Richard Mathias

Leeds loving, Yorkshire living, family doting, workaholic

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@LUFC @LeedsUnitedYEP @WaccoeOnline @TheSquareBall
If you’re going to the game v Liverpool in Chicago - let’s follow the Jocks lead & take over Wrigley field on the Saturday - Cubs play Yanks in a huge game Wrigley is an amazing place and loads of bars all round the stadium

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

#lufc #leedsunited I think it would be appropriate for Leeds fans going to West Ham to be in full beach wear with multiple beach balls to encourage the players to be on the beach too - let’s get Spurs relegated 😂😂😂

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

#mhmleedslegends to Eddie - would John Charles be the best player ever to play for Leeds ?

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

#mhmleedslegends how would Raphina compare to the champions league players or the Revie Boys

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@kieron_ayres @danny_knight @LUFCTickets @LUFC It’s hard but consider this - my sons were season ticket holder in 2015 (still are) under Rosler/heck/ monk - we watched and paid for some real rubbish - Av home attendance 2015/16 =22446 - but we can’t get away tickets

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@kieron_ayres @danny_knight @LUFCTickets @LUFC I get the loyalty aspect BUT I have been a home ST holder for 35 yrs & have almost zero chance of away tickets so what make someone who got to 8 last yr more entitled than me ? only fair way is a ballot sorry - past away availability / luck logging in should not be rewarded

[Jermaine Beckford @jermainebecks83]

😉😂

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@LUFC @EFL @SkySports with the storm predicting winds of 50 mph and heavy rain, flooding and damage would it not be sensible to delay LUFC v DCFC to a 5.00 pm KO ?

[Michael Stephen Day 🎸 @integraps]

My wide ranging interview with @richardmathias of @lfsminerva today looking at the state of the property market and discussing solutions to improve speed, certainty and fee levels.

https://t.co/Dn9EjC39EP

Interview starts at 5.00 and runs for 45 minutes

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

An incredible letter written by a non-Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel

It's a response from Dr. Denis MacEoin to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli, in which they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime.

Denis is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Here's his letter to the students.

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .

That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking of a hatred that
permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is
this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran , the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why
aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa .

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.

On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.

Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the
Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that
protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.

Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and
that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.

It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Denis MacEoin

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@Michael_TSB Of course we prob owe RB over 50 mill - it’s called debt for equity swap - v common and quite legal

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

#lufc Leeds fans looking for a good pub to watch cup final Big screens and not busy yet The Blue Posts - Arlington st off Piccadilly
#mot

[Andy - Burley Banksy @theburleybanksy]

It's aesthetically just beautiful, the movement to chest trap it, the twist and turn, the position of his body, the arc of the ball. The pink kit somehow adds to it, a tutu wouldn't look out of place. Like chuffin 'Swan Lake' whilst dressed as a Fruit Salad.
#lufc

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@worstall There is also a plan to generate solar in Africa - (they tend to have quite a lot of sunshine !) and run a huge cable to the UK -
More carbon friendly , cheaper and reliable than many solutions and doesn’t have a wast products that take millennia to decay and become safe

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@worstall Nuclear is too expensive and takes too long to bring online - we also need to rely on China too much which is strategically risky - it’s part of the solution defo not the solution

[Richard Mathias @richardmathias]

@clivehbest Utter rubbish - on a sunny windy summers day renewables have contributed 70% of our electricity supply. Overall they contribute 30% + of our total supply. You can’t take a daily snap shot and say - they don’t work - they are part of a necessary mix - nuclear is needed too

[Test Match Special @bbctms]

Five years ago we received this amazing email.

Thoughts with Patrick & his family.

[talkSPORT @talkSPORT]

“God forbid that these people actually adversity if their lives.”

“Pull on the shirt, get on with it.”

“The terrible thing is he has to stay at a massive club, picking up a decent salary.”

Simon Jordan blasts Wilfried Gnonto for refusing to play for #LUFC 🔥

[Anthony Codling @anthonycodling]

In the week that saw annual house price inflation turn negative for the first time since December 2012 and confusion in the mortgage market, the Twindig Housing Market Index fell by 1.7%

https://t.co/IJ9Soi4CgV