Music legend Nile Rodgers stumps up £35k to help protect ancient NI woodland
Belfast-bound Chic star's enduring love of nature prompted Faughan Valley gift
One of music's biggest stars is helping to protect a rare and ancient woodland in Northern Ireland.
Nile Rodgers and his band Chic — famous for hits such as Le Freak and Good Times — are donating more than £35,000 to support the Faughan Valley in Co Londonderry.
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The Independent
43 minutes ago
- The Independent
BBC under pressure amid criticism of ‘death to the IDF' chants at Glastonbury
Sir Keir Starmer has led criticism across the political spectrum of chants at Glastonbury for 'death' to the Israeli military as the BBC faced pressure to explain why it kept broadcasting. Rapper Bobby Vylan, of rap punk duo Bob Vylan, on Saturday led crowds on the festival's West Holts Stage in chants of 'Free, free Palestine' and 'Death, death to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)'. A member of Belfast rap trio Kneecap suggested fans 'start a riot' at his bandmate's forthcoming court appearance related to a terrorism charge. Responding to the chants from Bob Vylan, the Prime Minister said: 'There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech. 'I said that Kneecap should not be given a platform and that goes for any other performers making threats or inciting violence. 'The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast.' A member of Kneecap said 'f*** Keir Starmer' during their performance after the Prime Minister called for the band not to play at the festival. Avon and Somerset Police said video evidence from the performances would be assessed by officers to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation. Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis said Bob Vylan's chants 'very much crossed a line'. 'We are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence,' she said in a statement. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Bob Vylan was 'inciting violence and hatred' and should be arrested and prosecuted. 'By broadcasting his vile hatred, the BBC appear to have also broken the law,' he said. 'I call on the Police to urgently investigate and prosecute the BBC as well for broadcasting this. Our national broadcaster should not be transmitting hateful material designed to incite violence and conflict,' he posted on X. Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it a 'pretty shameless publicity stunt' and said the BBC and Glastonbury have 'questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens', speaking to Sky News. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called the scenes 'grotesque'. 'Glorifying violence against Jews isn't edgy. The West is playing with fire if we allow this sort of behaviour to go unchecked,' she wrote on X. Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said she was 'horrified' and that the BBC should have cut the feed. 'Given the nature of the attacks on Israel, the BBC should not have kept broadcasting that. They should have cut the coverage immediately,' she told Times Radio. Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman Max Wilkinson said: 'Bob Vylan's chants at Glastonbury yesterday were appalling. Cultural events are always a place for debate, but hate speech, antisemitism and incitements to violence have no place at Glastonbury or anywhere in our society.' Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel wrote in the Daily Mail that the incident was a 'systemic failure'. 'What happened at Glastonbury was dangerous,' she said. 'Chants calling for the death of Israeli soldiers crossed a line no civilised society should ever tolerate, and it was shameful that the BBC continued with its live broadcast of this incitement to violence. 'The fact the BBC – a national institution – broadcast this hate-fuelled content will risk legitimising and normalising those views in society.' Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has spoken to the BBC director general about Bob Vylan's performance, a Government spokesperson said. The BBC said it showed a warning during the performance and that viewers would not be able to access it on demand. A spokesperson for the broadcaster said: 'Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan's set were deeply offensive. 'During this live stream on iPlayer, which reflected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language. 'We have no plans to make the performance available on demand.' The Israeli embassy said it was 'deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival'. The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said it would be formally complaining to the BBC over its 'outrageous decision' to broadcast Bob Vylan. 'Our national broadcaster must apologise for its dissemination of this extremist vitriol, and those responsible must be removed from their positions,' a spokesperson said. Bob Vylan, who formed in Ipswich in 2017, have released four albums addressing issues to do with racism, masculinity and class. Bobby Vylan's real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, according to reports. He is listed on Companies House as the director of Ghost Theatre Records, which is operated by Bob Vylan. Kneecap have been in the headlines after member Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offence. The group performed after Vylan's set on the West Holts Stage with O hAnnaidh exclaiming 'Glastonbury, I'm a free man' as they took to the stage. In reference to his bandmate's forthcoming court date, Naoise O Caireallain, who performs under the name Moglai Bap, said they would 'start a riot outside the courts', before clarifying: 'No riots, just love and support, and support for Palestine.' In the run-up to the festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, several politicians called for the group to be removed from the line-up and Sir Keir said their performance would not be 'appropriate'. During Kneecap's set, O hAnnaidh said: 'The prime minister of your country, not mine, said he didn't want us to play, so f*** Keir Starmer.' Kneecap also gave a 'big thank you to the Eavis family' and said 'they stood strong' amid calls for the organisers to drop them from the line-up. A BBC spokesperson said an on-demand version of Kneecap's performance was available on iPlayer. 'We have edited it to ensure the content falls within the limits of artistic expression in line with our editorial guidelines and reflects the performance from Glastonbury's West Holts Stage. As with all content which includes strong language, this is signposted with appropriate warnings.'
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
After BBC's latest anti-Semitic storm, LEO MCKINSTRY on why free speech has never implied the right to incite violence
The BBC has reached a disgraceful new low in its accelerating ethical decline. In an astonishing dereliction of duty, the BBC did not pull the plug on punk duo Bob Vylan as they embarked on an anti-Semitic rant before a Palestinian flag-waving crowd. Instead, it continued to live-stream the performance, effectively treating the glorification of anti-Israeli violence as a casual dose of Saturday afternoon entertainment. A BBC spokesman said yesterday that they had issued an on-screen warning 'about the very strong and discriminatory language' during Bob Vylan's performance and it was later removed from iPlayer. But that limp response is utterly inadequate. Why was the live feed not immediately cut? Does anyone seriously believe the BBC would have shown such spineless inertia if a performer had dared to voice hardline anti-Islamic or anti-immigration rhetoric? Equally unconvincing was the stance of organiser Emily Eavis, whose father Michael co-founded the festival. She released a mealy-mouthed statement insisting that she doesn't necessarily share the political views of performers, and insisted the real themes of Glastonbury are 'hope, unity, peace and love'. After Saturday's spectacle, those words ring hollow. The trouble at Glastonbury on Saturday was caused not just by Vylan but also by the radical Belfast rap trio Kneecap, which has gained notoriety for its endorsement of Irish paramilitaries and the pro-Palestinian cause. And in November 2023, they released a video that stated: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your MP.' So incendiary is their message that many had called for their Glastonbury set to be axed. Eavis refused. Even the enfeebled BBC was sufficiently chary of livestreaming its Saturday performance at Glastonbury. But the baton of intolerance was taken up by Bob Vylan with chilling enthusiasm. The Kneecap warmup act lead the 30,000-strong crowd in a chant of 'Free Palestine' - an aggressive anthem widely loathed by Jews for its anti-Semitic overtones - before the band's frontman, who goes by the moniker Bobby Vylan, then started to rant, 'Death to the IDF ' – the Israeli Defence Force. Let's be clear: in practice, these morbid words amount to a call for the destruction of the Jewish people's homeland, since the IDF is the only effective barrier between the survival of Israel or the triumph of its enemies. Vylan and Kneecap like to wail about the supposed genocide of the Palestinians, but the emasculation of Israel would result in mass slaughter on an epic scale. Some purists might argue that, in a democracy, free speech must be protected and therefore these voices should be heard. But freedom of expression has never implied the right to incite violence or murder. Both those actions have always been serious criminal offences – and should be handled with the full rigour of the law. The broadcaster's own editorial guidelines state the following: 'Material that contains hate speech should not be included in output unless it is justified by the context. Broadcasting hate speech can constitute a criminal offence if it is intended or likely to stir up hatred relating to race, or intended to stir up hatred relating to religious belief.' Rightly, Lord Carlile – crossbench peer and former independent government reviewer of terrorism legislation – has warned that BBC executives could now face charges, as police investigate their handling of Vylan's performance. Meanwhile, the Left's sudden pious wailing about free speech reeks of hypocrisy, given that these are the very campaigners who are often at the forefront of cancel culture. Trying to silence their opponents is a favourite tactic, particularly through accusations of Islamophobia and racism. It was that same ideological suppression that allowed predatory grooming gangs to operate with impunity across towns in the North and Midlands. But then this whole saga is riddled with double standards and contradictions. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police announced that they are not going to take any action against Kneecap over the trio's call to kill Conservative MPs, a decision that stands in stark contrast to the harsh sentence handed to Lucy Connolly, the wife of a West Northamptonshire Conservative councillor. She was jailed for more than two years for sending an inflammatory tweet about migrants during last summer's riots. To many, Connolly is a symbol of the two-tier justice system that has developed in Britain, where people from certain Left-wing groups – like pro-Palestinian demonstrators - are treated more leniently than those who express conservative views. But it is the BBC who made the greatest misjudgement in this case - and it is because its perspective has undoubtably been warped by its obsession with Glastonbury as an enormously significant cultural landmark, with the result that it treats the festival with uncritical reverence. No expense was spared. Hundreds of BBC staffers descended on Worthy Farm - all at licence fee-payers' cost. Every act was breathlessly praised. The broadcaster was less a neutral observer, more a cheerleader. Yet for all its resources, the BBC failed to conduct even basic checks on Bob Vylan -or to intervene when their set descended into an anti-semitic rant.
BreakingNews.ie
8 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Kate Nash says she would love to collaborate with Kneecap
Singer Kate Nash has said she would love to collaborate with Kneecap and added that it 'is really important' the band are using their platform for a political purpose. It came after police said on Saturday that they are assessing videos of comments made by the Belfast rap trio, as well as punk duo Bob Vylan, during their performances at the Glastonbury Festival. Advertisement The group are known for their provocative lyrics and merchandise, as well as their championing of the Irish language and support for Palestine. 'I love Kneecap. I'd love to collaborate. I love collaboration, actually,' Nash told the PA news agency. 'I really, really think collaboration is such an amazing and important part of being an artist, because you just learn every time you collaborate with someone different. 'So I just did a duet with Sprints, because they covered Foundations, and that was really fun.' Advertisement Nash, 37, added: 'Kneecap would be amazing to collaborate with. My mum's from Dublin and I think that the way they use their political platform is really important.' She continued: 'I don't think English people really understand their (Ireland's) history at all, they just don't know it. 'So I think there's an opportunity to educate people about England and Ireland's history, and sort of being half-English, half-Irish myself I have quite a good understanding of that, but I didn't learn it at school. Moglai Bap and Mo Chara of Kneecap (Ben Birchall/PA) 'There's so many amazing musicians to collaborate with. I love Amyl And The Sniffers.' Advertisement Before their performance on the West Holts Stage, several British politicians called for Kneecap to be removed from the line-up and UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said their performance would not be 'appropriate'. During their set, member Naoise O Caireallain said: 'The Prime Minister of your country, not mine, said he didn't want us to play, so f*** Keir Starmer.' In reference to his bandmate's upcoming court date the rapper, who performs under the name Moglai Bap, said they would 'start a riot outside the courts', before clarifying: 'No riots, just love and support, and support for Palestine.' Bobby Vylan, of rap duo Bob Vylan, had earlier led crowds in chants of 'Free, free Palestine' and 'Death, death to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)'. Advertisement According to reports, Bobby Vylan is called Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, from Ipswich. Robinson-Foster is listed on Companies House as being the director of Ghost Theatre Records, which is operated by Bob Vylan. Mr Starmer said the latter chant was 'appalling hate speech' and urged the BBC to explain how the scenes were broadcast. Speaking on the politics of Glastonbury, Nash said: 'What's the history of Glastonbury? It's about anti-corporation, Greenpeace. 'It is ultimately a political festival, and people come here to find togetherness, community, a sense of hope and to watch people play amazing shows, and to have their lives changed, to be inspired. Advertisement 'I think that we're seeing a lot of really scary things in the world right now, and people want to feel like they can see what they feel on stage being voiced, and I think that politicians need to get a grip.' Asked about artists who say they do not want to be political, she said: 'Certain people, you can't escape the politics of existing in the world. 'If you are a woman and you're like, 'I'm not political', I'm like, 'You are, you are. Everything about your life is political, whether you want it to be or not'. 'I think if you're a very privileged, white, rich man, sure you don't want to be political, or you don't have to be. 'But also, do you even have to comment that you don't want to be? I'm not really sure it helps. 'I think just don't be, then, in a way, if you just want to be a pop band, just be a pop band. 'That's not how I was raised. So it's really difficult for me to understand somebody saying, 'I don't want to be political'.' It came after The 1975 frontman Matty Healy said the band did not want their legacy to be 'one of politics' during their Friday night headline slot. 'I think we don't need more politics, we need more love and friendship,' he said. Nash headlined Glastonbury's Left Field stage on Saturday evening and performed a secret set on the BBC Introducing stage on Sunday. She has released several studio albums and is known for songs including Mouthwash and Foundations, the latter of which peaked at number two in the UK singles chart.
