When Propaganda Fails: on Poppy Sellers, Rioters and Douglas Murray’s Fever Dream

Speymouth November 11, 2023

Bella was born out of a realisation that the media in the UK (but particularly in Scotland) was deeply flawed: captured by a handful of millionaires, wholly unrepresentative, deeply biased, and relentlessly representing narrow class and social interests. A new report out showed that there are “dangerous levels of concentrated ownership” in the UK media, […] Source

The alarming rise of the new fascism

Speymouth November 10, 2023

The world is becoming a very dark and dangerous place. It’s not only the continuing war in Ukraine and the destruction and death being wrought in the Middle East, but there is also the alarming rise of fascism in Western countries. In the USA the Republicans have turned into an overtly…

King Charles must have known ‘his’ speech was reckless

Speymouth November 10, 2023

IT was 1970 when a young Prince Charles addressed a conference about the countryside and condemned “the growing menace of oil pollution at sea” which he said “almost destroys beaches and certainly destroys tens of thousands of seabirds”. Source

Who Needs War?

Speymouth November 7, 2023

Twenty years ago when so many of us were protesting against the looming invasion of Iraq by US/UK forces, a group of us in Edinburgh produced a leaflet with the title ‘Who Needs War?’ Of course, we were thinking of those who profit from war in various ways. Whether politicians who want to look ‘strong’ […] Source

Remembering Finlay Macleod

Speymouth November 7, 2023

Finlay Macleod of Shawbost and Adabrock has passed away in Stornoway after a remarkable life. He was known as a talented polymath, a champion of gaelic, a historian and a researcher and carrier of invaluable knowledge and tradition. There’s a tribute here and the BBC has run an obituary in Gaelic of Finlay here.  Finlay […] Source

Tory Britain: where decency is declared extremist

Speymouth November 7, 2023

One of the loudest claims of Better Together during the 2014 independence referendum campaign was that the Westminster system guaranteed vastly superior standards of democracy and civil liberties than anything Scotland could provide for itself, and that in an independent Scotland peaceful protest and the espousal of constitutional positions opposed to…

Burning Niddrie

Speymouth November 6, 2023

The scenes from Niddrie last night may have shocked many, but the pearl-clutching or condemnation won’t make them go away. Such banal dialogue about ‘banning fireworks’ – or sending in the riot police won’t ‘disappear’ the alienation that many young people in communities experience. Despite the media coverage this isn’t a phenomenon unique to Niddrie, […] Source