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Dani McCabe is a member of the steering group of Standing 4 Women. We discussed several court cases surrounding the Cervical Check controversy.

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I wrote a piece on the website last December about Brexit, with the title that might have sounded a little pessimistic. It was called It’s Over. Brace for Catastrophe. There’s No Hope. At this point, I don’t think that was pessimistic.

. At this point, I don’t think that was pessimistic.

I can’t see any plausible way forward for the UK that does not lead to disaster, to further disaster. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, just like nobody knows exactly which cups and plates a bull in a china shop will smash, but we don’t need to know those details, to know that it isn’t going to end well.

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Rowan Croft runs the YouTube political channel Grand Torino. He says that he’s politically centre-right, not extreme right or alt-right, though his channel heavily features figures such as Justin Barrett of the National Party and formerly of Youth Defence, Herrmann Kelly of Irexit, Jim Dowson, the former BNP and Orange Order member who has been involved in supplying equipment to paramilitary vigilanties hunting asylum-seekers crossing the Turkish-Bulgarian border.

During the interview, we talked about Rowan’s faith in Qanon, a bizarre online conspiracy theory which holds that there exists no investigation into Donald Trump conspiring with Russian intelligence, and that the Mueller investigation is, in fact, a cover for investigating how Hillary Clinton and many of her top associates are pedophiles who have abused and murdered dozens of children. Both Rowan and the anonymous online source ‘Q‘ have made many predictions to prove their access to inside knowledge. No substantial prediction has come true.

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Dr Michael Foley is professor emeritus at the school of media at TU Dublin – formerly DIT – also a member of the NUJ’s Ethics Council, and has been invited by the International federation of Journalists and UNESCO to write a syllabus on journalism safety and ethics.

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Because of the detailed nature of the podcast, I sent a rough cut of the show to Neil O’Gorman of RTÉ in advance for his comments a couple of days before publication, and invited his comments. Below is Neil’s response, with interjections in italics from myself.

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Richard Tice is a British businessman, heavily involved in property management and development, and is best known as founder of the pro Brexit organisation Leave Means Leave and former co-chair of the referendum campaign group Leave.EU. 

He wrote recently that May’s deal is the worst deal in history. Richard queried my quote from David Davis that “my preference would be that we should remain within the Customs Union of the EU”, even if this meant the UK would have to “give up some freedoms in terms of negotiating our trading arrangements with third countries.” ~ read more ~

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Brendan Ogle is the spokesperson for Right2Water, and is Unite the Union’s Senior Officer in the Republic of Ireland.

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In the last podcast I had an interview with presidential candidate Gemma O’Doherty, and I have to say that I found the reactions to it pretty depressing. There was a twitterstorm in a teacup  ~ read more ~

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Gemma O’Doherty worked for the Irish Independent for 17 years before being dismissed following her investigation of the penalty points scandal. Since then she has worked as an independent journalist on a number of high-profile scandals and particularly on failed murder investigations. On 19 August, she announced her intention to seek nominations to be a candidate in the forthcoming presidential election.  ~ read more ~

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Aodhán Ó Ríordáin is a Labour Party senator and former TD.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

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I wanted to comment a bit about the controversy that blew up in the UK last week about Boris Johnson’s comment about Muslim women who wear burkas.

Boris Johnson, in case you don’t know, is the ~ read more ~

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John Leahy became leader of Renua Ireland in September 2016. I spoke to him about aspects of his policies set out on the Renua website, including the proposal to

Introduce 90-day detention orders for those Gardai suspect of being actively involved in preparations to murder another or of being responsible for directing the activities of an organised criminal gang.

Jailing people for any length of time because ~ read more ~

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Graham Gudgin is a founder of Briefings for Brexit, and a research associate at the Centre For Business Research at the University of Cambridge and the Senior Economic Advisor with Oxford Economics. He was a special adviser to the Northern Ireland First Minister on economic policy from 1998  to 2002.

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You’ll remember that in the last podcast, I was talking to Steve Hinks from the British anti  ~ read more ~

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‎Steve Hinks‎ speaks for the UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters, and he attended a conference in Dublin in April organised by the the International Federation for Injured Children and Adults. The conference was also attended by Anna Cannon of REGRET and Dr Jesper Mehlsen.

The conference program claimed ~ read more ~

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Natalie Parrott produces the YouTube channel ContraPoints. I highly recommend her videos. I mentioned the interview I did Linda Bellos in February. 

In our discussion, I mentioned the soaring referrals to the UK’s Tavistock clinic (which specialises in ~ read more ~

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David Quinn is a founder of the Iona Institute, a newspaper columnist and a regular media commentator.

During the marriage equality referendum campaign, David said that

Should the referendum pass, a same-sex couple could demand a right to marry in a church … In Denmark, we have already seen that the Lutheran Church, a State Church admittedly, has been forced to conduct same-sex weddings.

~ read more ~

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Sandra Khadhouri is one of the founders of Renew Britain, a new political party set up to resist Brexit. James Cousins, a former Conservative party member of Wandsworth Council has recently joined their party but they have not yet had a chance to test their electoral strength. 

In our conversation, I mentioned The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart, which charts the cultural gulf that has opened between different groups in Britain and elsewhere.

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Linda Bellos is a businesswoman, radical feminist and gay-rights activist. She was a member of the collective that produced Spare Rib, a British feminist magazine, and was a member of Lambeth Borough Council in London and was the leader of the council from 1986 to 1988. 

The term ‘TERF‘ is widely used as a term of abuse by third wave feminists for second-wave feminists, often with extreme hostility and even threats of violence. Linda was invited, and then un-invited to speak to the Beards Society in Cambridge University, as part of a bitter dispute between factions within feminism.

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I talked to Director of Retail and Consumer Services at Comreg, Barbara Delaney.

Yourtel appear to still be advertising to the Irish market, despite being convicted on 88 sample charges (out of 880) of ripping off their customers. They were fined just €750 of a maximum fine of €5,000 in each case – a total of €66,000. Their pricing scheme and the fact that they have ~ read more ~