@Ladfleg

Interview with Loyalists Against Democracy – will @LADFLEG’s second year in existence be their difficult second album?

| Readers 1753

Like them or loathe them, Loyalists Against Democracy will have been around for a year on Tuesday 10 December. They’ve become a local online phenomenon with their mix of parody, banter and acerbic attacks. It started out as one man trolling “ridiculous” loyalist flag protesters online. Early daft parody protest ideas like complaining about Aer Lingus flying over East Belfast have grown into a collective producing sophisticated graphics, videos, music, a musical for the Edinburgh fringe as well as caustic …

Read more…

New media and new politics in NI? Or complacency after conflict?

| Readers 70

This afternoon’s Political Studies Association of Ireland conference in Trinity included a panel looking at new media and new politics and their influence on conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. Chaired by Niall Ó Dochartaigh (NUI Galway), the panel spoke in the order: Alex Kane (Journalist) Paul Reilly (Uni. of Leicester) Brian J. Spencer (Political blogger and cartoonist) Alan Meban (Political blogger) Topics covered included whether NI actually wanted to change, whether anyone could think of an example of social media …

Read more…

@LADFLEG versus #Facebook

| Readers 577

Have loyalists finally taken the fun out of Loyalists Against Democracy (LAD)? Here is LAD’s own brief timeline: founded in December 2012 at the height of the flag protests, it was unpublished and then republished in July 2013 in anticipation of further protests. After acquiring 6000 likes, it was then removed from Facebook amid claims of sexual content (LAD claim there has never been any). They then launched LAD 2, getting 3,000 likes in a week and were then unpublished …

Read more…

Not British, Brutish: @brianjohnspencr guesting on the @LADFLEG blog

| Readers 122

In a bit of departure, the Loyalists Against Democracy blog has a guest post from Brian John Spencer (regularly of this parish). Entitled, ‘They are Not British, They’re Brutish‘ and against the backdrop of the increasingly cartoonish behaviour of loyalisms curated extreme, he rages against what he variously calls ‘civilised Northern Ireland’, ‘soft-bellied multiculturalists’  and ‘ever-indulgent middle-highbrows’ and suggests they all need to wake up. He even converges upon Chris’ argument that Unionism needs to adopt the kind of leadership …

Read more…

#givepootstheboot: Minister spends £100k opposing #LGBT blood donation and adoption

| Readers 95

A few days ago it was revealed that Health Minister Edwin Poots is to fritter away more department money in his attempts to prevent the extension of adoption rights to gay and same-sex (and un-married) couples by taking the case to the Supreme Court. The Green Party leader, Steven Agnew, had Edwin Poots clarify legal costs for defending his (Poots’) stance on the lifetime ban on gay men donating blood. Poots gave that as £37,112 (net of VAT). When asked to provide …

Read more…