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Gary Robertson ⚽Never a red card.

Never in a month of Sundays.

Hardly touched him.

A few moments later.

Nutjob
 
Stupid challenge to make.

This ref is strict. I mean, clearly he was getting booked and already on a yellow - fecking eejit.


Or so the conversation went as I watched O’Neill's ten men valiantly hold on for a 2-2 draw against a relentless Bologna.
 
Its painful to think Celtic were 2 up in this game and with a full battalion would have probably won the match quite convincingly but Reo seeing red didn’t help the cause. True, Trusty’s goal to make it 2-0 came when they were already a man down but in all honesty it’s difficult to express exactly how I feel. I mean sure I take pride in their result but it’s also a “what could have been?” for Celtic.
 
We will never know however the history books have been written and 2-2 it remains.
 
On the other side of the city it looks like Rangers continue to improve under Rohl. A strong Rangers team faced Ludogorets and whilst in the terms of their season the result is a little too late, a first win in Europe for the beleaguered blues shows they are still a force and can perhaps use this as a springboard for the rest of the season. They do have the “dead rubber” of Napoli ahead so who knows, with this win under their belts and confidence returning the Rangers might give their fans a European night to remember.

Saturday brought with it abandonments, most notably at Dundee Utd and Montrose. However, fans of the Highland league were hit hardest with four of the seven fixtures falling foul to the weather. What football that went ahead surely satisfied even the most difficult of palates.

Let’s begin with Falkirk (it's something I’ve never said before yet here it is 🤣) and their 21 year old wonder kid Barney Stewart, a young man with a bright future; and with no disrespect to Falkirk surely a name that’ll line up one day for a bigger club. Stewart having never scored before today managed to grab himself a hat trick against an awkward looking Hibernian team. His first a tap in (that looked suspiciously offside - both I and Falkirk Tv commentators were surprised it stood), before a well placed shot low past the despairing Hibs keeper, before Rocky Bushiri pulled one back for Hibs, giving them hope. However, the day belonged to Falkirk and most notably Stewart who scored in the 83rd minute to seal his hat trick before Grant Hanley put through his own net mins later to hand the hosts a 4-1 victory.

Aberdeen v Livingston looked like the perfect opportunity for the Dons (on paper at least) to continue their resurgence. All looked well for the Reds as Bilalovic stabbed home after some sloppy defending to give them a lead in the 9th minute. Kevin Nisbet then thought he’d put the home side 2-0 ahead before VAR ruled the goal offside. This seemed to spark renewed hope in the league's bottom side who managed to score twice through Susoho and Muirhead, and suddenly things started to look rosy for Livi. But alas this was a brief moment of joy as Nisbet then scored twice in the 4th and 8th minute of stoppage time in the first half to restore an Aberdeen lead.
 
The second half began with a sending off for Livingston manager Martindale who clearly upset the fourth official. And whilst I’m no lip reader I’m pretty sure he told Martindale to “run along old chap” or something like that, anyway, but as I said no lip reader. What followed was madness - two red cards, one for either side - Milne & Bokila and a double for Dons Keskinen. What now for David Martindale? Fans of the West Lothian club must already be planning their future in the championship.
 
Motherwell's 4-0 thrashing of Kilmarnock comes as no surprise. As we’ve already noted, The Steelmen are playing superbly under Jens Berthel Askou, and whilst Maswanhise looked less than impressed to be subbed (the manager likened the disagreement to “telling your son it’s time for bed”) there’s no doubting this is a team with a future, and if they keep their star performers who knows. I make no excuses for being a fan of their manager's style of attacking football.

Saturday did not however end well for one member of our happy circle, and I think it’s safe to say that the grumblings are getting louder down Anfield way. Listening to “606” on 5Live, seems many fans have lost patience with Arne, and in the cutthroat world of the EPL he may be walking the plank soon, and few tears will be shed.

Sunday saw the top three in action with Celtic travelling to Tynecastle for a top of the table clash whilst right in the mix the Rangers hosted Dundee, a club with their own worries to seek and in 9th place in the league, and worrying close to a relegation playoff.
 
The afternoon started brightly for Celtic. With their new striker, Cvancara, on show for the first time hopes were high after a superb free kick from the much maligned Nygren dropped under the bar into the net past a despairing Gordon. Hearts however are in no mood to lose that top spot and their first top flight title in over 60 years. A strike from Findlay early in the second half was no less than Hearts deserved. Celtic were already under relentless pressure and failed to find many openings to create even a semblance of a goal before a wonderful cross from new bhoy Cvancara was met by the inrushing Yang and buried into the net. Hearts 1 - Celtic 2. Despite Hearts pressure and wave after wave of attack Celtic and particularly Schmeichel, who pulled off a few world class saves, looked reasonably comfortable.

However as we know it’s a dangerous place to be 2-1 ahead and half an hour to go. Then came the controversy, the turning point. Hearts continued their push for an equaliser, and in the 76th minute Trusty found himself chasing Kabore, bringing him down perhaps 30 yards from goal. Initially referee McLean showed Trusty a yellow, which at the time seemed the correct decision as Scales was behind Trusty, therefore, he technically wasn’t the last man. VAR had different ideas and called McLean to the monitor and the initial yellow was upgraded to red and the American found himself heading for an early bath. The impetus was now with Hearts, playing against 10 men. With plenty of time left the attacking became relentless and whilst Celtic defended manfully a bullet strike from Braga sent the Georgie faithful into dreamland. Now for Celtic at least it was a case of damage limitation and despite 8 additional minutes the ten men held on for a point. Perhaps enough on any other day but with what was happening back in Glasgow enough so see Celtic slip to third in the SPL.
 
Rangers faced Dundee at Ibrox. The home crowd expecting 3 points they were made to work hard in the first half and with the scores 0-0 at half time this seemed a fair reflection as both sides had chances but both appeared wasteful in front of goal. The second half a very different story unfolded.
 
Barely 3 mins old and Astley brought down Rangers' Raskin, and as is his wont captain Tavernier slotted away the penalty to make it 1-0 to the Rangers and a 100th league goal for the defender. Quite the achievement. Rangers were however made to work hard for their second which came from the boot of Danilo in the 91st minute, sending the home fans into raptures: the icing on the cake delivered in the 94th minute - a cross by Raskin met by Gassama - in it went and up went the Rangers to second spot in the table. Now four points behind Hearts and Celtic slipping to third a further two points behind Rangers fans can be satisfied how their team have progressed under Rohl. 

The title of course isn’t over. There’s plenty of twists and turns to come but from a Celtic view I cannot help but fear the days of Nancy will be costly come the end of the season. Indeed Motherwell in fourth are closer to Celtic than Celtic are to Hearts.
 
It’s football though and anything can happen. We’re all seasoned observers so there’s no chicken counting happening just yet. But I think it’s safe to say whoever wins the league this season will have had to work extremely hard for it. Right now my virtual cash is on Heart of Midlothian. It’ll take a good one or an implosion to knock them off their perch.

A week of “what could have been” for Celtic marred by indiscipline.
 
Winning against Utrecht on Thursday would of course be superb but I for one think a bigger achievement might be keeping eleven men on the pitch.

Late news: Livingston are to report Aberdeen for a racial incident involving Aberdeen players and Livingstons’ Bokila.
 
There’s no room for this behavior in football and anyone who’s found guilty of this whether that be player or fan should face the full brunt of the law.

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Hearts In The Right Place

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Since the ostensible Trump-arranged ceasefire in Gaza the genocidaires of Israel have killed over 460 Palestinians, 100 of whom were children. 

In addition to the mass murder, the New York Times has found that Israel has destroyed 2,500 buildings.

Through their penchant for infanticide - which included eight babies frozen to death over the bitter Gazan winter - the Israelis continue to send a message to Gazans from Tel Aviv that their future is being methodically killed off. This is the backdrop to Jonathan Cook's observation that Trump's new Peace Board is an Orwellian sales pitch. It does not do what it says on the tin, the label a mere mask for tarting up as "peace" the final eradication of Palestinian life in Gaza.

'Ralph Wilde, is the author of International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away. He is suitably qualified to advise on the legality or otherwise of trusteeships. He was one of a group of UK based international lawyers who wrote to then British Prime Minister Tony Blair warning that the Iraq war would be illegal. Last October he stated that the Peace Board, where Blair will play a leading role, would also be illegal.

None of this seems to matter to all those agencies and states that have opted to support the Peace Board. Disgracefully but not surprisingly Egypt and Qatar, despite being excluded from a mediating role - later relented on in the case of Qatar - did not withdraw from the group of eight regional states that signed a declaration welcoming the Peace Board when it was first suggested in late 2025. Moreover, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan never consulted with the Palestinians before agreeing to the imperialist initiative.
 
The Palestinian Authority - unfailingly aware of just how little Israel will permit it to do - has been rewarded with nothing less than contempt. Netanyahu demanded that it drop its cases against Israel in the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

Ominously Cook asserts: 

Some of us have long warned that Israel and the US view the Palestinians as lab rats, both for testing weapons and surveillance technologies and for changing the norms developed after the Second World War to safeguard against the return of fascist, militaristic and expansionist ideologies.

One diplomat succinctly explained the Peace Board: "It's a 'Trump United Nations' that ignores the fundamentals of the UN charter." As Cook asserts, 'For decades, Israel has been dreaming of this moment: of taking a wrecking ball to the UN and its legal and humanitarian institutions.'

An Israeli wet dream which in the discerning words of David Hearst three months ago:

No wonder Netanyahu had a big smile on his face. And no wonder he told Israeli television viewers: Who would have believed this?

Well, everybody following events in both Gaza and the international arena would have believed it. But only those genuine in their opposition to what they see with their own eyes will stand up to it. 

⏩⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Peace Board Bollix

Barry Gilheany 🎥 With the passage over two decades and allowing for the fact that I was not resident in Ireland then nor am now . . . 

. . . it is still stunning how fall out between Mick McCarthy, the manager of the 2002 World Cup qualifying Republic of Ireland team, and Roy Keane, the squad’s team before the start of the tournament held jointly between Japan and South Korea became such a binary Yes or No national referendum issue for the Irish people in general. 

To recall, the irreconcilable differences between the two led to one inevitable outcome – Keane was sent with his bags packing to his Cheshire home to walk his dogs while the Republic embarked on the third World Cup journey of their history. The saga of this spectacular denouement to the relationship between Mick and Roy and the sub-plots and backstories are told in the film Saipan which has just gone on general release (in the UK anyway) and which I attended at the weekend.

The tragedian aspect of the whole episode as depicted in the film lies in two conflicts: one between footballing cultures and the other between differing aspects of Irishness or Irish identity. Regarding the former, Mick McCarthy, played excellently by Steve Coogan, brings to the table the experience of a 57 times capped Irish international and a post-retirement managerial stint at Millwall (he would after the World Cup go onto manage Wolves, Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Cardiff City, Apoel Nicosia and Blackpool with varying degrees of success at a mostly English second tier level). He comes across as solid, pragmatic in a Yorkshire sort of way. He is a native of Barnsley and a “football man” who understands the culture of the dressing room and the wiles and foibles of the characters who pass through it. He has been a teammate of some of his charges but knows how to set the appropriate boundaries between him as the gaffer and players who come from a mixture of English Premiership and Championship.

Roy Keane, played equally convincingly in the film by Eanna Hardwicke, was then captain of Manchester United from 1997 to 2005 and for twelve years was the lynchpin of the most successful Manchester United side ever under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson, the most prolific trophy winner in the history of the English game. He is easily the most honours decorated Irish international of all time, having won seven Premierships, four FA Cups and one European Champions League. He has made a reputation for perhaps the most effective box-to-box midfielder in the English game; a determined tackler, immaculate passer and a real nose for goal having scored 50 goals. Arguably the most combative midfielder at the top tier since legendary Leeds United captain Billy Bremner, Keane was a classic enforcer on the pitch and renowned for not suffering fools gladly. 

However the downside of this aspect of his career was a disciplinary record of eleven red cards of which seven were received in the Premier League which is a record tally for that competition. A darker side to Keane’s character when in his autobiography he openly admitted to a deliberate foul on Alfe-Inge Haaland of Manchester City (father of current City striker Erling) in October 2001 which effectively ended his career; this was in retaliation for a tackle by Alfe-Inge on Roy Keane while playing for Leeds United at Elland Road four years previously and which had caused Keane to sustain an ACL injury which ended his 1997-98 season (Haaland stood over him and accused him of feigning injury). For his refusal to apologise (it was “an eye for an eye” was his candid admission) Keane earned a further five match ban from the English FA and a £150,000 fine on top of an earlier three match ban and £3,000 fine.

So Roy Keane brought to the squad not just the uber professionalism and an on-field reputation befitting the captain of one of the world’s preeminent football clubs and a passionate commitment to the cause of the Irish national team but also a capacity to hold grudges and an intolerance for those he deems to fall below the standards he sets for himself and others. It was a combustible mix which as the film patiently, perhaps tantalisingly, builds up to would inevitably lead to a confrontation which although tragic at the time for Irish soccer fans, had led to the double catharsis of the Irish team bonding in the aftermath of Keane’s departure and going on to enjoy a respectable World Cup, and for Roy Keane of slaying his demons around the incompetent organisational culture of Irish soccer.

But the tragic aspects of Saipan relate to the clash between two dimensions of Irish identity. The story of Mick McCarthy is the story of the Irish emigrant experience in Britain. Like tens of thousands of Irish men and women down the generations forced to migrate owing to the lack of work in the home country, Mick McCarthy’s father left to go down a coal mine in Yorkshire. Despite his birthplace, love and loyalty to his mother country burns deep in his heart and soul and he served it as a rugged centre half on 57 occasions (as well as for Barnsley, Manchester City, Celtic, Lyon and Millwall). As he says in a motivational flourish in the film, he reminds the squad that they are playing for the generations of Irish people forced to leave the old country for work. They are playing for the sake of the Irish diaspora as well as for the new and modern Ireland of the Celtic Tiger era. And it is Roy Keane who is an exemplar of this New Hibernia. The most successful Irish footballer of his or any generation who has played under two of the most iconic managerial figures in English football history – Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson – and he has internalised the success ethic of Fergie in particular. Having got to where he has through overcoming youth trial rejections and determination and hard work, he has little time for the way that things used to be done in Irish soccer (and perhaps in wider Irish society).

The stage is thus set for the slow burning but steadily rising discord which explodes so dramatically in the final squad meeting before departure for Japan. Before these set of ructions on Saipan, I confess to have only heard once before of this US dependent territory in relation to exploitation of labour in the garments industry. I have since learned that it was from Saipan that the Enola Gay set off to drop its terrible cargo on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. 

Having got these historical anecdotes out of the way, let’s look at how Saipan’s role in this history making moment is depicted on screen. The film starts with a pastiche of vox populi reactions among the Irish public to the sporting cataclysm that has leaked out from the camp onto the daily news bulletins on RTE and the front pages of the newspapers. Opinions are broadcast from all corners and sections of Irish society from the taxi driver to publican to kids at school to women out shopping right up to high politics in the person of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Views polarise around the legalistic and professional position that the decision of the manager has to be final and that the maintenance of squad harmony is paramount to a more emotional allegiance to the Keane corner because of his totemic status as the most successful ever Irish footballer ever and sympathy with his fury about the facilities at the camp and what he sees as the lackadaisical culture within the camp. It is impossible to make a definitive assessment as to where the critical mass of Irish public opinion was eventually to be found but it is fair to say that there would have been near total unanimity in favour of Keane in his native county of Cork; the Rebel County always rallies to its own.

It is worth commenting that in a not so distant but vanished era in Irish history, that of the supreme hegemony of Gaelic games and the disapprobation of ‘foreign games’ the idea of any Minister of State never mind the Taoiseach getting into a lather about soccer matters would have been unthinkable. It is fair to ask where the concern from Irish governments was when a succession of dubious refereeing decisions in Paris, Sofia and Brussels conspired to keep what was then the best ever Irish international sides out of the World Cups of 1978 and 1982.

Anyway, the film continues with scenes of Roy Keane kicking a ball around the streets of Cobh as a boy; it cinematically narrates his steady progress through junior football; his breakthrough at local League of Ireland side Cobh Ramblers and then his journey to the stratosphere of English first tier football; first at Nottingham Forest and then for a then British transfer fee of £3.75m to the inaugural Premier League Champions Manchester United in the summer of 1993. The rest, as they say, is history. But along the way there is a hint of a grudge with somebody over Keane being passed over for an important selection at junior level.

The viewer’s sympathy for the dilemmas which Mick McCarthy has to handle surely rises in an evocative scene where prior to the second leg of the World Cup qualifying play off tie with Iran in Tehran in which Ireland hold a 2-0 lead from the first leg, he has to contend with a volley of F words on the phone from Alex Ferguson over Roy Keane’s fitness to play in Tehran. It is made clear from He Who Must Be Obeyed that a leg injury precludes any participation from his club captain in this qualifying decider. The extent and nature of Roy Keane’s injury is one of the sub plots of the entire imbroglio, but Fergie invokes the four-day rule whereby a club manager can mandate the withdrawal of a club player who has been selected for international duty on fitness grounds. But throughout the film, the exact reasons for Keane’s withdrawal are never made explicit which keeps the pot of suspicion brimming if not actually boiling over.

Qualification secured after a nervy 1-0 defeat in Tehran, the action shifts to the departure of the Irish team bus to pre–World Cup base. Keane sits quietly at the rear of the bus; conspicuously not joining in the bonhomie and craic that the rest of the squad engage in. It is the same on the plane where he buries his head in a book, and the aloofness continues throughout the five-day sojourn in Saipan. But this aloofness soon morphs into discontent over the facilities for a team in preparation for the biggest team sport event in the world. The training pitch is pock marked with numerous divots which make five a side games, goalkeeping practice routines and round the pitch laps impossible. Only keepy-uppy training drills are possible. The most farcical defect is the absence of footballs for players to practice with the basic tools of their trade! The catering appears to consist of sandwiches for breakfast, if not for lunch and evening meal. Keane struggles to get the air conditioning on in his hotel room, a situation hardly conducive to the cultivation of cool, rational reasoning in the Pacific humidity.

He does not take part in the squad high jinks which could have come from the set of Mike Bassett Football Manager the highly claimed mockumentary starring Ricky Tomlinson as the hapless manager of the England World Cup squad which came out in late 2001. He relays his frustrations back to his partner in Cheshire. He has stand up rows with the FAI officials whose lackadaisical attitudes seem designed to permanently distort his vision with the colour red. McCarthy tries, in turn, to emolliate and cajole him by trying to get him to understand “where he is coming from” and inquiring whether he would talk to Alex Ferguson in the same manner that he is coming on to his international boss.

Eventually, matters come to a head for the first occasion when after a fractious debate within the squad about the facilities Roy decides he has had enough and announces his intention to depart the squad. Somehow Mick uses patient diplomacy to persuade Roy to stay. So has harmony broken out in time for the task ahead? The answer comes when after an off-the-record conversation in the hotel with a female journalist in which Roy candidly reveals the shortcomings of the Irish preparation, a newspaper is passed around the top table of the squad with the headline “Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail” despite the verbal promise of the honourable lady of the press to embargo publication until after the tournament.

Roy is called down from his hotel room to explain the provenance of this article and is asked to apologise. Roy refuses to apologise for telling what he believes to be the truth. The volume of the exchange between Roy and Mick rises to decibel shattering levels when Roy embarks on his notorious volleys of personal abuse against Mick who he describes as a “c..t”, “w…r” and most hurting of all, a “Plastic Paddy”; not a “real Irishman” at all. It does not require a sociological PhD in othering, racialised language to understand that the point of no return had been passed. On top of this invective, was disparagement of Mick’s career achievements and then the opening of the wound that Roy has carried since his early teenage years when Mick reportedly laughed at Roy’s failure to make the grade for that junior team selection all those years ago. Fisticuffs are narrowly averted by Roy being physically restrained by fellow squad members who all weigh in behind their manager. Keeping his calm and dignity throughout, Mick formally sends Roy home for this ultimate act of indiscipline.

It is reasonable to ask why the FAI did not do due diligence on Saipan as a World Cup preparatory venue. Why was the situation allowed to escalate when legitimate grievances over essentially working conditions which any shop steward worth their salt should have been able to make; which Roy articulated albeit sometimes in a passive-aggressive manner became the crisis which almost derailed Ireland’s World Cup campaign? What if serious injury had been sustained by one of the squad because of the glorified sandpit of a training pitch? Mick does one make one last ditch phone call to Roy saying a place is available for him in the squad and a plane is made available at Manchester Airport or him to fly to Japan. But Roy makes it clear that that particular ship has sailed.

As things transpired, it was “all for the best.” Ireland come out of their group with creditable 1-1 draws with Cameroon and Germany and a 3-0 win over Saudi Arabia. In their round of 16 tie with Spain they achieved another 1-1 draw but exited the World Cup through the dreaded penalty shoot-out.

Dissatisfaction with Irish football decision making and administration did not begin and end with Roy Keane; Eamonn Dunphy has been a particularly trenchant critic of the FAI’s stewardship of the Irish game and the subsequent scandals surrounding John Delaney’s tenure as that body’s Chief Executive Officer which he had to cede after investigative journalist probes into FAI finances. 

Keane’s own tragedy is his failure to find a permanent post-playing career anchor in the game despite spells as mangers of Sunderland (winning promotion to the Premier League in 2006-07), Ipswich Town and as assistant to the then Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill. Frustration at the failure of others to live up to his high standards was a factor in his brief tenures at both Championship clubs. Surely, he has more to offer the game than punditry at which thankfully he is not a nodding dog.

⏩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. 

Saipan ⚽ Tragedy Or Cartharsis?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 3040

Pádraic Mac Coitir 🔖 It's no exaggeration to say the year of 1981 will go down in Irish history because of extraordinary events that happened between March 1st and October 3rd of that year.


Despite it being forty five years ago I have vivid memories of that period running about the streets and being on remand in Crumlin Road gaol from July 1981 until October 1982.

Much has been written about the hunger strike in which seven IRA and three INLA volunteers died. At the same time people were being killed outside the prisons and many families are still feeling the affects of that turbulent time.
 
A friend asked me if I wanted his copy of the book Guthanna '81 saying it was very good. I had read reviews of it and I wasn't in a hurry to read it but I was wrong with my scepticism. There is 300 pages and because it was so engrossing I read it in two sittings and would highly recommend it.
 
I was on the blanket protest from January 1977 until August 1979 and this book brought back many memories of the brutality we endured by the screws. Shortly before my release from the H-Blocks there was a lot of talk about a hunger strike because the British government wasn't giving in to our demands whilst we were on the blanket and no-wash protest. The wing I was on was mostly men of my own age, 21 and 22. Although young we were determined lads and despite what the screws threw at us they were never going to break us.
 
This book has chapters detailing the protests from men who were there. They also spoke of the debates about hunger strikes and it came as no surprise to me that one took place in 1980. Because I knew some of the lads on the strike I was often asked to speak publicly about it but I was advised by my comrades not to do it because I was involved in other things. When the 1980 hunger strike ended I genuinely thought the lads had won but within days we all found out the truth - or at least some of it.
 
As the weeks and months went by I was on the run but stayed in Belfast. I was writing the odd comm to some of the lads on the blanket and it was clear in their replies that another hunger strike was to take place. So on the 1st March Bobby Sands embarked on it. We all know that Bobby and his nine comrades died and this book goes into a lot of detail from men who were there and some who went on hunger strike.
 
There are also parts of the book about the impact the struggle was having on the street and very emotional pages about the killing of 14 year old Julie Livingstone who was shot with a plastic bullet.
There were other chapters I wasn't impressed with, especially from some people that continue to claim that the ten lads' death led to the election strategy for Sinn Féin. I ended back in the H-Blocks in 1987 for ten years and many former hunger strikers and blanketmen were still there and I never heard any of that talk.

Despite that I would recommend this book and do what my friend done and pass it on. It will not only be interesting to people of my age but to those much younger. We will see the British and Free State governments for what they were- devious - and they haven't changed you know.

Danny Morrison, 2025, Guthanna '81. Publisher: ‎An Fhuiseog. ISBN-13: 978-1838483548

Guthanna '81

People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani.

3-January-2026
Electricity networks matter. Humans depend on economic and technological systems through which they run. We will depend on electricity networks still more heavily if – despite, and against, capital and its power – we are to tackle climate change.

It is a shame, then, that Matthew Huber, in a long-delayed response to my comments on his work,[1] avoids the crux of the argument, about grids trending towards decentralisation and how that technological change relates to social change. Instead he presents me, falsely, as representative of a “left energy ideology” that I do not recognise, and bashes that ideology over the head.

Moray East Offshore Wind Farm in Scotland. In 2024, UK wind farms were
switched off for 13% of the time they could have been supplying the grid,
costing the grid operator billions in compensation payments

I suggest we clear this “ideology” out of the way, and return to issues that matter.

Huber’s imagined “ideology” sees the “struggle over energy” waged by “local ‘communities’ vs big, centralised state and corporate entities” and by “‘energy democracy’ in the form of local participation in the governance of electricity systems”. I simply don’t think in these terms. And that’s obvious in the articles to which Huber is responding.

“A socialist response to [pro-capitalist] narratives [on grid development] must be based not on rejection of renewables or of decentralisation”, I wrote in one of them, “but on rejection of corporate power and of the dictates of capitalist expansion and capitalist markets”, and on principles of decommodification and public ownership. Decentralised power supply is “no less welcome to socialists than the growth of the internet or mobile telephony: we don’t have to accept the form of ownership to acknowledge the technology’s potential.” I was, and remain, very cautious about the potential of co-ops and municipal projects, that, I argued, “operate, at best, as islands of common ownership in a sea dominated by corporations”.[2]

Huber’s “left energy ideology” also believes the energy system will be shaped by “profound decentralisation”. In the articles to which he is responding, I argued at length that technological decentralisation is not the same as social and economic decentralisation, but he once again passes over that crucial distinction.

As for nuclear power, Huber’s “left energy ideology” sees it as a “false solution” like carbon removal or hydrogen. I do not. Carbon removal and hydrogen, as promoted by oil companies and governments, prolong hydrocarbons production and divert resources from effective decarbonisation.[3] Nuclear, by contrast, is relatively low-carbon and efficient. I abhor it as technologically inimical to approaches aimed at reducing throughput of energy, and socially inimical to progress away from capitalism and militarism.[4]

By lambasting me as a defender of this “ideology” I don’t recognise, Huber avoids the essential electricity technology problems facing socialists. (Moreover, it is unclear what Huber means by the “left”, a catch-all term in which he appears to include liberal and Democratic US environmentalists.[5])

I suggest setting all this aside and focusing, to start with, on five substantial points.

1. Technological decentralisation. 

Have relatively new energy technologies (combined-cycle gas turbines and combined heat and power plants, wind and solar), and computers, fundamentally changed electricity networks, and led to degrees of technological decentralisation in recent decades, or not? Was I correct to comment, in response to Huber and Fred Stafford, that “the growth of renewables is forcing two big changes to electricity networks: they are becoming less centralised, and bi- or multi-directional”?[6]

Huber doesn’t answer head-on. Instead, he questions my “optimism about some ‘third industrial revolution’”. What is the function of the word “some”? Why the sarcasm? Didn’t the inventions of the micro-chip, small-scale computing and the internet make any difference?

Huber writes: “The fact is, most societies still rely on centralised power stations for the bulk of their electricity.” Yes. But what matters here is the trend away from centralised power stations. This has been underway for decades, forcing grid companies to adapt. It has long been a staple of fossil-fuel-industry propaganda to exaggerate the difficulties involved in doing so.

From a socialist standpoint, surely we need to discuss what potential these changes offer, and what dangers, and the way that these technologies are shaped by capitalist social relations.[7] To have that discussion, we need first to acknowledge that change has actually happened.

2. Reliability and network integration. 

Huber wants to discuss “how much we could rely on ‘decentralised renewables’ themselves”. Who is “we”? What “reliability”? 24/7 unbroken supply is a problem specific to rich countries. In most of the world, a catalogue of causes – colonialism, under-investment, prioritisation of industrial customers, etc – means that, as well as hundreds of millions of people who have no electricity at all, there are some billions (3.5 billion by one estimate[8]) who do not have reasonably reliable supply. Much energy policy discussion concerns the relative weights of reliability and access; the calculations are different from those in rich countries.

Nevertheless, 24/7 unbroken supply is desirable and completely possible. What obstructs it, in rich countries? In my view, engineers have long ago worked out how to provide reliable supply using large proportions of generation from renewables. It takes longer than need be to implement, mainly because of under-investment in infrastructure, which is in turn due to capital’s profiteering imperatives.[9] Huber sees it differently: he presents networks as precious assets for which renewables are a burden.[10] I think that this concedes too much to corporate propaganda, and that the labour movement could and should approach renewables integration as welcome potential that could better be realised if networks were publicly owned and developed for common need, not profit.

Huber writes that renewables have “reliability concerns”. What, specifically? Wind and solar are – obviously – intermittent, but engineers worked out ways to deal with that years ago. My point about California, Scotland, Spain, Denmark and other places where renewables contribute a large proportion of electricity generation is not that they are close to nirvana, but that the engineering challenges of integrating renewables to the grid have been overcome.

In his Catalyst article, written with Fred Stafford, Huber implied that renewables increase the danger of blackouts. I pointed out that there is no evidence for this, and that, moreover, the world’s most disastrous blackouts have been in fossil-fuelled systems.[11] In response, Huber claims, falsely, that I blamed fossil fuels for blackouts, “like blaming blood flow for a heart attack”. I didn’t, and wouldn’t, make such an idiotic suggestion. My understanding is that blackouts are usually caused by problems in networks – their physical state, the lack of investment, management, technical issues, etc – and not by the fuel used. (The initial investigations of the Iberian peninsula blackout in April 2025 point in this direction too.)

All this points to a methodological problem. An issue such as integration of renewables into electricity grids, which has so many political, social, economic and technological aspects, is unlikely to be resolved by polemical cheap shots. It needs careful analysis. (The same applies to the related question of the relative prices, and costs, of renewables and nuclear, which has so many moving parts.[12])

3. Climate emergency and construction time-scales. 

I argued that renewables help address the climate emergency not only because they fit better with a strategy based on reducing throughput, but also because they are quicker to install than nuclear stations.[13] Huber writes: yes, but renewables take “many years, if not decades” to integrate into the grid. I say: yes, but that’s because “network development has trailed behind renewables expansion”.[14] I pointed to China’s success in overcoming curtailment, and to the interconnection queues in the UK and elsewhere aggravated by blatant speculation.

Huber says that “more concerning” still is that “more renewables will undoubtedly require thousands of miles of new long distance transmission lines”. Why would the type of generation affect the quantity of transmission lines? Whatever the type of generation capacity, if it is far away from demand centres, transmission lines are needed.

This is a repetition of the main argument. For Huber, renewables are an irksome burden on existing infrastructure. For me, they are a welcome technology to which the grid can and should adapt.

4. The causal role of neoliberalism in renewables development.

In May 2023, Huber presented an argument[15] that, in the 1970s, the advance of neoliberalism pushed forward the use of renewables. “Against a complex and centrally-planned [energy] system, ‘grassroots’ local communities aspired to get off the grid”; against “large-scale social integration of complex industrial societies, the neoliberal turn represents an anti-social reaction against society itself.” The Carter administration (1977-80) played a key role, as did the 1970s “energy crisis”; “by the 90s” a “totally new frontier” of electricity investment had been “unleashed”; the main beneficiaries were small-scale gas generators, but “it also included a new class of capitalists building renewable energy projects”.

I responded,[16] showing that the timing was out. Privately-owned renewables generation in the US started in the 2000s, not the 1980s. The chain of events in which Huber saw a causal connection between neoliberalism and renewables expansion did not happen.

Huber has now changed his mind. Abandoning his unsustainable argument about the 1980s (“the early periods of neoliberal electricity restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s were mostly to the benefit of ‘merchant’ gas generators (and even some nuclear)”), he asserts that “the significant increase of renewables in the last 15 years is simply a continuation of these neoliberal trends”. But what trends are continuing? What happened to the “new class of [renewables-owning] capitalists”? Did it exist? No, not in the 1980s. Which leaves an unfillable hole in Huber’s claim that neoliberal policies of the 1970s were the primary cause of renewables expansion in the 2000s.

5. The ideological affinity between neoliberalism and decentralisation. 

Huber claimed that the “neoliberal turn” was accompanied by a “comparable turn” by “the environmental Left”, towards “communitarian localism”. As evidence, he quoted the German environmentalist Rudolf Bahro. In response, I pointed out that Bahro had long ceased to identify as “left” when he embraced such ideas, whereas a variety of socialists who engaged with environmental and energy issues in the 1970s thought in terms of systemic transformation. They were in some cases in critical conversation with localism, but not adherents of it.[17]

Huber has changed his mind on this, too. Now, he writes that his point was to “show the ideological affinity between neoliberal economic utopias of decentralised market forces, and energy thinkers like Amory Lovins”. But Lovins can not plausibly be identified with “the left”, however loosely defined. To what, then, did Huber’s cover-all condemnation of “the environmental Left” – in whose ideological affinity with neoliberalism he found the roots of its “unwitting alliance” with 21st century decentralisation and deregulation – refer?

I have never hesitated to take a self-critical view of the history of socialism.[18] But this blanket denunciation of “the Left” does not fit with the historical record. It is a polemical trick, that goes with Huber’s dogged, deliberate conflation of technological decentralisation, political decentralisation and market liberalisation.[19] Electricity issues become one-dimensional: on one side, public power, nuclear and centralisation; on the other, neoliberalism, renewables and decentralisation. The whole scheme falls to pieces when it comes into contact with facts.

A few general points

One key reason I gave that socialists should welcome renewables, especially decentralised ones, ahead of nuclear, is that they are compatible with industrial policies that prioritise reduction of energy throughput through the economy.[20] Arguments for nuclear are very often linked to assumptions that “demand”[21] for electricity, as a commodity in the capitalist economy, will continue to increase indefinitely. Huber is reticent on this. He implicitly assumes endlessly rising demand. I do not believe a socialist approach to electricity networks can be worked out, in the midst of climate crisis, without clarity on this.

Huber also has yet to comment on what, to me, is central: what this exchange says about our respective views of socialism. Nuclear power inevitably implies a strong state, the antithesis of socialism as I understand it. Renewables have at least the potential, albeit hardly yet realised, to enhance counter-power. To my mind, that should influence our near-term views of these technologies.

About “quibbles”. To me, this is about accuracy. The fact that Robert Idel’s research on system costs is purely theoretical matters, because Huber and Stafford quoted it as proof that “the limited use value of solar and wind” leads to “broader system costs” – as though that complex issue can be solved by that research, which it can not.[22] The fact that Mark Nelson is a propagandist for the nuclear industry matters, because Huber and Stafford presented him as an “analyst” who “explained” that cheap renewables are no more use for the electricity grid than flimsy tents are for solving a housing crisis – as though this statement carried some sort of authority, which it does not.[23]

I think this is an issue of trust. Our friends and comrades outside universities who read the socialist press surely expect that Huber and I, and others in, or connected to, universities, fact-check our arguments. For many of these readers, due to life’s realities, time is desperately short. It behoves those in relatively privileged academic surroundings to produce accurate, reasoned analysis. The one-liners fall far short of such expectations.

Finally, I return to Huber’s false assertion that I speak for some “left energy ideology” that I don’t recognise. “This Left”, he writes, “is rooted in the academic humanities […], social sciences, environmental NGOs, and a smattering of ideologically aligned energy systems modellers”. Huber says that he, and Stafford, do not follow the “common sense” of this “Left”; instead they “look to the unions/labour for leadership” on decarbonisation, and “draw our analyses more from engineers and experts […] and the actual workers/ unions in the electricity system itself”.

There is a long, dishonourable tradition in socialism of characterising views you disagree with as being rooted in alien class influences.[24] Unpleasant as this stuff usually is, in this case it is also mendacious.

Huber’s suggestion that his research differs from mine because he looks to “engineers and experts” is baseless. The articles he is responding to are packed with references to such sources. As are my book on fossil fuel consumption, and my numerous publications on Russian, Ukrainian and central Asian energy systems.[25] It is ludicrous, too, for Huber to suggest that he “looks to the unions/labour” in a way that I, buried in “the academic humanities”, don’t. I have spent decades writing about, and working with, energy unions and militants in them.[26] This fact-free invective reflects poorly on Huber, and diverts attention from things that matter. 3 January 2026.

References

[1] M. Huber, “A response to Simon Pirani”, Substack, 17 December 2025. This responded to articles published in September and October 2023, and August 2024

[2] See “Wind, water, solar and socialism. Part 2: electricity networks” (People and Nature, 2023) section 2.3, “What are the starting points for a socialist view of this?”

[3] My view of carbon capture is summed up in “Carbon dioxide removal sucks” (People and Nature, 2020) and “Stop spending funds on carbon capture failure” (People and Nature, 2023). I wrote about hydrogen in “The hydrogen hoax” (People and Nature, 2020), “Hydrogen homes is a terrible idea” (The Ecologist, 2020), “India must find answers” (The Wire, April 2023), “Labour embraces Saudi Arabia’s dystopian ‘energy transition’” (People and Nature, 2024) and elsewhere

[4] See “Wind, water, solar and socialism. Part 1: energy supply”, section 1.5, “Is it not more realistic to include nuclear in our perspectives?”

[5] In his initial article, written jointly with Fred Stafford, Huber criticises “the environmental left”, and makes specific reference to the environmentalist Bill McKibben, the electricity journalist David Roberts and David Wallace-Wells, who writes on climate change, none of whom are affiliated with the labour movement or socialist organisations, as far as I know. (M. Huber and F. Stafford, “Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid”, Catalyst 6:4 (2023))

[6] On decentralisation, see “Wind, water, solar and socialism. Part 2: electricity networks”, section 2.1, “Is it really technologically possible”, etc

[7] I looked at technological potentials and constraints, with particular reference to rooftop solar, in: “Rooftop solar: glints of hope in the darkening climate crisis” (People and Nature, 2025)

[8] See “3.5 billion people lack reliable power” (Energy for Growth hub, 2020). That summarises an academic article that is unfortunately behind a paywall: John Ayaburi et al, “Measuring ‘reasonably reliable’ access to electricity services” (The Electricity Journal 33:7 (2020), 106828)

[9] A good summary of the research on grids and decarbonisation is: Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions (IEA, 2024)

[10] See, e.g., M. Huber and F. Stafford, “Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid”

[11] See S. Pirani, “Socialism and electricity. Renewables and decentralisation versus nuclear”, Capitalism, Nature and Socialism, August 2024, top of page 66

[12] The debate on prices, and costs, would need a whole article of its own to introduce. See “Wind, water, solar and socialism”. Part 1, the note at the end

[13] S. Pirani, “Socialism and electricity”, Capitalism, Nature and Socialism, end of page 64

[14] On network development trailing behind renewables expansion, see “Wind, water, solar and socialism”. Part 2, section 2.1

[15] M. Huber, “Renewable energy’s progressive halo”, Unherd, April 2023

[16] S. Pirani, “Realising renewable energy’s potential means combating capital”, Spectre, October 2023

[17] I mentioned Barry Commoner, Andre Gorz and the Italian autonomist tradition

[18] See, for example, S. Pirani, The Russian Revolution in Retreat: Soviet workers and the new communist elite 1920-24 (Routledge, 2008)

[19] On technological decentralisation and political decentralisation, see “Wind, water, solar and socialism”. Part 2, especially sections 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5

[20] S. Pirani, “Socialism and electricity”, Capitalism, Nature and Socialism, page 64, and e.g. “How to do away with fossil fuel consumption” (People and Nature, 2023)

[21] On commodification, see S. Pirani, “How energy was commodified, and how it could be decommodified” (People and Nature, 2021)

[22] On Robert Idel, see “Wind, water, solar and socialism”. Part 1, the note at the end

[23] On Mark Nelson, see “Wind, water, solar and socialism”. Part 2, section 2.4. In 2023, when cited by Huber and Stafford, Nelson described himself in public forums as a “nuclear advocate”, and was managing director at Radiant Energy Fund, an organisation he founded to lobby against the closure of nuclear plants. Since October 2025 he has worked for the Nuclear Company, a nuclear construction investment vehicle. He has co-authored many technical articles on aspects of nuclear engineering, but not any published research on electricity networks that I could find

[24] This presumably joins up with Huber’s weird theory about a “professional class” who are the “main opposition to climate change” (M. Huber, Climate Change as Class War (Verso, 2022), pages 28-29)

[25] There is a list of some research publications at simonpirani.com

[26] I have never had a full-time university job. When invited to join the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies as a research fellow, in 2007, I chose to work part-time, partly to allow sufficient time to continue my work on and with the labour movement. One outcome was my writing on the historically vital Kazakh oil workers’ strike of 2011. See “Zhanaozen: worker organisation and repression” (People and Nature, 2013). Before that, I wrote as a journalist about the UK miners’ strike of 1984-85, co-wrote an academic article about it, ghost-wrote a memoir of it by a union militant, spent six years as the editor of regional, and then national, mineworkers’ union journals, and wrote stacks of articles on Russian mineworkers and one of the only records in English of the great Turkish mining communities’ revolt of 1991 (“Bread, Peace, Democracy”: the Turkish miners’ strike 1991 (Trade Union Printing Services, 1991)). There are links to some of these publications here.

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Caution ⌁ High-Voltage Networks ⌁ Polemical Cheap Shots May Cause Damage

Dr John Coulter ✍  Reeling the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice party towards an Ulster Unionist position on co-operation will be one of the toughest tasks facing UUP leader in waiting Jon Burrows after his coronation in a Belfast hotel later this week.

The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated with many in grassroots Unionism craving the supposed Holy Grail of Unionist Unity given the number of seats the pro-Union family has lost over the decades to infighting, personality clashes, failing to transfer, and voter apathy.

The phrase “reel the TUV in towards our UUP orbit” was made by Burrows during a ‘meet the public’ event in Limavady last week organised by the East Londonderry UUP Association.

If ever North Antrim MLA Burrows needed a reminder of the scale of the challenge facing the UUP as a party, it was here in the centre of the East Londonderry constituency.

The constituency, formed in 1983, once boasted for the UUP a Westminster MP, two Stormont Assembly members and a solid representation at local government level. It’s a very different picture in 2026 for the UUP: no MP, no MLAs, a handful of councillors and the Westminster seat itself now a marginal between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

As things stand, the constituency has three unionist MLAs - two DUP and Independent Claire Sugden. Potentially, there are three pro-Union quotas in East Londonderry, so could Unionist co-operation return one DUP, one UUP and one TUV, or is that just wishful thinking?

Whilst many people and pundits are trying to put political labels on a Burrows UUP leadership - will it be liberal or traditional - the former top cop maintains that “politics needs to be reset” and Northern Ireland “needs a Stormont that is more efficient”.

Just as a former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill once said the province was at a crossroads, Burrows has introduced his own political vocabulary - that Northern Ireland “is at a fork in the road” and only the UUP can give that direction.

But now the reality check. The UUP is behind both the DUP and TUV in some opinion polls. With the latest buzz phrase ‘Unionist co-operation’, is it possible a pan unionist front could be created in time for the crucial local government and Assembly elections in May 2027?

Whilst there is a desire for Unionist co-operation and vote transferring among the pro-Union parties at grassroots level, Burrows faces two massive political migraines in trying to make this a reality.

Firstly, can the DUP be trusted to deliver on its side of the bargain as many in the UUP still recall the verbal onslaughts on the party during the Paisleyite era. Secondly, both the DUP and UUP are pro-Stormont in terms of wanting to make devolution work, whilst the TUV strategy is perceived to be wanting to collapse Stormont and have Direct Rule from Westminster restored.

Burrows quite openly says he wants to build a “strong, sensible and strategic Unionism”, but how can he build Unionist co-operation if one of the three players - the TUV - is pulling tactically in the opposite direction of the other two?

Apart from the perception that the TUV wants to collapse Stormont completely, the fear among the pro-Union community is that if the Assembly falls again, it will not be replaced by 1970s-style Direct Rule, but by Joint Authority between the Dail and Westminster.

The other perception is that the TUV is not transfer-friendly in terms of voting strength. In a previous Stormont election, the TUV polled some 66,000 first preference votes across the province, but had only one MLA in North Antrim to show for this.

Using his own soundbite, which “fork in the road” does Burrows take with the TUV given the latter’s steady increase in support in the opinion polls? Does he move the UUP to a hardline Right-wing position, ignore the TUV and pray that Unionist voters opt for just the DUP and UUP, or the radical plan of persuading - or ‘reeling’ - the TUV “towards our UUP orbit”?

Put bluntly, how does Burrows - and the UUP to be honest - bring the TUV ‘in from the cold’ and make it one of the main coalition partners in a new look co-operative Unionism capable not just of winning seats, but persuading both apathetic and first-time voters of turning out on polling day and actually voting for the UUP especially and the other pro-Union parties and candidates?

Whilst it was only a snap shot of political gossip, the mood of that meeting in East Londonderry was that there are supposedly rumblings within the TUV that it reportedly really don’t want to bring down Stormont.

But for Burrows, the key strategy is the need to sell Northern Ireland to the voters: 

We’re world leaders in so many sectors, but we’re not telling the story enough, especially that the Union is the best thing for national security.

Burrows didn’t use terms such as ‘liberal’ or ‘moderate’ to attract centre ground voters back to the UUP. He seemed to prefer the term ‘Passionate Unionism’.

Perhaps what Burrows needs to do is copy Sinn Fein’s rise to prominence from the Sixties when it was nothing more than a social club to remember the failed 1916 Easter Rising, through to the virtually daily mouth piece of the Provisional IRA, to now the leading nationalist party in Northern Ireland at all levels of government.

Sinn Fein is a ruthless political movement; a seat is not the person’s; it belongs to the party. Sinn Fein believes in the long game and has some cunning strategists.

Whilst they may be polished in their appearances at Stormont and the media, the party lacks ‘big ideological thinkers’ especially among its MLA team. But it does boast a relentless organisation especially in communication. It is drilled in its hunger for Irish Unity.

Burrows needs to inspire that same hunger and desire among pro-Union voters for the Union. He wants the UUP specifically to be a party of practical support, not wokeism.

But before he sells his vision to the other parties, especially “reeling in the TUV”, he needs to convince his own party of that vision at his political coronation on Saturday.

Two other soundbites were noted at that East Londonderry meeting which will be of vital importance in the coming days, weeks, and months - “disunity will kill us” and “you must be loyal to your party and your colleagues”.

But my favourite soundbite of the evening summarises Burrows’ vision: “The UUP should be proud of our ambassadorship for Northern Ireland and we should be the evangelists for the Union.”

If Burrows can convince the pro-Union electorate of that ethos, the UUP is back in business at the polls.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Bringing TUV In From The Cold Will Be Burrows’ Greatest Challenge!

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3039

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