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The Right to Exist

11 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.
Anti-Politics and the BritCard

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.
My Enemy’s Enemy is My Friend

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.
Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse

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.
The Girl in the Flames

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.
Welcome to Flamingoland

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.
Gone Fishing

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.
Could Gaza be a defining issue of the 2026 election?

3 weeks ago | bellacaledonia.org.uk | Sean Bell

SINCE October of 2023, Israel has waged what Amnesty International described last month as a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza, with the world as its audience. Never before in history has a crime of this scale unfolded with such immediate visibility; to deny the evidence of its daily realities or their cost in blood – over 51,000 dead, according to Palestinian health authorities – would seem to be pointless as well as perverse.
Kenmure Street not Downing Street

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.
Broken Britain, Scotland’s Opportunity

3 weeks ago | bellacaledonia.org.uk | Mike Small

British politics is being remade before our eyes, the consequence of decades of failure, grotesque social inequality and the collapse of living standards. These are the conditions in which the politics of grievance and hate thrive. The far-right are predictably jubilant.