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6 hours ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
“My work exists, with or without any award, reward, or prize. I regard the award as an acknowledgement of my work, a verification that it does, after all, exist.” James Kelman, on receiving his Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.
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1 day ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
Yesterday’s election result in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse represents a nadir of Scottish politics, with the election of a candidate who spent most of the campaign in hiding from the media, or being hidden from the public, by his own party, because he was incapable of stringing a sentence together.
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6 days ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
Reform’s (seeming) inexorable rise isn’t inevitable, and we should do well to remember the advice of those such as Timothy Synder whose first chapter in ‘On Tyranny’ was “Do not obey in advance”. Reform’s (seeming) inexorable rise isn’t, and never was, inevitable; it has required vast amounts of dark money and friends in high places.
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1 week ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
Nigel Farage has poured poison into the well of Scottish politics by spreading a heavily edited advert that accused Anas Sarwar of prioritising the Pakistani community. In doing so, he is feeding into a standard far-right trope that Europe is under threat from “multiculturalism” and mass immigration, specifically of Muslims. Farage knows exactly what he is doing and is indulging in his now trademark racism and Islamophobia.
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1 week ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
We have become used to watching targeted killings and slaughter. But yesterday, an image so startling it broke through even the grim tedium. The girl who was trapped in flames during the strike on Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School, is the sole surviving member of her family. Her name is Ward Sheik Khalil. Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s International Editor retold the story. Warning this contains distressing images. But then something else happened, her story started to get twisted.
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1 week ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
The desultory nature of Scottish and UK politics seems at a new low ebb. In a land where everything is for sale, all of Scotland feels like a Flamingoland. In Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond, the community has stood up against the developer to oppose plans for a gigantic theme park that has been proven again and again to be completely inappropriate.
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1 week ago | 
kuppingercole.com | Mike Small
In late April 2025, Microsoft unveiled its latest European Digital Commitments—a set of measures aimed at reinforcing digital sovereignty for European customers. These are timely and welcome, especially in light of the sovereignty challenges I recently highlighted in my blog “Why US Isolationism is Now a Global Cloud Risk.” But do they go far enough?
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2 weeks ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
“Some sections of Scotland’s fishing industry have accused Sir Keir Starmer’s government of “capitulating” to the EU over a deal on access to UK waters. Labour ministers have agreed a 12-year deal which extends existing access for EU boats in exchange for reduced checks and restrictions on food exports.
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2 weeks ago | 
thenational.scot | Mike Small
Palestinians look at smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike near Jabalia (Image: AP) ON October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet saying:“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”This tweet was viewed more than 10 million times.
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3 weeks ago | 
bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small
Four years ago, on May 13, 2021, Kenmure Street in Glasgow became global news. Hundreds of people united in peaceful protest and successfully freed two men from the UK Home Office van in which they had been detained. “…a nation that walks forward together” you could say. In the face of a surround-sound of vicious xenophobia, we need to upscale the efforts to show solidarity, and welcome people seeking refuge in Scotland.
