Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

My sources in North Lanarkshire tell me the Council is making arrangements next week to seek approval for the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which has to be agreed before there is any resolution of the long running equal pay dispute. So, who knows? If the North Lanarkshire dots all the i's, crosses all the t's and formally signs off on the MOU, then in the next few days we might be able to say that final agreement has been reached.   In which case a brief joint statement will be issued to signal an end to hostilities and soon thereafter detailed letters of explanation will be sent out to all equal pay claimants. Now I make a point of never counting chickens before they're hatched and as we've been here before it's definitely a case of 'fingers crossed'. So watch this space.

What's clear from the recent BBC/Comres survey is that Britain's Muslim community harbours a lot of abhorrent views which have the potential to fester and get worse, if the underlying issues are not challenged and brought out into the open.  And while it's important to respect people's cultural and other differences there have to be some red lines about respecting fundamental human rights and values which cannot be set aside to satisfy a religious belief which owes its allegiance to some higher power. So this Peter Brookes cartoon from The Times makes a valid point if you ask me, because when it comes to violence and fundamental freedoms you it's simply not possible to be a 'little bit pregnant'.

The BBC published an interesting opinion poll the other day on the attitude of British Muslims towards violence and Islamic extremism. Now in some ways the results of the survey are good news since the great majority of Muslims in the UK oppose violence and support democratically decided, non-religious laws.  But on some key issues there is a troubling level of support and empathy amongst British Muslims for extremist attitudes and behaviours, for example:      27% had some sympathy over the attacks in Paris 11% feel sympathy for those who want to fight against western interests  20% thought western liberal society could never be compatible with Islam 5% would not report to the police a fellow Muslim planning an act of violence 8% know fellow Muslims who feel strongly sympathetic towards IS and al-Qaeda  Now some of these figures are very significant indeed and there is clearly work to do in debating these iss...

Lots of people have had their say in the public debate which has followed the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, but here's a particularly interesting contribution by historian Tom Holland who made a serious TV programme on Islam yet was still met with a firestorm of death threats from religious extremists. I missed the programme first time around so I must find out if 'Islam:The Untold Story' is still available on Channel 4; better still the schedulers should consider repeating the documentary because in the present climate there is every reason to have a serious discussion as to what Islam is all about instead of leaving the field clear for the fanatics to spread their poison.  Viewpoint: The roots of the battle for free speech Voltaire: Often quoted advocate of freedom of expression Historian Tom Holland was one of those who tweeted Charlie Hebdo's cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in the wake of the deadly attack on the magazine's ...

One of the great ironies about the attack on the Charlie Ebdo offices in Paris is that the  Islamist killers who claimed to be acting in the name of their religion, murdered a Muslim police officer while he was on the ground injured, pleading for his life.  Alongside ‘Je Suis Charlie,’ Slain Officer Inspires His Own Social Media Refrain By AURELIEN BREEDENJAN - The New York Times Several videos showing the gunmen outside the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, have surfaced online. The footage includes scenes of graphic violence. Video by Natalia V. Osipova on Publish Date January 7, 2015. Photo by Jordi Mir, via Reuters. PARIS — In an  amateur video  that was widely circulated online after the  shooting Wednesday at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris , two gunmen could be seen killing a police officer as he lay wounded on the ground. “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!” they shouted as they walked back to their ...

The Independent's cartoonist Dave Brown captures the public mood of defiance in Paris and around the world in response to the cowardly attack on French journalists and freedom of speech by Islamist extremists.

Lots of inspiring words have been written in the wake of the murderous attack on the Charlie Ebdo offices in Paris, but this report by Matthew Holehouse in The Telegraph hits exactly the right note - of people's quiet determination not to be cowed by the barbaric acts of Islamist terrorists.   Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: In London, silence, defiance and a lone violin 'It is an attack on our democracy, and on freedom of speech, and everything we fought for' People raise pens and signs during a vigil to pay tribute to the victims of a shooting by gunmen at the offices of weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, at Trafalgar Square in London  Photo: REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett By  Matthew Holehouse  - The Telegraph The grim familiar cliché of a terrorist attack: meaningless, senseless, victims and by-standers left grasping for a motive and a response. For the crowd in Trafalgar Square, no such doubts. They stood in a near-perfect silence, perhaps ...

Jim Murphy took on a new job and an mighty new challenge when became leader of the Scottish Labour Party back in December 2014 which was on top of his day job as a Westminster MP. In the past few months Jim has put enormous effort in to turning Labour's fortunes around in Scotland, to little avail so far according to the opinion polls, but even his worst critic would have to agree that being the Scottish Labour leader requires a huge amount of time and commitment from the Eastwood MP. In other words Jim is doing two jobs at the moment as a result of his new role and this has to be having an effect on his ability to operate at the same level as a Westminster MP, unless he's Superman of course. So you would think that Jim would have stood down from his Westminster seat at the May general election to concentrate on his declared aim of becoming Scotland's First Minister which requires Jim to win a seat at the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. Yet accord...

American television enjoyed a purple patch in the 1960s with the release of ground-breaking productions like the Star Trek series which captivated and inspired a whole new generation of viewers to think big and follow their dreams. In character Mr Spock   was was always rational, unflappable and unemotional yet to the end Leonard Nimoy displayed his humanity and great sense of humour, as this report from the BBC shows.  Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek's Mr Spock, dies at 83 The BBC's David Sillito looks back at the life of Leonard Nimoy US actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr Spock in the cult sci-fi series Star Trek, has died at the age of 83 in Los Angeles, his family has said. His son, Adam, said he died of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Friday morning. Nimoy had a long career as both an actor and director. However he was best known for his portrayal of the half-human, half-Vulcan character in both the TV franchise and series of films. La...

The violent death of yet another critic of President Vladimir Putin confirms to me that Russia has become a rogue state which is willing to eliminate its political opponents both at home and abroad. The BBC has published a helpful list of Russian figures who stood up to President Putin in one way or another only to meet with a violent and/or mysterious death - and the list does not include Sergei Magnitsky who died on remand in a Russian jail and was convicted after his death in a bizarre propaganda show trial. Now for all its huge resources (from the Russian state) I've never seen these issues reported or discussed seriously on Russian TV from which you can draw your own conclusions. Perhaps the most glaring act of murder and tyranny involved the carefully planned execution on UK soil of Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned with radioactive Polonium with the key suspects in his murder leaving their radioactive fingerprints all across London as they fl...