff on the third Sunday of May 2006 perhaps more in hope rather than expectation of a return to the Promised Land. Our abject 3-0 defeat to a hungry and ‘up for it’ Watford side put paid to any such optimism. 

However what none of us suspected was that this defeat had laid the ground for future calamity. Having seen his strategy of getting Leeds back to the PL on the cheap fail, Bates in the following season was to turn his attention to Plan B which was to put the club into administration at the most opportune moment. The opportunity presented itself when - with one game to go, relegation to League One was virtually assured due to our hugely inferior goal difference to that of the club above us, Hull City, - Bates called in the administrators with the club debt at £35m including £7m to the HMRC who incensed by the obligation of clubs in administration to pay off their football debts in full while settling for much lower terms for the other creditors including the taxman, decided to take a stand. They challenged Bates’ deal to buy the club from off shore companies with connections to him in the British Virgin Islands and to repay creditors with a rate of one penny in the pound. After a summer of shenanigans, the Football League agreed to allow Bates to circumvent normal insolvency procedures with the proviso of a 15-point deduction.

Bates also imposed Dennis Wise as manager on a hostile fan base. He waged war on the Official Supporters Club and banned those who didn’t like from the boardroom. On our return to the Championship he presided over the dismantling of the core of the squad that got us promotion and who with additions could have got us to the PL in order to build bars and restaurants around Elland Road. He undermined Simon Grayson before sacking him.

But that is all in our past. We have moved on. Rest in Peace, Ken.

⏩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.

Do Not Speak Ill Of The Dead ⚑ Ken Bates Passes Away

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3205

Catherine McGinty ✏ writing in Derry News.

‘Most egregious use of data I have seen in my entire clinical life’ - former WHSCT Consultant

The veracity of Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) claims regarding outcomes for patients in Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital requiring emergency general surgery (EGS) is being challenged.

There are also concerns about the level of over-inference or optimism the WHSCT attaches to outcome measures.

The data relates to patient outcomes following the centralisation of EGS provision in Altnagelvin.

Speaking to The Derry News, London-based statistician Paul Bassett said there was “a lot of uncertainty around the Trust’s figures”.

Mr Bassett specialises in the application of statistics in medical research and clinical trials.

A former WHSCT Consultant described the Trust’s claims as the “most egregious use of data I have seen in my entire clinical life”.

While an independent clinical professional said it was a “poorly thought through use of metrics”.

They added:

The outcome (mortality) itself is poor and there is a lack of methodological clarity about how the patients were counted at a basic level. Small changes between admission groups from new pathways of care could have a big effect on these data.
There are other measures much more valuable to measuring the quality of emergency surgical care at individual patient level.
It is easy to come up with these if you look at the most recent reports about pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, from the National Confidential Enquiry [Into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD)]. Why isn’t there a bigger focus on taking processive care measures from these reports?
It is disappointing that there are highly paid professionals not doing adequate due diligence on using information. Especially when the initial consultation seemed to involve significant missteps - said the clinical professional.

Processive care measures are the specific steps or activities carried out to deliver patient care. These are potentially more important than weak (statistically uncertain) indicators of mortality outcomes.

The WHSCT “temporarily” suspended EGS provision at Enniskillen’s South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in December 2022.

Altnagelvin is currently providing EGS for local patients, in addition to patients who have had to travel from Fermanagh and Tyrone to Derry because, three and a half years later, the SWAH EGS suspension remains in place.

Jimmy Hamill from the Fermanagh-based Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) campaign said the disparities in the WHSCT’s data first emerged at a meeting of the Assembly Health Committee.

On March 13, 2025, the Committee held a session titled ‘Review of Emergency General Surgery at the South West Acute Hospital: Department of Health; Western Health and Social Care Trust’.

Appearing before the Committee were, Dr Tomas Adell (Head of Elective Care, Department of Health); Mr Mark Gillespie (Director of Surgery, Paediatrics and Women's Health, WHSCT); and Dr Brendan Lavery (Medical Director, WHSCT).

Chairman, Philip McGuigan (Sinn Féin) voiced concern about “double emergency department (ED) waits”.

He said: 

It is of major concern that people are waiting in EDs twice [in SWAH and in Altnagelvin], before travel and after travel.
How are you getting on with the [RQIA] recommendation on increasing the number of ambulances? 

According to the Hansard record of the meeting, Dr Lavery replied that patient outcomes were “actually better”.

He added: 

We use a company called CHKS [Caspe Healthcare Knowledge Systems] which analyses the admissions across every trust in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. CHKS looks at every admission - thousands of admissions - and does a statistical analysis of age, sex, comorbidities and the diagnosis that the patient was admitted with using 250 categories of diagnoses. CHKS uses all that data to generate a risk-adjusted mortality index (RAMI).
At the time of the temporary suspension, the figure for the South West Acute was 110, and the figure for Altnagelvin was 85.
We got the figures in July or August last year [2024]. Effectively, the RAMI scores for Altnagelvin have continued to fall - to the extent that, if you extrapolate the data to look at mortality rates, you find that, due to the change that we have made, every 40 days, one patient survives who would not have survived.

Later in the session Dr Lavery said: 

The Public Health Agency (PHA) has independently reviewed the information. There is no adverse outcome for patients who live in that area.

"SOAS was immediately dubious about the WHSCT’s RAMI claims,” said Mr Hamil.

He added: 

We subsequently discovered that, writing to the Trust’s Medical Director on October 3, 2024, Joanne Mc Clean, the Director of Public Health, described the WHSCT’s data as needing ‘some more work. 

The Derry News has seen a copy of the confidential email which SOAS obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the PHA.

In it, Ms McClean wrote:

While you could say … there is no evidence of an increase in in-hospital mortality following the service change … I don’t think you could go beyond that without some more work.

She added: 

The biggest issue is that the absolute number of deaths per month is very small and subject to significant month to month variation … This means that the RAMI figures calculated are likely to have wide confidence intervals.

A ‘confidence interval’ is the statistical range which tells where a true population value is likely to fall.

Mr Hamill continued: 

SOAS was also aware that in December 2018 CHKS published its ‘Hospital mortality measures’ guidance which stated: ‘Indicators that count events such as deaths suffer from huge uncertainty.

That document said:

To be confident of a rate (to within 10 percentage points) approximately 1,000 deaths must be included in the dataset.
Many smaller hospital trusts have fewer than this number of deaths in a whole year, and analysis of a smaller subgroup of deaths (a specific condition, for example) would require proportionately more years of data before an acceptable degree of confidence about the underlying rate can be reached.

The former WHSCT Consultant told The Derry News, there was no way the Trust had this amount of deaths.

They added:

When we go to scientific meetings, whenever data is presented, there are always confidence intervals, and when you see confidence intervals as wide as they are in the Trust’s data, you can have no confidence. You cannot draw any conclusions from the data.
Speaking to the Assembly Health Committee, the Trust’s Medical Director just took the numerical change and said this is an improvement but with the confidence intervals, you cannot say that. It could have improved. It could have disimproved. We have no idea.
The PHA told the Trust not to use the data but it went ahead and used it. It is the wrong analysis.
The claim that for every 40 days one life is saved is outrageous because the Medical Director has derived that data from the RAMI. He looked at the reduction in mortality and he extrapolated it to the number of deaths. He said the number of deaths is now is reduced by X every 40 days.
“It is all complete nonsense. The whole methodology is flawed. It is the most egregious use of data I have seen in my entire clinical life.

Mr Hamill said SOAS realised rigorous interrogation of the Trust’s RAMI data was essential. He explained:

We therefore commissioned a ‘Statistical evaluation of data on the change in Emergency Surgery provision in Western Health and Social Care Trust’ (November 19, 2025) - an analysis of the Trust’s RAMI data by Paul Bassett (Statsconsultancy Ltd).

Mr Bassett subsequently told The Derry News: 

Because of the nature of the hospital and the fact mortality is quite an unusual occurrence, there is a lot of uncertainty around the [WHSCT] figures.
It is hard to say with any certainty that things have gotten better or worse because the numbers are quite small. If there have been some changes, which they are claiming, there is no statistical justification that those differences are genuine ones and not just a chance variation over time.
There is certainly no evidence to suggest it is what we normally call a statistically significant change, in other words that the difference is unlikely to be due to chance and as a result is likely to be a genuine effect.
Although there have been some slight improvements, the uncertainty around the estimates is such that it is highly likely that those are just due to chance.
There is no definitive conclusion that those are genuine improvements in the performance as a result of the centralising of ESG provision in Altnagelvin Hospital.

Essentially, the WHSCT’s has been criticised for using analytic approaches that have significant uncertainty but attach strong inference without any degree of statistical skepticism or triangulation with other critical metrics of process.

This has been described as “a very poor example of medical leadership and strategic planning for change of this magnitude”.

On Monday (July 6, 2026) WHSCT issued a press release titled, ‘Western Trust highlights independent evidence of safer Emergency General Surgery pathways following inaccurate public claims’.

It has also established an Emergency General Surgery Information Hub.

The Trust said:

Independent evidence has confirmed continued improvements in Emergency General Surgery patient pathways across the Western Trust, with both the RQIA Inspection Report and the independent CHKS review highlighting better patient outcomes, improved patient flow and enhanced patient safety.
The full Trust statement is available.

 ⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.

'Grave Doubts On Validity Of Western Trust Data'

Anthony McIntyre ⚽Jay didn't make this one.


Being a touch under the weather on this occasion was a cloud with a silver lining. He was spared the misery of another miserable performance. We were denied his prediction.

At the game's end I came away feeling that while Jay would get better there was little prospect of that happening for the Drogs. Then against the odds they went up to Oriel Park the following week and took all three points from their Dundalk rivals, a number of places above them in the league table. There were more than me amazed by that result. Inconsistency, while it worked out at Oriel, has been the bane of this struggling Drogheda side. 

Upon arrival I shook hands with Tony the tireless steward. It was coming up to the first anniversary of his wife's passing so I guess his mind was on other things, as well as the game at hand. 

Myself and Paddy settled into our seats just to realise that the sun was out once again to torment out view of the game. Maybe it thought it was doing us a favour, being the only thing to brighten up Sullivan And Lambe Park, but to me it is a lazy bollix. Does nothing all week and then comes out on a Friday night when nobody on our side of the ground wants it. Like the previous game, we were back to shielding our eyes from its rays through holding our phones above us. On this occasion I didn't even have the numbing compensatory balm of a double Glenfiddich. 

In the 5th minute Thomas Oluwa failed to make the most of a Brandon Kavanagh cross, putting his attempt on goal wide of the post. Minutes later Oluwa turned provider, allowing Leo Burney to head goalward from close range only to see his effort blocked. As if the sun was not doing a good enough job at annoying us, the stars seemed to be aligned against us as well. The two misses in the space of a minute were a harbinger of a missed opportunity to come.

Bohs defend in numbers especially from free kicks and corners which forces their opponents to rely on open play. The Drogs have more success from set pieces than any other side in the league while seeming unable to take advantage of the service provided by Brandon Kavanagh. Both avenues to goal closed off, it portended to be a difficult night.

It wasn't long before that moment of a fate foretold in the 5th minute arrived. Mark Doyle scoring at the wrong end of the pitch to put the visitors in front. Despite some attempts on the Bohemian goal the Claret and Blue failed to pull level, and went in at half time trailing by that solitary own goal. 

When Luke Dennison saved from Dawson Devoy in the 57th minute there was a hope that the Drogs had stabilised and could go on to salvage something from the game The Bohs seemed to be apprehensive about holding their lead and committed to some robust tackling to maintain the status quo, leading to a yellow card for Harry Vaughan on the hour. This saw the Bohs man replaced a minute later. 


In the 74th minute Ryan Brennan joined Vaughan when his name went into the book for a foul. The Drogheda captain had been putting himself about the park a bit, and it seemed inevitable that he would come to the ref's attention before the game's end.

As the contest entered its dusk stage an old Drogs favourite took to the field only this time he was turning out in the colours of the Bohs. Within two minutes the switch showed promise when Douglas James Taylor forced a Luke Dennison save. Only seconds passed before success struck for the English forward, placing his shot to the right of Dennison. Bohemians had doubled their lead.

Ten minutes later the former Drogs favourite could also have doubled his tally when a penalty was awarded against Leo Burney. Unfortunately for him he placed his shot over the bar and to safety for the Drogs although it would have no bearing on the outcome of the game. 

With time added on in either half, when they trudged towards the dressing room both sets of players teams had been on the field for over 100 minutes. 

We left the ground acutely aware that Waterford - for whom the season had seemed a lost cause with relegation looking a foregone conclusion - were now breathing down the neck of Drogheda. A 2-4 win up at the Brandywell over Derry City was edging them closer to safety while pushing the Drogs ever closer to the precipice. 

If Drogheda are to play premiership soccer next season they need to do it on their own steam. The steady climb of a consistent Waterford has shown that reliance on other teams to fail is a precarious hope for an inconsistent Drogheda.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Drogs ⚽ Bohs ⚽ Sliding

Dr John Coulter ✍ As tens of thousands of Orange brethren, sisters, band members and the public celebrate the Battle of the Boyne today, the event should also be used as a springboard to launch a Shared Union offensive aimed at persuading the 26 Counties to rejoin the a new Union of the British Isles.

Much is being made by elements of the Pan Nationalist Front (PNF) as to when they will be in a feasible position to have a Border Poll. While that is unlikely in the foreseeable future, it has not stopped the PNF from launching various projects and ventures to spark debate on Irish unity and what, in their eyes, a united Ireland should look like.

Rather than Unionism playing the constant Ulster Says No to any such debates, the Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community should start its own project to promote a Shared Union by persuading the 26 Counties of Southern Ireland to ultimately rejoin a new Union of the British Isles.

Whilst at first reading this will ultimately be dismissed by nationalists and republicans as a ‘rejoin the British Empire’ stunt, given the broad global tensions, the Irish republic may soon need to rethink both its relations with the European Union and its supposed military neutrality.

But primarily, how should a Shared Union campaign move forward beyond the theoretical into the practical given that the Irish unity debate is still firmly bogged down in the theoretical, if not downright fantasy politics.

The practical outworking of the Shared Union project should not wait until any future - if ever - Border Poll is called. In fact, it is already underway, and it lies in the hands of the Loyal Orders and marching bands.

Saturday witnessed the traditional Rossnowlagh parade in County Donegal when the Southern border county Orange lodges are joined by many Northern Ireland Orange members and bands for the annual so-called ‘Donegal Dander’.

It is one of the showpieces of the Orange Order in particular and is a far cry from past scenes at Drumcree during confrontations between the Order and the security forces. There are no political speeches at Rossnowlagh; just a route of around a mile, followed by a religious service, plenty of ice cream and a wee walk along the Donegal coastline.

The traditional Rossnowlagh parade is always held on the Saturday prior to the Twelfth to allow Southern lodges and bands to march in the main 12 July demonstrations across Northern Ireland. As 12 July 2026 falls on a Sunday, only annual divine services and church parades will be held that day with the traditional demonstrations scheduled for Monday 13th.

The Rossnowlagh model of Orangeism could be a blueprint for venues, not just across Northern Ireland, but also for an increased number of Orange and Black parades in Southern Ireland.

Whilst the Order is strongest in the Southern border counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim, the Rossnowlagh model could be used as an organisational springboard to launch more Loyal Order parades throughout the 26 Counties, especially deeper into Southern Ireland.

Republicans like to talk a lot about ‘persuading’ Unionists about the fantasy benefits of the mythical united Ireland. But the reality is that Southern Ireland may have to abandon its ‘republic’ status and be ‘persuaded’ that its future as a nation like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England lies within a new Union of the British Isles.

Military neutrality will have to be binned with the increasing threat from Russia. During the Cold War, the Right-wing National Monday Club pressure group portrayed Southern Ireland as Britain’s Cuba.

History is now repeating itself and its only a matter of time before the Ukrainian conflict becomes a head on war between the West and Russia. In this new impending war, the island of Ireland will play a crucial geographical role.

The Irish Defence Forces have already acquired an impressive peace keeping record serving with the United Nations. But the time has come for Southern Ireland to stop playing the neutrality card and become a full member of NATO.

Politically, too, Southern Ireland needs to realise that it has milked the European Union cow to the maximum and it is only a matter of time before Eire is forced to become a substantial giver to EU coffers rather than a receiver.

Irexit must follow Brexit. If the so-called Celtic Tiger economy goes bust again, there will be no British millions to bail out Southern Ireland. Practically, the 26 Counties also needs to be part of a major power bloc politically in the event of Irexit.

That bloc will be the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), which represents some 50 plus national and regional parliaments and assemblies across the globe. It must be noted that Ireland was a founder member of the Empire Parliamentary Association - the forerunner of the CPA - in 1911 when all 32 Irish counties were an integral part of the British Empire.

As a Ballymena man myself, there is the old saying - money talks. The PNF can spoof all it likes politically about Irish unity, but the crucial financial bitter medicine which the 26 Counties must swallow - it can never afford to economically run all 32 counties.

Southern Ireland cannot make Irish unity financially viable, but the UK can make a new Union of the British Isles economically effective. Unionists must sell not only the benefits of remaining in the UK, but also the political, economic and military advantages of Southern Ireland becoming an integral part of the Union of the British Isles.

Over the coming days tens of thousands of folk will commemorate the Boyne victory at Orange demonstrations as well as the traditional Sham Fight at Scarva. That 17th century Williamite settlement heralded in the Glorious Revolution and the Protestant Ascendancy.

It is time for the UK to take back what is rightfully and historically our’s. It is time for the Dublin establishment to waken up and smell the poteen - Southern Ireland belongs in the Union.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

PUL Community Should Launch Shared Union Offensive!

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3204

Remembering Martin Hurson On The 45th Anniversary Of His Death On Hunger Strike In The H Blocks Of Long Kesh.


Martin Hurson🏴 45 🏴 Eternal Dreamless Sleep

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★ Everyone is talking about a 'United Ireland '....except the Unionists, Loyalists and the English, of course.


Sinn Fein are becoming very vocal now about, a plan at least, for this 'United Ireland'. They are trying to appear to be attacking Mícheál Martin i Teach Laighean about it; in the form of Pádraig McLoughlin, sounding all historic and theatrical. Michelle O'Neill is even talking about it now, too.

There's a North/South push by Sinn Fein to get something moving....anything...anything at all will do !! What waffle they speak; and dangerous, misleading waffle at that.
 
Sinn Fein still thinks that the 'politics of waffle' and grandstanding will fool all of the people all of the time. It won't; and as Socialist Republicans we should continue to point out that 'the emperor has no clothes'.

The Sinn Fein 'Project Stormont' and 'Project Pacification', carefully fostered by English Imperialism, has ran into the sand, for Sinn Fein. After thirty years they are now seen for what they have always been, a puppet of imperialism and capitalism. Sinn Fein are desperate to get into any 'political lifeboat ' they can find.
 
Mary Lou is also suffering from memory loss ! What's new? She forgets about the 850 years of English occupation and colonialism in Ireland. She forgets about the genocidal famine of the 1840's. She forgets about the Unionist rule and English atrocities in the, still occupied, six counties. Her approach and that of Sinn Fein is, ignore all of that but look over here at this 'nice new shiny thing'...an undefined "United Ireland"...packaged and delivered by the powerful and wealthy ruling elites. It's the "cure" for all our economic and political ills, they will tell you.

Mary, Michelle and Pádraig, stop 'play acting'. You know, we know and anyone with any political 'cop on' knows that the United Ireland you speak loudly of, is a United Ireland within imperialist and capitalist rules. You will abide by the demands and dictates of English, EU and Yankee imperialism. In other words you will do as you're told.
 
It will be 'top down' power. It will not be a sovereign, liberated or people powered democratic Ireland. Inequality and exploitation, the basis of poverty, will prevail. The majority, the working class, the poor and working poor will still be second class citizens; if they are lucky.

You have and will continue to oppose a thirty two county Socialist Republic. You have and will forget about the sacrifice of IRA volunteers and their families, who fought, died and spent lifetimes as political prisoners, for that Socialist Republic. We, on the other hand, have not forgotten what we stand for, nor will we.

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

United Ireland! United Ireland!

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 6-July-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Ukraine trade union statement on bombing,
⬤ Ukrainian participant on Global Sumud Flotilla.
⬤ Ukraine-Poland tension.
⬤ Russian torture & other war crimes.
⬤ Crimea abductions & secret detention.
⬤ Russia fuel crisis.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Crimean Olha Tsyryk gets16-year sentence after blitzkrieg ‘trial’ for selfies and anti-Russian comments (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, July 3rd)

Crimean Tatar political prisoner returned to die in Russian captivity is in critical condition (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, July 3rd)

Occupied Crimea braces for a summer without fuel (The Insider, 3 July)

Faces of Resistance: The Story of Political Prisoner Iryna Horobtsova (Crimea Platform, July 3rd)

Crimea Platform Fifth International Forum in Kyiv (Crimea Platform, 2 July)

“I looked at the gas shortages and closed my cafe before I went broke”: Russian-occupied Crimea is bracing for a summer without fuel (The Insider, July 1st)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, July 1st)

UN Committee against Racial Discrimination slams Russia’s persecution of three Crimean Tatar lawyers (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, July 1st)

Abducted 63-year-old Crimean sentenced to 19 years for support of Ukraine which Russia called ‘treason’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 30th)

Russia labels Crimean Solidarity, lawyers & journalists 'foreign agents' in new attempt to crush Crimean Tatar human rights movement (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 29th)

Russian attacks continue to claim civilians’ lives (Confed’n of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 2 July)

News from Ukraine

Ukrainian parliament approves creating pantheon to commemorate national heroes (Kyiv Independent, July 1st)

Massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv kills 31 (Kyiv Independent, July 1st)

Progress of the war

Ukrainian forces strike Russian logistics and military infrastructure (ZN.UA, July 5th)

Ukraine nearly doubles number of successful strikes (Kyiv Independent, July 5th)

Ukrainian strike against St Petersburg oil infrastructure (Kyiv Independent July 4th)

Russia can no longer conduct a naval blockade of Ukraine (ZN.UA, July 5th)

Courts vs. ships: Ukraine trying to stop illegal wheat exports from Russian-occupied territories (The Insider, July 2nd)

War-related news from Russia

Russia’s mass missile attacks on Ukraine ‘must continue’ says Putin (Kyiv Independent July 4th)

39 hours in line: one driver’s road trip through Russia’s fuel crisis (Meduza, 3 July)

Russia rewrites its history books again, to flag up Trump’s “positive role” (Meduza, 3 July)

230,624 deaths: Russian losses count updated (Mediazona, 3 July)

Russia stages grotesque trial for second 29-year sentence against savagely tortured Ukrainian partisan (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, July 2nd)

Ukraine war sparks fears of an organised crime resurgence in Russia (The Conversation, July 2nd)

Farewell to windfall: Сompanies in most Russian industries are getting poorer (The Insider, July 1st)

Investment falling: long-term structural crisis in Russian economy (The Insider, 30 June)

Comment and analysis

Fourteen Thousand: The number everyone cites and almost no one checks, about the war between 2014 and 2022 (Red Mole, June 30th)

Memory war causes Ukraine-Poland tension (RAAM, 30 June)

Anti‑war coalition ignores Putin’s war on Ukraine (Anti-Capitalist Resistance, June 28th)

For an Anti-Imperialist Leftist movement. An interview with Andriy Movchan (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, June 24th)

Research of human rights abuses

Netherlands approves hosting of Special Tribunal on Russia’s aggression (Ukrainska Pravda, July 5th)

Damage from Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure has exceeded $45 billion (Tribunal for Putin, July 2nd)

Torture, civilian detainees and Russia’s accountability: ZMINA joined the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting in Vienna (Zmina, July 1st)

Abduction in Crimea after the full-scale invasion (Ukrainska Pravda, June 30th)

Prosecutor General’s Office has registered nearly 69, 000 Russian war crimes over the past year (Tribunal for Putin, June 29th)


🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 203

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