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Defiant Louis goes with dignity – the same cannot be said for Woodward
May 24, 2016 by Ed Articles Ed Woodward, José Mourinho, Louis van Gaal
So there it is. Manchester United's long search for a major trophy after Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement finally came to a positive end. The Reds' 2-1 FA Cup final victory over Crystal Palace at Wembley brought glory and silverware to the club – and Louis van Gaal the sack. It was the Van Gaal's first taste of success in England, but was swiftly followed by an end to a period in which the Dutchman has increasingly alienated supporters and, critically, failed to deliver on his promises. Retirement beckons, José Mourinho beckons. Louis goes, but it is with a modicum of dignity restored. The same cannot be said for Ed Woodward.
Mourinho's agent, Jorge Mendes, wasted little time briefing media outlets on the new manager's impending arrival. It came moments after Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick jointly lifted the old trophy. Van Gaal knew the inevitability of departure, of course, and brought the FA Cup to his post-match press conference as if to make one final pertinent statement.
If Van Gaal is yet to recognise any fault in two disappointing seasons at Old Trafford, then victory at the last is unlikely to bring enlightenment. He is a proud and stubborn man, although the 64-year-old slips off into the night with a last laugh of sorts, even if he is said to be "said and disappointed" about his dismissal.
Yet, even in the denouement of the Van Gaal era it was a final that could so easily have slipped away from United. In a pattern that has become too familiar over the past 24 months, the Reds dominated possession and chances created, but achieved just three shots on target in 120 minutes of football.
United achieved victory on the back of two superb moments: Wayne Rooney's mazy run and cross to find Juan Mata via Marouane Fellaini, and Jesse Lingard's stunning cup-winning volley in extra time. The Scouser rolled back the years, while Lingard mocked those, including Rant, that have questioned the youngster's quality.
The moment of glory didn't last long though. The headlines on Saturday night were dominated not by United's return to collecting trophies, but Mourinho's impending arrival in M16. For all the former Chelsea manager's many faults – there are many – it is hoped that he will lift the club from cup winners to title preeminence inside the three-year contract that he has reportedly been offered. He can hardly do worse than Van Gaal.
Van Gaal's time ends with silverware, but his dismissal cannot be divorced from a lack of progress. The Dutchman's £250 million outlay on new signings – some recovered via sales – was the biggest single two-year transfer splurge in the club's history and seemingly made little difference to the Dutchman's ability to generate positive results.
United lost 10 times in the Premier League this season to finish fifth in a campaign where lowly Leicester City captured the title. If anything fifth might flatter the most prosaic United side in a generation. The team's group stage exit from the Champions League was equally hard to stomach for a club used to dining at the finest restaurants. There can be little surprise that Woodward finally ended Van Gaal's tenure a year early, if some five months too late to actually save a season.
[blockquote who="" cite=""]The Cup was Van Gaal's first taste of success in England, swiftly followed by an end to a period in which the Dutchman has alienated supporters and failed to deliver on promises. Retirement beckons, José Mourinho beckons. [/blockquote]
Van Gaal's failure to match minimum expectations – third in the Premier League and Champions League knock-out football – is compounded by a sense that the he never truly fell in simpatico with the club. Van Gaal failed to adjust a bland playing style, nor was he able to differentiate Old Trafford's polite reception from supporters' genuine sentiment of frustration. Whatever the clichéd 'United Way' has become over the years it is not Van Gaal's way and the newly retired Dutchman was not about to change habits established during four decades in the game.
Van Gaal's second season ended with the club scoring just 49 goals in the Premier League; the same total as fourth-from-bottom Sunderland. It has proven to be two years of gut-gnawing inhibition, far from the exciting promise of a manager that once captured the European Cup with a team full of teenagers. On the few occasions to counter the observation, Van Gaal's team appeared liberated not by the manager, but a sense that young players simply did not follow his instruction. They were soon pulled in line, or dropped altogether.
In fact Van Gaal's faith in young players remained far from steadfast despite increasing focus from United's marketing department on the number of kids drafted into the first team squad. During his two years in Manchester some 14 players from the academy appeared in the first team, although only Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard truly became established. The latter's future is far from guaranteed, with Lingard having benefited more from his ability off-the-ball than his talent on it.
The Dutchman has dropped more youngsters than he has proffered long-term opportunities, as Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Timothy Fosu-Mensah will attest. Neither made the FA Cup final team, while others, including Tyler Blackett, Reese James, Saido Janko, Donald Love, James Weir, Adnan Januzaj, and Andreas Pereira have been sold or frozen out. Borthwick-Jackson's omission in favour of the perennially disappointing Marcos Rojo confused many, while Fosu-Mensah has not started a game since giving away a penalty in the semi-final.
Far from a scholarly professor to up-and-coming talent, Van Gaal has proven to be a tough schoolmaster for whom one mistake is reserved the cane. In the end the Dutchman's inherent pragmatism won out over fans' romanticism.
Yet, that very same didactic tendency also served to alienate players throughout his squad. Van Gaal's refusal to adjust his tactics even in the face of senior players' disillusionment is stark. The Dutchman knew best, always. Monday-morning video analysis sessions became a much-hated chore, while Van Gaal's tendency towards big brotherism created an increasing amount of tension in the squad. There will be few players sorry to see the back of him.
Van Gaal's tactics alienated both players and fans. The focus became increasingly restrictive, with possession used not as a way of overwhelming opponents, but ensuring defensive security. The common pattern of United failing to score in the first half of games, especially at home, was matched by a dreadful record on the road – few shots hit the target let alone led to goals scored.
Not since Dave Sexton patrolled the Old Trafford sidelines has the football been quite this dull. Van Gaal's process-driven approach sucked the creativity out of the team. Long gone are the days when Ferguson would send his team out with little more tactical instruction than "enjoy it" and "lads, it's Spurs." Classroom lectures resulted in football that sold all the benefits of watching paint dry.
The tendency towards conservatism, the insistence on over-analysis, the fury when instructions are ignored or forgotten; Van Gaal showed little interest in individual talent beyond the team ethic. Talented players were reigned in, their joy limited. His inability to draw the best from Angel di Maria, Memphis Depay, Adnan Januzaj and Andreas Pereira is telling. Juan Mata featured in most games, but was often restricted to a more limited role on the right.
Then there is the manager's tendency to use square pegs in round holes – sometimes as many as seven players out of position. And while flexibility is one thing, almost all of Van Gaal's games featured players in roles that were sometimes not comfortable, and often not ideal. Di Maria played in five different positions during his 27 games for the club.
Supporters craved entertainment, but Van Gaal brooked at any suggestion he wasn't delivering. Fans' politeness in the face of United's dour fare rarely broke ranks at Old Trafford. Fans jeered Anthony Martial's substitution for Marouane Fellaini in United's narrow win over CSKA Moscow last winter. Eventually they booed Van Gaal's end-of-season speech. By then it was too late, of course. Yet, in general, Van Gaal left with the impression that 'a win is a win' – and United finished the season with the best home record of all.
In the end there is little doubt supporters are happy at Van Gaal's demise. Drunken chants of "Jose Mourinho" on the journey back from Wembley confirmed as much. The club had little choice but to make the change. It's the results, stupid.
But neither could Woodward trust Van Gaal to get the best out of whatever fresh spending is planned this summer. The executive takes some blame for that, but Van Gaal's voice remained the loudest voice at Old Trafford. The successes are so few. The hits were accidental or not of Van Gaal's design: Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw, for example. Elsewhere, players on which he signed off have hardly been major successes: Ander Herrera, Victor Valdes, Daley Blind, Morgan Schneiderlin, Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Van Gaal can point to an injury record that was at times lengthy. United's small squad, he said, was a decision made to promote opportunities for younger players. That excuse is a busted flush. Van Gaal's rush to youth turned out to be desperation, not strategy. Instead, the small squad and an intensive training regimen that never relented despite the brutal Premier League pace, subjected United's youngsters to exposure in the worst possible circumstances.
The poor squad balance is entirely the Dutchman's fault. After all, it was his decision to sell both Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernández leaving, at times, the team desperately short of attacking options. Van Gaal was also insistent on not bringing in an experience centre-back, leaving Daley Blind exposed and the manager too fearful to open up his tactics.
Mourinho will bring a cocksure history only slightly tempered by the events at Chelsea this past season. His critics point to the Portguese's instinctive caution and the "anti-football" in the face of superior opposition. Yet, at both Chelsea and Real Madrid his teams exceeded or came close to a 100 goals in a single league season. Mourinho can be amusing, inspiring and yet provoke cringeworthy embarrassment too. He may well arrive as the "humble one," having chased the United job for eight years. Yet, he will also remain entirely uncontrollable. It is the essential dichotomy United has now signed up for.
Mourinho also brings trophies, of course. Lots of them. While more exciting, younger, and perhaps politically safer choices were available on the continent, after two failed experiments Woodward could hardly afford to take another chance. Whatever his faults Mourinho's results fit a pattern, and he is always box-office.
Van Gaal proved to be neither; results poor, entertainment limited. He leaves the club effectively sacked by Mendes' press briefing at around 8pm on Saturday night. Woodward should have controlled the narrative. Yet again a United manager leaves the club humiliated by those who appointed him.
Fans will move on quickly though. For the Dutchman, there will always be Wembley.
26 thoughts on "Defiant Louis goes with dignity – the same cannot be said for Woodward"
NazManUnited says:
Louis Van Dignitas!
Terry Miller says:
Mourinio, as many have said will ruin Man United. He never invests in youth and will leave United in a worse state when he leaves as he has done with all his other clubs. How did he leave Chelsea? He's a muppet who demotivates his players and deserves to be with a championship side at best.
Hmmm, it would only be fair to point out he's won 8 league titles and 2 european cups as well!
Spenny says:
How precisely did he leave Porto, Inter or Real (or, indeed Chelsea first time around) in worse positions when he left? And even this time round Chelsea, player-wise, were no worse than last season even if results were poor.
Oye says:
Great article as usual but I'm not sure why you mentioned Woodward in the title. I think your article is mostly about Louis van Gaal.
I'm disappointed that Ed Woodward hasn't brought in a Director of Football but I'm glad that he kept LVG until the end of the season. If he had sacked LVG in December, it would have been a very unhappy end to his successful career in management.
As for the leaking of Jose's arrival – that cannot be blamed on Ed Woodward or Manchester United. I'm sure that's the LAST thing they wanted on a day of celebration for Louis, the club and all the fans.
Whoever leaked that news doesn't care about our club. Whatever you can say about Woodward, I'm sure he cares about the club he works for.
Matt Bibby says:
To be fair to Mourinho, he won the champions league at Porto, then moved to Chelsea. He had lots of success there & the football was hardly dull. Yes he was sacked by Chelsea, but so was the manager who a few months earlier won them the champions league. He went to Inter & again had plenty of success playing an attacking style of football, but defensively sound. He moved on not because he was sacked or fell out with the board, but because Real came calling. Who would turn them down? In each of his three seasons there his team scored 100+ goals. He was sacked, but again which manager has lasted longer than him at the bernabau in recent memory? Back to Chelsea & a team of players that had managed to get the previous half a dozen managers sacked before briefly performing for the next. He won another league title before the players again stopped performing for the manager. Yes he can be controversial, fall out with players, managers and the press. But remember Ferguson with Beckham, Stam, Keane, Rooney? The rivalry with Wenger, Benitez? Banning journalists from press conferences?
Get off mourinho's back, support him & the team and lets enjoy the future!
Article is biased. Van Gaal has created the foundations for United to succeed and compete with Barca, Real for the next 10-15 years. He has spent money – but he spent it on potential, not ready made players. it was a mistake to fire him. He deserved one more season. He was building a truly great team. His FA cup win was a testament to that. When these players do flourish and win more and more trophies it will be because Van Gaal has given the club a firm strong foundation. The new manager will be living off his hard work.
People forget – trophies can be bought. But champions are made. At Barca, Bayern he has laid those same foundations and look at them now. Those clubs ability to attract the best players and managers was because he gave them that. He needed one more year to complete the project. Very unfair on him and the players.
So confident in the opinion that it is given under the name "Anon" using a fake email address. There's an empty catchphrases – "trophies can be bought. But champions are made." – without any evidence. Set up United for the next 10-15 years how? Building a truly great team how? Honestly, is this a City fan on a WUM or perhaps one of Louis' close family members.
Van Gaal understood – there's no point buying the best players and winning 1 or 2 titles – that was not the plan from the start. The plan was to give the club a new direction, a new identity and he was doing exactly that. Yes he did not qualify for the CL but like he said 4th spot is not a trophy. what's the point of taking a young team to the CL to get hammered by the big guns. It was a blessing that we did not qualify for the CL. The facts are there for all to see. Before the injuries – we were top of the log. We suffered in CL because the team is far too young, they cannot deal with the pace of European football. We did win the FA cup which showed his ideas were bearing fruit. One more season and he would have been fighting on all fronts.
So as a part of Van Gaal's redundancy, Ed agreed to hire publicists to spread the Van Gaal foundation myth.
Unfair to say his spell at the club was a failure – actually is was a huge success. for the next 8 – 10 years we have world class players within the squad. Adding 1 or 2 here and there and we would have been a great team. He did what he was meant to – build the team from the bottom up. He has made some weird and wrong choices but he is a great manager and deserves better than what the media is giving him.
Opti says:
If Mourinho grows Martial and Marcus into world-beaters and brings us Top 3 in his first season, pressure comes off.
But please don't bring Ibra… please!
Lovely send off article; great collection of thoughts to remind us all why he is going.. Though I think a big big reason is the language barrier. Van Gaal proved in the World Cup with Holland that he could still create strong, dynamic, attacking teams. I think he was just a bit awkward and eccentric in the English language undermining much of what he was trying to do. Very funny at parties but kind of unnerving before a big game.
Fusilli Jerry says:
Absolutely nothing dynamic or attacking about his Holland team that bored out 120 goalless minutes against Costa Rica in the 2014 quarter finals, or 120 goalless minutes against Argentina in the semis. And I don't think his complete inability to motivate, man-manage and nuture Depay this last year had anything to do with English language skills somehow. Although when Van Gaal then complained about not having fast creative players to do better than 5th, a group exit from the Champions League, and rapid exit from Europa, yes, maybe we would have understood better in Dutch how no blame whatsoever for that £30m flop should attach to the manager.
However, for Mendes to deny Van Gaal even one evening to enjoy having won the FA Cup, was morally revolting.
bobby noble says:
You can add Paddy McNair to the list of United youngsters shabbily cast aside by this arrogant prick.
denton Davey says:
"United lost 10 times in the Premier League this season to finish fifth"
That's one way to look at things; for me, the more significant statistic is overlooked in this statement – TheLads lost (threw away) a lot of points to the bottom feeders and relegated squads. LvG had a very good record against the top team but his dire, boring management was actually found out by the worst teams in the EPL – two of which were relegated yet took points away from UTD.
Say whatever you like about Jo$e, one thing is certain – his teams at CSKALondon trounced the DeadMenWalking and ran up large goal-differences on the back of those trouncings. So, let's also note that it was not that LvG's team was actually fifth – TheLads were tied for fourth but lost CL-qualification because they had not made-hay from the matches with the bottom-ten clubs. This was just scandalous and, in and of itself, was reason to sack him.
And the same argument can be made vis-a-vis the dismal CL campaign in which TheLads couldn't qualify despite being slotted into one of the weakest groups ever seen.
It is to LvG's credit that he kept himself largely (but not completely) above the turmoil/rumours/innuendo about his future; it has to be recognized that he was responsible for getting himself into that situation by his complete inability to create a team that could improve on last year's lucky fourth-place finish.
subterranean steve says:
Two seasons at United and LVG never once admitted to making a mistake. When things didn't work he would quickly deflect criticism away from himself and towards the players, the opposition, the media, the fans or Paul Scholes.
The guy was insufferable. Good riddance.
Dayusdred says:
Its the night of long knife. But let have some perspectives here. Its is easy to reel out the name of players Lvg mismanaged.But what did Mourinho do with Mata, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Schurler, Salah, cuadrado @Chelsea, Coutinho @ inter, Morata in Madrid to mention but a few. Mourinho is coming with 8 league tittles, how many did lvg come with?. We have been told that his giving youth a chance was accidental rather than planned. Must have been accidental @ Ajax, Barca and Beryern too. By the way those young players have started thanking him(Mac,Nair, Lingard Fosu Mensah, Rashford). All said and done, people now have their wish. Lvg is gone. He has laid the foundation for the club to build on like he did @ Barca and Beryern. People can write what they want. One thing is certain. You can not rewrite or erase history. Lvg will go down as one of those rare breed of coaches who has left his foot in the sounds of time. 20 trophies spread across 4 different league is no mean feat. Even our reverred Fergie can't boast of that spread. The difference between Lvg and Mourinho is that between six and half a dozen. Be carefull what you wish for.
Pete L says:
Spot on analysis for me. Mourinho could well 'bring the circus to town' and eventually implode but he is surely going to get us seriously challenging for the title again. He certainly won't be saying that 5th is an acceptable finish (and I think 5th flattered us this season). Also I have only seen Mourinho set up ultra-defensive when playing against teams he thought were stronger than them, whereas LVG was clearly telling the midfield to not get ahead of the ball EVERY WEEK! Onwards and upwards (fingers crossed)!
Abba says:
I will never understand the wisdom in bringing young at half time to play as a striker when he has been injured for the past six months.
And young is not a striker.
The same applies to bringing on Powell in the key CL match when he had never played as a centre forward.
I'm fairly sure that was Giggs' influence. Giggsy loves Powell apparently, who started his career as a centre forward so he can definitely play there.
If we start listing all the square pegs forced into round holes in the last two years, we'll be here a while. It's safe to say that you're not the only one baffled by Louis' logic.
I have to say that, despite all the criticism, Woodward has handled the LvG exit pretty well. Yes the timing when it all became public was unfortunate but that was not Woodward's fault. Many of us felt that our CEO did not have the bottle to fire the man he was somewhat in awe of. Indeed he gave him every opportunity to get things right. We can only speculate whether LVG would still be in the job had he managed to scrape a top four finish. In fact some may say – thank god he didn't!
The Mourinho era now beckons and whilst the promise that he will bring real success back to the club, it is not necessarily guaranteed as so many now think it will be. Above all else, one hopes Mourinho will take on the mantle with a little more humility than he has done at his other jobs. After all, if reports are to be believed and there is no reason not to, he has coveted this job for sometime now. Why? Because it is the greatest managerial position in world club football. It does require embracing the history, traditions and culture of club as Fergie did so well during his time. Despite his over-blown ego, Mourinho is sufficiently intelligent enough to realise that, as I expect his first pronouncements will confirm – once his appointment is confirmed.
Yeah. Keep in mind it's now entertainment and business. No one fascinates the press – or manipulates it – quite like Jo$e. In that regard, he's a great appointment. Whether he can spin-his-magic on the field of play is possibly another matter. Whether he can strengthen the team's defensive spine is likewise another matter – he has had six months to think about this, to scout players (@ UTD and elsewhere), and to watch and learn what this team needed to take another step to regaining its lost glory.
Right, "glory" – not a word associated with UTD since SAF's departure in 2013.
You know I felt sorry for him at the end. Woodward has seemingly been comprehensively outmanouevred by Mendes at almost every turn and I wonder what a last van Gaal season would have been like after an FA cup win. Success can paper over a lot of cracks and magically resolve problems, but we'll never know. Before his appointment I would rather have had Sam Allardyce as manager than Jose Mourinho, hand-on-heart, swear-to-God. Now I've been swept up a little and am cautiously optimistic about it. It could all go to sh** though after he doesn't get any of the signings he wants this summer and he's landed with a couple of last minute panic buys. He threw his toys out of the pram over Stones, no effing way Woodward gets that deal done….
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English and Drama blog
Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets Announce 2018 Winners
By Imogen Durant, PhD Placement Student working on the library's contemporary British poetry pamphlets and artists' books.
On Tuesday 11th December the British Library hosted the 10th Awards Ceremony of the Michael Marks Awards.
Luke Thompson of Guillemot Press won the Michael Marks Publishers Award. Andrew Forster, who introduced the award, highlighted the meticulous craftsmanship and innovate design of Guillemot's publications, which particularly impressed the judges.
Luke Thompson giving his acceptance speech for the Publisher's Award
Thompson highlighted the multisensory nature of the pamphlets that he produces when he explained that in addition to the unique look and rich texture, several of his pamphlets also have a distinctive smell, as their covers are made from the spent grain from a brewery.
Of And, by Keith Waldrop, and O. At the Edge of the Gorge, by Martyn Crucefix, both published by Luke Thompson at Guillemot Press
PR won the illustration award for her artwork in Zi-Zi Taah Taah Taah: The Song of the Willow Tit, published by Wild West Press, with poems by Steve Ely. The illustration award was introduced and presented by Sir Nicholas Penny, who gave a convincing imitation of a willow tit when announcing the pamphlet's title.
Carol Rumens won the Poetry Award for her pamphlet Bezdelki, published by The Emma Press. The poetry award was introduced by Sasha Dugdale, one of this year's judges.
Carol Rumens giving her acceptance speech for the Poetry Award
Bezdelki contains a series of elegies for Rumens' late partner, Yuri Drobyshev. Rumens said that the pamphlet provided her with means of remembering Yuri, and allowed her to explore her own identity after his death.
In a poem entitled 'Vidua' (on p. 19), she says:
I wasn't a bride
I wasn't a wife.
I'm not a widow.
Rumens explained that the size of the pamphlet form provided a vehicle for her to capture the 'Bezdelki', or 'small things', such as a hat and an overcoat, which appear in these poems. Dugdale highlighted the strength of Rumens' imagination and the breadth of the allusions in her poems, which Rumens demonstrates in this pamphlet by including poems inspired by Osip Mandelstam and one which is narrated in the voice of the Nubian Pharaoh Taharqa.
Bezdelki by Carol Rumens
The awards were presented by Lady Marks, who gave a warm personal introduction to the evening. She outlined the Michael Marks Charitable Trust's aims of preserving art and the environment in the UK, and emphasized her belief in the poetry pamphlet as being vital form in the creative force of the country. Lady Marks also began the evening's readings with some sonnets by her late husband, Lord Marks of Broughton, the founder of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust.
Congratulations to Luke Thompson, Carol Rumens and PR, and to all of those shortlisted for the 10th Michael Marks Awards.
Posted by Zoe Wilcox at 10:30 AM
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The results of the group on political issues (September 15)
During the discussion of political issues at the Contact group sitting, Ukrainian representatives suddenly proposed to write down that Ukraine had fulfilled all political instructions following the results of the 2019 Paris Summit and then to remove these items from the agenda of the political group.
We were extremely surprised by such a proposal from Kiev, since in fact the situation is exactly the opposite: Ukraine did not fulfill anything from the final instructions of the Normandy Four leaders after the meeting in December 2019. At the same time, the cynicism with which Mr. Reznikov argued for his strange proposal is outraged: he simply ignored the instruction's part that concerns coordination with Republics' representatives of all legal aspects of Donbass special status to ensure its action on an ongoing basis, as it prescribed in the Package of measures.
Moreover according to Mr. Reznikov no Action Plans, Roadmaps and other "invented entities" are needed. It means that for the Ukrainian representative, an urgent assignment of the Contact group to work on the Roadmap is an empty phrase, and this was practically stated openly. There is another remarkable point: the Ukrainian negotiators at today's meeting proposed to confirm the already initialed Steinmeier's formula so that the Verkhovna Rada could include it in the text of the law. However, earlier they regularly expressed that the Contact group allegedly has no right to give instructions to the Ukrainian parliament and that is why the Ukrainian representatives did nothing for the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the normative legal acts provided for by the Package of measures. 11 months ago, we proposed an absolutely logical and expedient solution to this, in essence, contrived problem of Kiev: after agreeing on the Roadmap in the Contact group, this document should be adopted at the level of the parliament and the president of Ukraine, which, accordingly, will confirm the commitment of the Ukrainian legislative and executive authorities to their obligations under the Minsk agreements and will facilitate the work on the implementation of these agreements for Ukrainian negotiators" - DPR Plenipotentiary stated.
However, according to Kiev's reaction to this remark, it was clear that no work on the implementation of the Minsk agreements was clearly included in the plans of Mr. Reznikov and his team. It is more interesting for them to make caustic comments to the representatives of the Republics, to read edifying sermons on how to work on the Minsk platform - but at the same time not to take a single step towards a political settlement.
"As a result, we have the following situation: the Ukrainian representative said a lot today, but nothing in essence. The position of Kiev on political issues is still kept secret from us, there is still no real progress, and all the loud statements of Ukrainian representatives are just a poker face during a bad game" - concluded Natalia Nikonorova.


Given an interpretation, the meaning of an expression is a truth value assignment over the interpretation.
A predicate calculus expressions S1 is satisfied.
Definition If there exists an Interpretation I and a variable assignment under I which returns a value T for S1 then S1 is said to be satisfied under I.
A set of predicate calculus expressions S is satisfied.
said to be satisfied under I.
An inference rule is complete.
inference rule , then the inference rule is said to be complete.
A predicate calculus expression X logically follows from a set S of predicate calculus expressions .
For any interpretation I and variable assignment where S is satisfied, if X is also satisfied under the same interpretation and variable assignment then X logically follows from S.
An inference rule is sound.
If all predicate calculus expressions X produced using the inference rule from a set of expressions, S logically follow from S then the inference rule is said to be sound.


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George Lord Trophy
Coggins Trophy
Pat & Leo Eason Trophy
M & T Eason Award
Speedskater Of The Year
Past International Events
Senior World Championships
Senior Euro Championships
Junior A Euro Championships
Junior B Euro Championships
Cadet Euro Championships
Senior Men Track (WC)
Senior Men Road (WC)
Senior Women Track (WC)
Senior Women Road (WC)
Junior Boys Track (WC)
Junior Boys Road (WC)
Junior Girls Track (WC)
Junior Girls Road (WC)
European Champions
Senior Men Track (EC)
Senior Men Road (EC)
Senior Women Track (EC)
Senior Women Road (EC)
Junior A Boys Track (EC)
Junior A Boys Road (EC)
Junior A Girls Track (EC)
Junior A Girls Road (EC)
Junior B Boys Track (EC)
Junior B Boys Road (EC)
Junior B Girls Track (EC)
Junior B Girls Road (EC)
Cadet Boys Track (EC)
Cadet Boys Road (EC)
Cadet Girls Track (EC)
Cadet Girls Road (EC)
STAN 'JIMMY' HARTIGAN
STAN "JIMMY" HARTIGAN - 1949
Stanley Arthur Hartigan (# 6 in the list of senior men to represent Great Britain) was born on 22nd February 1919 in Edmonton, London. His father, Arthur, was a brass musical instrument maker from Islington and whilst Hartigan would take his father's engineering skills into his working life he was very much his own person when it came to sport, more specifically, roller speed skating.
In the late 1930's Hartigan could be found frequenting the Alexandra Palace roller rink and it wasn't long before he found out he enjoyed skating fast. To look at he was not the archetypical speed skater, but looks were deceptive. He quickly made friends with members of the Alexandra Palace Rollers Speed Club, the likes of recent World Champion Bill Ross and European Champion Jimmy Reed and set about aiming to be one of those elite.
In late 1938 aged 19 he joined the club and along with it the National Skating Association of Great Britain, which allowed him to compete in the up coming British Championships. On 23rd February 1939, a day after his 20th birthday, Hartigan took to the rink in the Five Mile Championship of Great Britain. Hartigan notably made the final and whilst the event was won by another recently crowned World Champion, Arthur Cooper, Hartigan would come home in third place. He was on his way.
STAN HARTIGAN (BACK - 2ND FROM LEFT) WITH ALEXANDRA PALACE TEAM MATES - c.1945
Unfortunately for Hartigan, just a few months later Britain found itself at war with Germany and for the next six years the country pulled together and rallied through one of the toughest and most bloodiest times in it's history. For Hartigan, as for many others, skating took a back seat as the Second World War raged around them. The conflict was not without it's skating casualties. The rising superstar Jackie Robbins (Broadway) being one, shot down and killed somewhere over Iceland. Even one of Hartigan's club mates, Frank Best, would find himself shot down and injured although he would later recover on go on to continue his skating career.
Hartigan's war effort was as a development engineer for the aircraft manufacturer de Havilland working on the famous wooden framed Mosquito plane. The factory in Hatfield would be bombed by German planes killing 21 and injuring 70. Hartigan, himself, mercifully came out unscathed and immediately after the war set about his skating once more. It was during his time with de Havilland that he gained his nickname "Jimmy". It is unclear why this was given to him but it was obviously a name that stuck as on occasion some race programmes that were produced after the war showed the entrant of a certain "J.Hartigan". This, of course, was none other than Stan. It was during the war, 1942, that he married his first wife, Kathleen Quarrington.
After the war it didn't take long for the NSA to resume where it left off. Full of British "stiff upper lip" mentality, in early 1946 after an absence of six years it once again held the British Championships. Hartigan also resumed where he had left off. In fact, he would do better than that and taking to the Alexandra Palace rink once again he was victorious in both the One Mile and Five Mile Championships. A third gold medal also came in the form of the British Relay Championship which he won for the first time alongside team mates Bob Halford, Alf Martin and Billy Cook.
L to R: STAN HARTIGAN, BILLY COOK, BOB HALFORD AND ALF MARTIN
PICTURED HERE IN 1947 - PALM COURT, ALEXANDRA PALACE
In February 1947 Hartigan set about trying to retain his One Mile title. Again, on the Alexandra Palace rink, Hartigan reached the final but would just get pipped at the line by Frank Lamb (Broadway). A few weeks later it was a trip down to Herne Bay for the Alexandra Palace team to defend their title. Again, Hartigan, along with his team mates, would just come up short and finish second to the Broadway quartet of Reeves, Dibling, Lamb and Sanders. As April approached Hartigan knew that the next race was to be the last throw of the dice that year to get a gold medal. On the 19th April and back on his home track Hartigan retained his Five Mile title ahead of team mates Alf Martin and Bob Halford.
In 1948 controversy would engulf the sport of roller speed skating in Great Britain. The Broadway club was banned in it's entirety from all NSA competitions for taking part in what the NSA deemed to be "unofficial" British and World Championships organised by the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association (RSROA) and the British Federation of Amateur Roller Skating (BFARS). Neither of these bodies were recognised by the NSA or indeed the World governing body, FIRS, and so a lengthy ban was enforced for the club and it's skaters. This left the way for the other dominant club, Alexandra Palace, to sweep all before it, and it did. Some would argue that the Palace skaters had it easy in the absence of Broadway, but whilst it was undoubtedly "easier" it is unlikely that any victory came easy. What people forget is that the Championships that year were either held in the north of the country in Batley or in the south in Herne Bay, neither of which was anything like the home track of the Alexandra Palace skaters.
All that said, by the end of the 1948 British Championships the club had taken nine out of nine available medals in the individual events and regained the British Relay Championship. Although part of the winning relay team, however, Hartigan failed to take individual gold. He came up short against an in form Alf Martin finishing second and third in both the One Mile and Five Mile Championships. In the Southern Counties Championship on Herne Bay again Hartigan was just pipped for victory, this time by local skater Reg Smyth. Despite 1948 not being his most successful year domestically the season was not yet over and in September that year Hartigan was called up to represent Great Britain at the forthcoming World Championships in Monfalcone, Italy.
1948 WORLD TEAM SELECTION TRIALS AT BOMB DAMAGED LONDON WALL / MOORGATE
STAN HARTIGAN LEADS (WHITE SHIRT)
Training for these Championships had taken place around the streets of war torn London. It had been a full three years since the war ended but the bomb damaged buildings and bomb craters from the blitz were still all too evident. Training took place along London Wall at Moorgate, a venue favoured by the NSA at that time. There was also much media interest and as well as newspaper photographs and articles there was also some British Pathe newsreel footage produced. (Incidentally, this footage still exists in the archives and should be able to be accessed through the British Pathe website. Unfortunately, however, the footage has been erroneously indexed and cannot be accessed. The British Pathe Archives have been made aware of this but have refused to rectify presently due to prohibitive costs. A number of stills from the footage can, however, be accessed).
The 1948 World Championships was to be on a road circuit around the streets of Monfalcone in Italy, just north of Trieste. Alongside Hartigan were his fellow club mates Bob Halford and Alf Martin. Over the two days of competition, the 11th and 12th September, Hartigan would race all four races. His highest place was a commendable 8th in the 5000 metres (won by Venanzi of Italy), which was pretty much on a par with the other British performances being achieved.
By 1949 Hartigan was beginning to look for other interests. In March that year he won his last major gold medal, a third victory in the British Relay Championships. He did not, however, take a medal of any colour in any individual Championship event for the first time since he had been taking part, either before or after the war. He also took part in trials for the World team, again around Moorgate, but he was now up against fitter, younger skaters. A new era was dawning in the sport with the emergence of youngsters such as Denis Hill and Don Brown. These guys from local rivals Broadway had arrived a few years earlier but now were hungry for success, that hunger having probably been fuelled even more by actions on the NSA in the year previous. Hartigan was now 30 and he knew his best days were behind him. He was from another era and recognising that fact decided that whilst he would continue to do the odd race, his skating future from here on in was to be one of satisfied reflection.
1949 WORLD TEAM TRIALS AT LONDON WALL
HARTIGAN LEADS FROM BRODWAY'S DON BROWN, DENIS HILL AND JOHN WHATLEY
Stan Hartigan was one of only three male skaters to win medals either side of the Second World War. When you sit back and reflect on his achievements they are more than worthy of note. A British Championship medallist in his very first year of competition is alone a fantastic achievement. To then suddenly have your prime years taken from you, six in all, as the World went mad and come out the other side with the ambition for success still burning fiercely is also a remarkable showing of character. To then go on and win three individual British titles, three British relay titles and represent your country at the highest level possible should be celebrated.
In 1958 Hartigan married for a second time, to Margaret Groves. He moved to Bournemouth and it was here he would retire. Sadly, Stan passed away in July 2004 aged 85. His children would grow up with only glimpses of his skating career and very little understanding or knowledge of what it was he actually achieved. Hopefully, on reading this, they will come to realise that he was more than deserving as being recognised as one of Britain's skating legends.
STAN EJOYS A JOKE WITH ALEXANDRA PALACE TEAM MATES - 1949


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Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
What a DUP-dependent government means for the UK
June 14, 2017 Kevin Lees	Leave a comment
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader and until January the first minister of Northern Ireland, may now play a key role stabilizing Theresa May's government. (Facebook)
What seemed like a certainty in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, June 9, now seems far more treacherous nearly a week later.
British prime minister Theresa May may have assured nervous Conservative MPs Monday that she can steady a minority government. With contrition for her campaign missteps and the loss of 13 seats (and the Tory majority that David Cameron won just two years ago) and claiming, 'I got us into this mess, and I will get us out,' May seems to have united her parliamentary caucus, at least temporarily, behind her leadership.
But it may be even more difficult than May might have realized to secure and maintain a 'confidence and supply' arrangement with Northern Ireland's socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Though a formal coalition was always unlikely, May will need the DUP's 10 MPs to have any hope of a reliable majority in the House of Commons.
The deeply evangelical DUP's hard-line stand on abortion, women's rights and LGBT rights (its founder, Ian Paisley, once led a famous 'Save Ulster from Sodomy' campaign) have alarmed many, including some leading Tories, such as the Scottish Conservative Party's openly gay leader Ruth Davidson, whose newly elected bloc of 13 MPs may function as a liberal (and relatively pro-European) Tory bulwark in the new parliament.
Notably, in Northern Ireland, reflecting trends that began in the early 2000s and have only accelerated since, the DUP and the republican Sinn Féin each won record numbers of seats. Ironically, that benefits May in two ways. First, it gives her more DUP MPs to shore up a Tory-led majority; second, it means a smaller number to reach an absolute majority in the House of Commons. That's because Sinn Féin, which advocates Northern Ireland's ultimate unification with the rest of Ireland, refuses to swear an oath to a British monarch and, correspondingly, refuses to take its seats at Westminster. With those seven Sinn Féin MPs abstaining, it means May needs three less MPs in total for a majority.
Forebodingly, former prime minister John Major on Tuesday warned May against working with the DUP, even as May was engaged in negotiations the same day with DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy DUP leader Nigel Dodds to foster an agreement. (The pending Tory-DUP deal was, according to reports, set to go ahead on Wednesday, but has been postponed until next week in light of the deadly blaze at Grenfell Towers). Major joins a growing chorus of leading figures urging caution, including Jonathan Powell, the Labour chief of staff who helped negotiate with Northern Ireland between 1997 and 2007, and Leo Varadkar, the newly elected Fine Gael leader who became Ireland's taoiseach on Wednesday.
Why everyone from Major to Labour is so wary of the DUP
Theresa May may need the DUP's support to remain in 10 Downing Street, but leading figures in both the UK and Ireland are urging caution. (Mirror Online)
Major's wariness comes, in part, from his own history.
After Major won an unexpected victory in the 1992 general election against Neil Kinnock's Labour, the Conservatives lost their majority in December 1996 due to by-election losses and attrition, and Major turned to the then-dominant force in Northern Ireland's unionist and Protestant politics, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). That arrangement lasted barely six months, coming right before the 'New Labour' landslide that swept Tony Blair into power in May 2017.
The UUP was, at the time, engaged in the negotiations that would two years later blossom into the 'Good Friday' Agreement. The UUP leader, David Trimble, shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with his counterpart John Hume, the leader of the republican (and largely Catholic) Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
While Major's government leaned on the Ulster Unionists, the DUP in the 1990s was a far more right-wing and recalcitrant group. Indeed, the Tories have never formally turned to the DUP for support like May is now doing.
Founded in 1971 by Paisley, a Presbyterian fundamentalist preacher, the DUP bitterly opposed the Good Friday Agreement on the grounds that it allowed the republican Sinn Féin, a party with ties to the Irish Republican Army, to hold public office. By the early 2000s, moreover, the DUP had eclipsed the UUP as the leading unionist party in Northern Ireland, while Sinn Féin was itself eclipsing the SDLP as the leading party of the Catholic, republican left. Those tectonic changes in Northern Irish politics brought a halt, after just four years, to the widely hailed devolution in Northern Ireland, collapsing a power-sharing arrangement between the UUP and the SDLP.
Between 2002 and 2007, as internal unionist and republican politics were sorting in new directions, Northern Ireland reverted to a period of home rule through the Northern Ireland office. Eventually, the DUP and Sinn Féin agreed to a new power-sharing agreement of their own, a step that more firmly enshrined the Good Friday framework under Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, on the one hand, and under the DUP, first under Paisley, then under his successor Peter Robinson and from January 2016 until January 2017, Foster.
McGuinness earlier this year bowed out of the power-sharing agreement over the botched Renewable Heat Initiative, a scheme hatched by Foster when she was Northern Irish minister for enterprise. The idea was to offer subsidies to businesses to use wood pellets and other renewable heat sources. But businesses instead abused those subsidies so corruptly that they ultimately received more subsidies than the total amount spent on wood pellets altogether, costing the Northern Irish government nearly £500 million.
A snap election in March did little to solve the impasse; Sinn Féin and the DUP essentially tied, and Sinn Féin came incredibly close to emerging as the leading party for the first time in Northern Irish history, as unionist parties lost their majority for the first time as well. McGuinness himself died days after the regional elections. When May called a snap election nationally, James Brokenshire, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, prolonged the deadline to reach a deal until June 29, well after the general election result.
Under the Good Friday framework, the national government has an obligation of neutrality in helping various parties reach a power-sharing arrangement in the Stormont-based Northern Irish Assembly. Major and others worry that with the new Conservative government so dependent on DUP votes for its survival, that neutrality will be threatened. That's doubly dangerous, first because it comes at a time when the power-sharing arrangement between the DUP and Sinn Féin is in danger of collapse after a decade and, secondly, because both unionists and republicans worry about the consequences of Brexit, with fears that the re-imposition of a genuine border could re-ignite tensions after EU guarantees and the Good Friday Agreement virtually erased it 20 years ago.
Moreover, a Tory-DUP deal might buy May just months, not years. In 2016, deaths, resignations and other matters resulted in seven by-elections for parliamentary seats. With the Tories now polling behind Labour in the wake of last week's election, the DUP's negotiating position would strengthen with every Conservative by-election loss, and a handful of by-election losses would render the Tory minority unsalvageable, even with DUP support.
So these are all legitimate concerns, of course, and it's why May is wisely inviting leaders from all five major parties to discuss power-sharing in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin, on Thursday.
Reason to be optimistic about a Tory-DUP alliance?
Though Sinn Féin's leader Michelle O'Neill seems unlikely and unwilling to join another power-sharing agreement with the DUP in Belfast, both unionists and republicans could gain from a Tory-DUP alliance. (Facebook)
While the stakes of a significant DUP role at Westminster are high, there's nevertheless a strong chance that the DUP's influence could ultimately benefit Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom more generally.
After all, if the late Martin McGuinness, a militant republican, could make a deal with the DUP, certainly Theresa May can too.
Deal or no deal, though, Sinn Féin seems unlikely to continue its power-sharing arrangement with the DUP so long as Brexit negotiations are ongoing, because signing off on a hard Brexit (or even a soft Brexit) would be so politically toxic for Sinn Féin. The DUP is the only party that supported Brexit last year, even though Northern Ireland backed 'Remain' by a margin of 56% to 44%. Sinn Féin's voters overwhelmingly backed Remain, and they especially loathe the idea of re-introducing a border with the Republic of Ireland (which of course remains a full member of the European Union). Despite the incompetence of the 'Cash for Ash' scandal, it was always more a fig leaf for Sinn Féin than a genuine grievance.
Today, it feels like a near-certainly that home rule will become reality on June 29, and Brokenshire, the Conservative secretary of state for Northern Ireland, was always going to have greater unionist sympathies. That was true even when polls showed the Tories winning a 100-plus majority back in April.
Entering a period of home rule, Sinn Féin hopes (with some reason) to consolidate its growing position as the part of the Catholic republican left. Meanwhile, if it concludes a deal with May, the DUP likewise hopes to consolidate its own support by bringing more economic aid to Northern Ireland as its price for floating May's government. It's a win-win situation for both parties, who see it as an opportunity for dual, perhaps fatal, blows to the UUP and the SDLP (and maybe the non-sectarian Alliance as well), all of which lost their remaining Westminster seats last Thursday.
It's true that the DUP has an incredibly conservative position on social issues like gay rights, abortion and same-sex marriage. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where marriage equality isn't the law of the land. But as even leading LGBT activists in Northern Ireland admit, the DUP's stand today is far weaker than the Paisley view of the 1970s. Moreover, though it was Cameron who shepherded same-sex marriage though parliament in 2013, more Tories opposed it (134), including then-home secretary May, than supported it (126). So it's not just the DUP that has had a tough time accepting LGBT rights and marriage equality.
Moreover, as the DUP and Sinn Féin have become the leading parties for their respective unionist and republican electorates, they've shed some of the harder edges of their pasts. The DUP is simply not the same today under Foster, who is Anglican (not Presbyterian) and who was originally elected as a member of the Northern Irish Assembly from the UUP before switching to the DUP in 2004, as it was under Paisley. Dodds, who has served as deputy leader since 2008, is a Cambridge-educated pragmatist and dealmaker.
The same is true for Sinn Féin, whose leader in Northern Ireland is Michelle O'Neill, a run-of-the-mill social democrat who was a child and teenager during the Troubles, and accordingly far less tainted by the legacy of the IRA violence of the 1970s and 1980s (unlike McGuinness and Gerry Adams).
To that end, the DUP is also reportedly rebuffing the Orange Order and hard-line Presbyterian demands to re-open a once-settled issue involving Ulster unionist parade routes designed to provoke Northern Irish republicans. That's a responsible step, as DUP leaders have made clear their demands from May will be non-sectarian in nature. Though, as Major cautions, English and Scottish voters may well be annoyed at more funds going to Northern Ireland, even Sinn Féin, I suspect, will be happy to see more money from London, given that Brexit means financial support from Brussels will chiefly come to an end (unless funneled through Ireland, whose government, by the way, would balk at picking up the hefty tab that London currently pays, in the unlikely event of unification).
Though the DUP is pro-Brexit, it is in favor of a relatively softer Brexit that keeps Northern Ireland within the EU single market, and it also opposes restoring a hard border with the Republic of Ireland. Given that the border issue is the most delicate and perhaps most intractable surrounding the Article 50 negotiations, the DUP's input may be helpful. Though DUP officials are reportedly asking May for a pledge not to call a 'border poll' over the term of the next government, it's not clear there's anything like the sufficiently widespread support today (or in the foreseeable future) for Irish unification to justify May calling such a referendum under the Good Friday framework anyway — though it's a matter that could arise following a hard Brexit. In the long run, a softer Brexit is far more important to stability and peace in Northern Ireland than any short-term turmoil related to the DUP's role at Westminster. If both May and Foster exercise caution and restraint, the DUP could help nudge a better outcome for all of Northern Ireland.
abortionarticle 50border pollbrexitbrokenshirecash for ashconservativedemocratic unionist partydevolutionDUPEuropean Uniongood friday agreementIrelandjohn majorlabourLGBT rightsmcguinnessmichelle o'neillnew labournigel doddsnorthern irelandpaisleypower-sharingRemainrenewable heat initiativeruth davidsonsame-sex marriagescotlandSDLPsinn feinsocial democratic and labour partytheresa maytoryulster unionist partyunionistUnited KingdomUUPvaradkarwomen's rights
LIVE BLOG: UK election results
May 7, 2015 Kevin Lees	Leave a comment
Throughout the night, Suffragio will be live-blogging the results of the United Kingdom's general election to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons.
BBC Exit Poll
10:23 pm GMT, 5:23 pm ET
It hardly seems correct, but BBC's exit polls have the Conservatives just short of a majority, winning nine additional seats from the current House of Commons. It's a fabulous drop for Labour, a great night for the Scottish nationalists and a horrific bloodbath for the Liberal Democrats. Nonetheless, if the numbers are correct, it will put the Tories in pole position to form the next government. Ironically, though the Lib Dems are forecast, in this poll, to lose 46 of their 56 seats, they would, together with the Tories, be able to cobble a majority. This assumes that Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democratic leader and deputy prime minister, holds onto his seat in Sheffield Hallam, and will enter into a fresh coalition with the Conservatives.
Note that the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which currently holds eight seats, could give a new Tory/Lib Dem coalition an extra margin of comfort. Note that if Sinn Féin wins five seats (as in 2010), the Tories need only a 323-seat majority, not 326, because those MPs refuse to sit in Westminster.
Conservative Party — 325 (revised from 316)
Labour Party — 232 (revised from 239)
Scottish National Party — 56 (revised from 58)
Liberal Democrats — 12 (revised from 10)
United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) — 1 (revised from 2)
Green Party — 1 (revised from 2)
Morley and Outwood
8:20 am GMT, 3:20 ET
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor who attacked the Tories relentlessly over austerity, has lost his election. A longtime aide to former prime minister Gordon Brown from 1990 until his election to parliament in 2005, Balls finished third in the 2010 Labour leadership election behind the two Miliband brothers. That he's lost his Leeds constituency is Labour's chief 'Portillo moment' — the defenestration of one of the party's potential new leaders. Notwithstanding Balls's defeat, his wife, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, remains a top contender to succeed Ed Miliband.
Conservative — 18,776 (17,264)
Labour — 18,354 (18,365)
UKIP — 7,951 (1,505)
LibDem — 1,426 (8,186)
Green — 1,264 (0)
Brighton Pavillion
Caroline Lucas easily wins reelection, giving the Greens an important victory. The Green Party is now winning 3.7% of the vote nationally, but it will hold just this seat — Natalie Bennett, the party's leader, who struggled at times during the campaign, finished third in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency. Nevertheless, it represents a huge leap forward for the Greens — a rise from the 0.9% it won in 2010.
Green — 22,871 (16,238)
UKIP — 2,724 (948)
I'm ending the live blog now. All three major party leaders are expected to address the public widely tomorrow, and there are still plenty of outstanding seats.
We're still waiting for final results in Rochester & Strood, where UKIP MP Mark Reckless, a Tory convert, was expected to lose.
We're also still waiting for South Thanet's results, where Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, has said he'll resign as UKIP leader if he loses the constituency.
In Leeds, we're still waiting for results from the Morley and Outwood constituency, where Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls is in a tough fight — if he loses, Labour will lose a potential leadership candidate.
RELATED: The race to succeed Ed Miliband begins tonight
RELATED: Seven things to watch for in Cameron's next government
This was a classic seat — the Liberal Democrats had to win this seat to retain even 30 seats. Instead, it lost it by a wide margin.
Conservative — 26,956 (2,746)
LibDem — 14,054 (23,635)
Labour — 5,693 (4,891)
* * * * * Continue reading LIVE BLOG: UK election results →
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How Northern Ireland might become Westminster's crucial swing vote
May 1, 2015 Kevin Lees	2 Comments
On Monday, Northern Ireland's health minister Jim Wells resigned after he made numerous comments that not only disparaged gay and lesbian parents but alleged that LGBT parents were more prone to child abuse.
His party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), is the strongest party in Northern Ireland today, and its leader, Peter Robinson, serves as Northern Ireland's first minister. Though Northern Ireland is home to just 2.9% of the United Kingdom's population, and it's allocated just 18 seats in the 650-member House of Commons, those seats could make the crucial difference in the race to become prime minister.
Though the election has been more about Scotland's role in any post-election coalitions, Northern Ireland could become even more important. If Robinson's DUP holds the balance of power, it could thrust one of the most anti-gay, socially conservative parties in Europe into the spotlight with consequences that could shake the still-fragile power-sharing agreement that's brought peace to Northern Ireland.
RELATED: What about gay marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
RELATED: No eulogies for Paisleyism
Polls consistently show three things:
The Scottish National Party (SNP) is projected to win, for the first time, the vast majority of Scotland's 59 seats, and its leader, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she'll prop up a center-left government led by Labour's Ed Miliband and will not support, under any circumstances, any vote of confidence for the incumbent, David Cameron (pictured above with Robinson).
Neither the Conservatives nor Labour are projected to win enough seats to form a majority, forcing Cameron and Miliband to seek allies from minor parties.
The Liberal Democrats, which have joined the Tories in a governing coalition since 2010, and whose leader, Nick Clegg, says he could support either the Tories or Labour after 2015, are not projected to win enough seats to propel either major party to a majority.
Conceivably, that's where the DUP would become vital — a world where a Tory-Lib Dem coalition falls just short of the 326 seats Cameron would need for reelection. No other party, after the SNP, is projected to win more seats than the DUP, which currently holds eight of Northern Ireland's seats. After entering into an electoral alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in a handful of constituencies, there's reason to believe that the DUP/UUP could together emerge with as many as 10 seats. Continue reading How Northern Ireland might become Westminster's crucial swing vote →
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No eulogies for Paisleyism
September 12, 2014 Kevin Lees	Leave a comment
Ian Paisley was a small man, and he led a small movement that forestalled peace in Northern Ireland for decades, withholding from Protestant and Catholic families alike the economic and social progress that accrued to virtually the rest of western Europe, and inflaming sectarian tribalism that still haunts Northern Ireland's cultural fabric in the 21st century.
Upon his death today at age 88, he'll be feted as a statesman in too-long-to-read eulogies prepared long ago in The Guardian and The New York Times.
Those eulogies will note that Paisley, at age 81, finally agreed to a power-sharing agreement with Irish Republicans, making him Northern Ireland's first minister from 2007 until his retirement in 2008. It was a decade after he opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that generally ended active fighting between Northern Ireland's Protestant loyalists and Catholic republicans. Those eulogies will show pictures of Paisley smiling and laughing with his nemesis, Martin McGuinness, the Northern Irish leader of Sinn Féin who continues to serve as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister in a power-sharing coalition with Paisley's successor, Peter Robinson.
They were nicknamed the 'Chuckle Brothers,' though it's hard to find too much to laugh about in the deaths of over 3,500 people during three decades of fighting that tore apart families and stunted the growth of a country all in the name of religious nationalism.
Paisley's critics argue that his 11th hour conversion to power-sharing was a cynical maneuver — with the knowledge that reverting to the violent era of the Troubles was impossible, Paisley moved to cement his Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as the natural party of Protestant governance in Northern Ireland, displacing the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and David Trimble, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to enact the Good Friday Agreement.
Cynical or not, Paisley's late-in-life conversion is a fact, and it won't be the first time that politicians have taken self-serving actions. In exchange for the power-sharing agreement, Paisley will be remembered today as a statesman with a peerage, not a garden-variety terrorist. That's just politics, and Paisley made the smart move. He saw, a decade after Good Friday, that the train was well out of the station, and he jumped on at the last minute.
And so much the better for Northern Ireland that he did.
But he took a damned ugly path to get there. Continue reading No eulogies for Paisleyism →
catholicdemocratic unionist partyDUPgerry adamsgood friday agreementhumeIrelandirish republicanirish republican armymcguinnessnorthern irelandpaisleypeter robinsonprotestantSDLPsinn feinstormonttrimbletroublesulsterulster unionist partyUnited KingdomUUP
Northern Ireland, Scotland, United Kingdom
Hey! What about gay marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
July 18, 2013 Kevin Lees	1 Comment
Amid the fanfare that much of the United Kingdom would now enjoy full same-sex marriage rights following the success of Conservative UK prime minister David Cameron in enacting a successful vote earlier this week in Parliament, some LGBT activists are still waiting at the altar of public policy for their respective day of celebration.
Under the odd devolved system within the United Kingdom of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, it's up to the separate Northern Ireland Assembly to effect its own laws on marriage. Even within Great Britain, the Scottish parliament, likewise, has the sole power to enact legislation related to marriage rights.
So while nearly 90% of the residents of the country will now be able to enter into same-sex marriages, Scottish and the Northern Irish will have to wait a little longer — and in the case of Northern Ireland, it seems like the wait will be lengthy. Scotland, with 5.3 million people (8.4% of the total UK population), and which will vote on independence in a referendum in September 2014, is already taking steps toward passing legislation, though Northern Ireland, with 1.8 million people (2.9% of the UK population), has already considered and rejected same-sex marriage.
The reason for the disparity within the United Kingdom goes back to former Labour prime minister Tony Blair.
Under the broad devolution process that his 'New Labour' government initiated upon taking power in 1997, much of the power to regulate life in Scotland was devolved from Westminster to the new parliament that met for the first time in 1999 at Holyrood. Although a parallel Welsh Assembly exists in Cardiff for Welsh affairs, the Welsh parliament lacks the same breadth of powers that the Scottish parliament enjoys, which is why the Welsh now have same-sex marriage rights. (Take heart, Daffyd!)
Northern Ireland has a similar arrangement, with its own devolved Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, though its powers were suspended from 2002 to 2007 when the Northern Ireland peace process fell apart, however briefly.
The disparate courses of English, Scottish and Northern Irish marriage rights are a case study in how devolution works in the United Kingdom today.
Scotland: Holyrood poised to pass an even stronger marriage equality bill in 2014
Scotland's local government, led by Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party, introduced a same-sex marriage bill late in June that is set to provide an even more liberal regime of marriage rights. While the marriage bill passed earlier this week in London actually bans the Anglican Church of England from offering same-sex marriage ceremonies, the Scottish bill won't have the same prohibitions on the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which is seen as somewhat more relaxed about gay marriage. Like the English legislation, however, the Scottish bill offer protections to ministers on religious grounds who do not choose to officiate same-sex marriages.
Although there's opposition to the bill within the governing SNP as well as the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal Democratic Party, the Conservative Party has very little influence outside England and Scotland, generally speaking, is even more socially progressive than England, which means that the legislation is widely expect to pass in the Scottish Parliament early next year, with the first same-sex marriages in Scotland to take place in 2015.
Northern Ireland: gay marriage as a football between Protestant and Catholic communities
Earlier this year, the Northern Ireland Assembly considered a same-sex marriage bill, but it was defeated in April by a vote of 53 to 42 — a similar motion was defeated in October 2012 by a similar margin. Since 2005, LGBT individuals have been able to enter into civil partnerships (with most, though not all, of the rights of marriage enjoyed by opposite-sex partners) throughout the entire United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.
When Scotland passes its gay marriage bill next year, however, it will leave Northern Ireland as the only part of the United Kingdom without marriage equality.
Not surprisingly, given that Northern Ireland was partitioned out of the Republic of Ireland in 1921 largely on religious lines, and Protestant-Catholic violence has plagued Northern Ireland for much of the decades since, Northern Ireland is the most religious part of the United Kingdom. A 2007 poll showed that while only 14% of the English and 18% of Scots were weekly churchgoers, fully 45% of the Northern Irish attended church weekly.
Unlike Scotland, where the mainstream UK political parties, such as the Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats, aim to compete with the Scottish Nationalists (with varying degrees of success), Northern Irish politics are entirely different, based instead on the largely Protestant 'unionist' community and the largely Catholic 'nationalist' community. Around 41% of Northern Ireland is Roman Catholic, while around 41.5% of Northern Ireland is Protestant (mostly the Presbyterian Church and the Anglican Church of Ireland).
That helps explain why the opposition to gay marriage in Northern Ireland remains so strong, and it doesn't help that the issue falls along the same lines as the entrenched unionist and nationalist divisions. Given that it's unlikely either community will come to dominate Northern Irish politics and the Assembly anytime soon, it means that proponents of same-sex marriage will have to convince at least some unionists to join forces with largely supportive nationalist parties to pass a marriage bill — and that may prove a difficult task for a five-way power-sharing government in Belfast that has enough difficulties even without gay marriage. Continue reading Hey! What about gay marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland? →
allianceblairCameronconservativedevolutionDUPenglandequalitygay marriagegreat britainholyroodLBGTliberal democratnationalistnorthern irelandpaisleypeter robinsonsalmondsame-sex marriagescotlandscottish nationalistSDLPsinn feinSNPstormonttoryunionistUnited KingdomUUPwaleswestminster
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text:
Women In Prison (сокр. WIP, ) — подраздел эксплуатационного кино, в котором повествуется об издевательствах над женщинами в местах лишения свободы (концлагеря, тюрьмы и т. п.).

Сюжеты фильмов
Фильмы про женщин за решёткой снимались и в 1960-х годах, и раньше. Ранние фильмы, эксплуатирующие эту тематику, были в основном моралистичными драмами о тяготах тюремной жизни. В 1970-е годы после снятия табу с определённых тем они стали более откровенными и садистскими. Пик популярности WIP-фильмов пришёлся на 1970-е и 1980-е годы. До 1970-х самыми активными в производстве WIP-фильмов были американцы, но постепенно тематика стала популярной и среди продюсеров и режиссёров Южной Америки, Италии и Юго-Восточной Азии.

Рассматриваются разнообразные аспекты человеческой сексуальности, изображаются сексуальные отклонения или извращения: садизм, мазохизм, фетишизм, иногда с соответствующими атрибутами тоталитарной обстановки, если действие происходит в нацистских лагерях. Порой разграничить эти поджанры сложно, в связи с чем некоторые фильмы Women In Prison оказываются в списках эксплуатационных фильмов жанров Sexploitation и Nazi-exploitation.

Сюжеты фильмов, как правило, похожи один на другой. В большинстве из них использовался набор выработанных за годы съёмок подобных фильмов клише. Во всех фильмах были обязательная массовая сцена в душе, женские драки, лесбиянство, коррумпированный начальник или начальница тюрьмы с сексуальными отклонениями, нередко торгующий своими заключёнными. Порою эти фильмы сложно отличить от обыкновенной порнографии.

Категории
Сюжеты фильмов тоже можно разделить на две категории:

 В ряде фильмов женщины попадали в тюрьму по приговору законного суда, и в таком случае речь в фильмах шла, как правило, о молодой неопытной девушке, которая попала в тюрьму по ошибке, за чужое преступление («Девочки в тюрьме»), либо взявшая на себя вину за чужое преступление («Женщины в ярости»), либо совершившая вынужденное преступление («Невольные пташки»). Это более соответствует названию жанра, так как, по идее, тюрьма (prison) — это место исполнения закона, и попасть туда можно только по законной санкции.
 В другой категории фильмов женщины попадали не в тюрьмы, а незаконно лишались свободы отдельными лицами («Садомания») или государством с тоталитарным режимом в состоянии войны («Большая клетка для птиц») (частные публичные дома, плантации в Азии, Nazi-exploitation). Сюжет меняется, когда в месте лишения свободы оказывается проверяющий состояние тюрьмы (журналист или правозащитник), который, узнав о нарушениях закона в лагере, устраивает заключённым побег. В данном случае термин «тюрьма» не совсем уместен, так как если человека лишают свободы незаконно, то место, где он находится, не может называться тюрьмой в прямом смысле.

Почти всегда такие фильмы заканчиваются массовым побегом и полным уничтожением персонала лагеря.

К 1990-м годам популярность подобных фильмов пошла на спад. Кинокритик Сергей Меренков отмечает, что причиной этому стало однообразие всех WIP-фильмов. Но не все фильмы WIP отличались своей бессмысленной жестокостью и порнографичностью, среди них есть и избранные ленты (например, «Бангкок Хилтон»).

В последние десятилетия такие фильмы уже практически не снимают.

Некоторые фильмы жанра WIP
 «99 женщин» («Der Heiße Tod», ФРГ-Великобритания-Италия-Испания, Хесус Франко, 1969)
 «Большая клетка для птиц» («The Big Bird Cage», США, Джек Хилл, 1972)
 «Чёрная мама, белая мама» («Black Mama, White Mama», США/Филиппины, Эдди Ромеро, 1973; фильм с элементами «блэксплойтэйшен»; в главных ролях Пэм Гриер и Маргарет Марков)
 «Women in Cell Block 7»
 «Клетка» — российский телесериал, в главной роли Ирина Апексимова.
 «Куколки за колючей проволокой» («Frauengefängnis», Швейцария, Хесус Франко, 1975)
 «Ильза — свирепая тюремщица» («Greta — Haus ohne Männer», США, ФРГ, Швейцария, Хесус Франко, 1977)
 «Садомания» («Sadomania», Германия-Испания, Хесус Франко, 1980)
 «Женщины за решёткой» («Chained Heat», США/ФРГ, Пол Николас, 1983)
 «Женщины в ярости» («Women in Fury», Италия, Микеле Массимо Тарантини, 1985)
 «Девочки из исправительной колонии» («Reform School Girls», США, Том ДеСимон, 1986)
 «Девственницы из ада» («Virgins From Hell», Индонезия, Акил Анвари, 1987)
 «Под принуждением» («Contrainte par corps», Франция, Серж Леруа, 1988; в одной из главных ролей Витторио Меццоджорно. Фильм шёл в советском кинопрокате)
 «Невольные пташки», («Caged Hearts», США, Генри Чарр, 1995)
Малолетка (Jailbait, США, 2014)
 «Женская тюряга», (СССР, 1991)

Интересные факты
 В фильмах WIP появилась даже постоянная героиня — надзирательница Ильза в исполнении Дайан Торн, о которой снято 4 фильма.
 В 1986 году вышел пародийный фильм «Девушки из исправительной колонии», в котором высмеивалась порнографичность и жестокость, свойственная жанру WIP.

См. также
 Дева в беде
 Девки с мачете на свободе!

Примечания

Литература
 Mayne, Judith: «Caged and framed. The women-in-prison film», Framed: lesbians, feminists, and media culture, ed. by Judith Mayne. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. (Main Stack PN1995.9.W6.M359 2000)
 Morey, Anne. «'The Judge Called Me an Accessory': Women's Prison Films, 1950—1962», Journal of Popular Film & Television. 23(2):80-87. 1995 Summer.
 Rapaport, Lynn: «Holocaust Pornography. Profaning the Sacred in Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS», Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 2003, pp. 53-79.
 Waller, Gregory A.: «Auto-Erotica. Some Notes on Comic Softcore Films for the Drive-in Circuit», Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 135, Fall 1983
 Walters, Suzanna Danuta: «Caged heat. The (R)evolution of women-in-prison films», Real knockouts. Violent women in the movies, edited by Martha McCaughey and Neal King. 1st Ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
 Williams, Melanie. «Women in Prison and Women in Dressing Gowns: Rediscovering the 1950s Films of J. Lee Thompson», Journal of Gender Studies, 11(1):5-15, 2002 Mar

Ссылки
 Коллекция фильмов «Женщины в тюрьме»
 База данных по фильмам WIP
 Lesbians in Women-in-Prison Movies
 Übersicht über die bekanntesten Filme (PDF-Datei; 588 kB)
 Clowers, Marsha: Dykes, Gangs, and Danger. Debunking Popular Myths about Maximum-Security Life. as pdf

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'The possibilities are incredible', said Cllr Eoghan Jeffers (SF) whose motion calling on Cork County Council to draw up a tourism strategy for South Cork (Carrigaline, Passage West, Monkstown and the Lower Harbour), was unanimously adopted at the monthly meeting of Carrigaline-Ballincollig Municipal District (MD). 'There is so much to offer and the area has huge potential,' he stated and suggested specific programmes be drawn up including provision of sites for camper vans/motor homes in the MD. Cllr Michael Frick Murphy (SF) seconded saying there were great openings for tourism in the Passage West area. Other members spoke in support. MD officer Kevin O'Regan suggested the director of the council's tourism directorate be invited to a meeting. This was agreed. In previous years, there was an Owenabue Valley Tourism Group and currently some of the area is promoted by Ring of Cork based in Midleton.
Tourism and business members of Ring of Cork (RoC) recently visited Passage West Maritime Museum and later networked at Carrigaline Court Hotel as part of the organisation's ongoing work to promote tourism and support the local economy and jobs in the Greater Cork area. Led by Elga Ryan of South and East Cork Area Development (SECAD) and RoC, they were given a tour and lecture at the museum by one of its founders, Jim Murphy, local historian and former town councillor.
Refreshments were provided on arrival by museum members Claire Kenneally and Patricia Lydon in the adjoining Passage Association for the Care of the Eldlerly (PACE) Centre where RoC members were also greeted by museum volunteers Angela Murphy, Joe Healy, Martin Collins, Walty Murphy, Maire Corr, Don O'Sullivan and Leo McMahon.
The next stop was Carrigaline Court Hotel where there was a warm welcome and hospitality in the Collins Bar from staff and a summary of the ongoing major €3 million plus refurbishment including bedrooms, meeting rooms, leisure centre and reception was given by sales and marketing manager Fiona O'Donoghue.
She said the hotel and leisure centre celebrated its 20th anniversary in November and is busy year-round for midweek corporate and mainly weekend leisure business. Tourism Ireland was focusing more on secondary tourism locations such as Carrigaline and Lower Cork Harbour which include attractions such as Camden Fort Meagher, Crosshaven, Passage West Maritime Museum and the soon to open Haulbowline Park as well as the hotel itself which carries literature for places to visit in the RoC area.
The group from RoC for the trip to the maritime museum and hotel comprised: Sean Bosma, Paddy Whitty and Valerie Morgan, Cobh Museum; Karen Mulcahy, Youghal Clock Gate Tower; Trish Harris, Ocean Escapes, Cork Harbour; Maire Murphy, An Stor Townhouse, Midleton; Tom O Neill, Spike Island; Tom Leahy, CastleFarm B&B, Youghal; Noel Costello, SECAD and Mary McCaffrey, Print Profile, Midleton as well as Fiona who visited the museum.
RoC is made up of Cork's best tourism activities, attractions, restaurants, bars, and accommodation providers. It connects tourism businesses across the region and equips them with the tools and skills to boost business and in turn, support local jobs and the local economy.
'These familiarisation trips are informal and fun days away from the office, where the focus is on networking,' Elga told The Carrigdhoun. 'RoC provides the opportunity for owners and managers as well as front of house staff experience other attractions, gain knowledge, create linkages, promote other businesses and ultimately encourage tourists to stay in the region for longer.
Visits for 2019 include Passage West Maritime Museum, Zip It in Farran Woods, Inch Hideaway and Leahy's Open Farm's Chocolate Factory.
Anybody wishing to get involved and join RoC should email info@ringofcork.ie, tel 021 4613432 or visit www.ringofcork.ie.
RoC has a free heritage trail map and Elga said that when updated for 2019, the new maritime museum, which officially opened last year, will feature.