Scottish university building taped off due to 'incident'
A member of security staff told our reporter that a 'fault' with one of the building's windows meant the entrance would be closed 'for the foreseeable'.
Caution tape covered much of the building's front facade. (Image: Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco) Affected individuals will be able to access classrooms inside the building via the adjacent George Moore Building, and have been asked to approach their programme leaders with any questions.
The email reads: 'The main and rear entrances to the Govan Mbeki Building have been closed as a precautionary measure.
'Protective coverings will be put in place at other entrance/exit points in the coming days
All fire exits will remain open.
'The accessible entrance from the George Moore Building is by the lift lobby linking to the Deeprose Lecture Theatre.'
Students were also told not to open any windows inside the building.
A sign posted to the front door of the building read: 'Due to essential maintenance, this entrance is closed.'
Read more:
World's largest archive of street newspapers gifted to Scottish university
Students urged to boycott cybersecurity tech over Israel link
'I left school with nothing but college has changed my life'
The Govan Mbeki Building was named after South African politician and anti-apartheid activist Govan Mbeki, a close ally of Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned with him at Robben Island.
Mandela had suggested the building be renamed after his comrade upon receiving an honorary degree from the university in June 1996 at Buckingham Palace.
The building was officially opened by Mbeki's son, President Thabo Mbeki, at a special ceremony in June 2001.
Glasgow Caledonian University has been asked for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
22 minutes ago
- The National
Robin McAlpine: Why I won't be reading Nicola Sturgeon's book
Not because I couldn't be fair-minded but because I wasn't sure everyone would think me fair-minded on the topic. But really, that wasn't my main reason for saying no. Much more to the point, I simply do not like political autobiographies and think it is an actively unhelpful genre. I do not read them and I'm not about to start. So, they asked me to explain why. The 'rapid memoir' is now a fundamental part of politics. A successful leader will get a book deal shortly after leaving office. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss – they've all had a shot (Alex Salmond and Theresa May did something slightly different). Nicola Sturgeon at the launch of her memoir, Frankly (Image: PA) As someone who towered over Scottish politics for nearly a decade, there is no question Sturgeon has earned her book. But honestly, I wish none of them had bothered. I can't think of a single useful thing we learned from any of them. There is a simple reason for this. All long-form writing involves an author 'selling you' a story. They want you to believe in their thesis (non-fiction, biography), to buy into their plot (fiction) or to find their lives interesting (autobiography). In every case, the story serves the reader. Only in the political autobiography does the story exist to serve the author. A retired footballer doesn't relive all his key games trying to persuade you the referee robbed him or it was an unfortunate gust of wind and actually he was a better footballer than you thought he was. That's what political autobiographies do. READ MORE: BBC Scotland slammed over 'farcical' Debate Night impartiality ruling There are other problems. Politics is basically self-chronicling as you go along. Politicians tell you what they want you to think in real time. By the time Blair was writing his autobiography, we'd heard his justifications for the Iraq War so many times you wondered why he bothered writing them down again. A biography reveals things the subject doesn't want revealed so those can be useful. If you kept diaries, then they can be worth publishing as a contemporary record. Further down the line, the memoir, which is really a historical reflection, can be interesting and enlightening – if the politician is far enough past the events to no longer be trying to spin them. That's the fundamental problem for me. I was a spin doctor when they were still called spin doctors (pager and everything). I've seen so much narrative manipulation and distraction in my time that I am largely immune. I mean, I've been responsible for some of it and I didn't believe that either. Rapid political autobiographies are, without fail, manipulative and a distraction. They are always obsessed with litigating the legacy of the politician concerned. So, if you have a passionate interest in the minutiae of what happened 10 years ago then knock yourself out. I'm much more concerned with today. Across the Western world, there is a crisis in democracy and the public is losing faith in the system. From Gaza to poverty to climate change to AI, democracy seems incapable of stepping up to the challenges of our era. Abusive oligarchy is replacing the social contract. In Scotland, we're stuck in a constitutional impasse. Worse, there doesn't seem to be a single political party in Scotland capable of generating a convincing (never mind inspiring) new generation of leaders. At the moment, the future doesn't look great. All of this is happening right now and so, for me, looking in the rear-view mirror is an indulgence. Let me therefore offer you the two big pieces of advice I give anyone who cares about politics and cares about the future. READ MORE: Kate Forbes not barred from Summerhall, venue confirms First, ignore what they say and focus on the facts. All that matters is what is done, why it is done, how it is done and what happens as a result. Adjectives don't change facts. Second, just like with a magic trick, ignore the manipulation and distraction. Politics is often a game of distraction, but inside that distraction is the thing that counts, the purpose, the important thing. Stay focused on that and never look where the politician is guiding you to look. With Sturgeon, the facts you choose to look at will define your opinion. If it is electoral success, she was pretty impressive; if it is what was done with the power that resulted, she really wasn't. I am a 'power for a purpose' kind of person and for that reason I have long viewed the Sturgeon era as a criminally wasted opportunity. You may feel differently. Either way, anecdotes about tattoos and panic attacks change nothing at all.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Highland community councillors are angry, united and very vocal
There was some uncomfortable shifting in seats from a few, and some got short shrift as they blamed everything but themselves and failed to take accountability or read the room. The reaction from the audience was angry, united and very vocal. READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: Highlanders have the right to be angry over explosion of wind farms Most of the blame lies with Holyrood. The climate is changing, but using a woolly connection to net zero (whatever that means for us) is no reason for further energy exploitation. Communities were there to call for a halt to the rubber-stamping of the industrialisation of the Highlands by multinationals for energy export. They were there because they are being sidelined, landscapes commodified, and voices drowned out by corporate ambition dressed up as green progress. They are being steamrollered by rampant speculative development, and silenced by political complicity in corporate colonisation. The environment, wildlife, our wellbeing and health are being sacrificed for a green agenda that has no overarching plan and no independent cost/benefit analysis. Our health is being scoped out of planning applications, with Scottish Government and local authority approval, and the cost to all – environmentally, economically and emotionally – is immeasurable. Our tourism industry is under threat: visitors come for the views, not the volts. READ MORE: MPs and MSPs commit to debates on Highland energy projects pause The community so-called benefit that a few politicians thought should be wrung out of the developers won't touch what has been lost and destroyed, and was forcefully rejected. As for community ownership, it should have been a number one priority more than a decade ago. Do communities want yet more energy developments? Ask them. Ballot them. Do not presume to speak on their behalf based on cherry-picked national polling that fails to reflect their reality. Attempting to silence people, mentally and financially burdening them and allowing huge swathes of their natural environment to be plundered by wealthy multinationals is not democracy – especially when the enabling ministers don't even bother showing up to face the music but happily, and regularly, meet the very multinationals responsible for so much misery. What is happening in our glens and villages smacks of dictatorship. READ MORE: Scottish spot named one of Europe's best for stargazing The scale of the Big Energy construction that we are witnessing today was in no manifesto I read. We have been deliberately kept in the dark as to the true intentions of what was in store for us. That is not just or fair. It is certainly not honest, and we doubt it is even legal. For some it's a life sentence for a crime they didn't commit. We demand a halt. A moratorium against further Big Energy development just like the Scottish Government has in place for nuclear and fracking. They do have the powers. We need an independent cost/benefit analysis. We need a sensible plan – not reckless over-production of energy without guaranteed customers that will increase constraint payments and raise bills. What a ludicrous business model that has turned out to be for the Scottish people. And we need a national inquiry. We need all of that and we need it now before there is nothing left to save. This is not obstruction – this is survival. Lyndsey Ward, Beauly Communities B4 Power Companies EXCELLENT article from Lesley Riddoch (Highlander revolt is not a case of climate change denying and Nimbyism – it's anger, Aug 14). It is appalling that Highland communities are being left – each one on its own – to raise awareness, organise, and fight the destruction of their local environment. If the Scottish Government wants that, it is inexplicable and shameful. If it doesn't, but can't do anything, it should say so, fight back, and give the electorate another good reason to vote for independence. John Galloway via AN excellent letter from Ron Lumiere (Aug 14), which should be compulsory reading for politicians of all parties and those making public statements promoting either side of a 'complex policy question' as a 'binary contest', especially in matters related to 'culture wars'. Life presents few simple choices and the polarising doctrine of the far-right is more likely to spread misunderstandings, diminish mutual respect and 'fuel conflict' than bring enlightened harmony. Politicians in particular should be wary of arrogantly adopting entrenched positions, no matter the heights of their self-perceived personal intellects or otherwise. Stan Grodynski Longniddry, East Lothian
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
What J.K. Rowling misses about Sturgeon's memoir
When someone one day writes a true history of Scotland during the baleful tenure of Nicola Sturgeon and reflects on what brought about her downfall as first minister, 'Isla' Bryson might be worth a footnote but J.K. Rowling surely merits a chapter. No one has managed to articulate the opposition case to Sturgeon with the verve, intelligence and penetrating wit of the Harry Potter author. Rowling's review of Frankly, Sturgeon's recently published memoir, is in many ways as brilliant as her other mainly tweeted thrusts. It is incisive and damming, outclassing her adversary and doing so with courage humour and originality. In other ways though it misses the mark, failing, as many observers of Scottish politics do, to see the details in the rotting wood for the petrified forest of trees. What is good is Rowling comparing Sturgeon to Bella Swan, heroine of the Twilight series, in that it conjures the image of blood being sucked from the body politic of Scotland (the SNP have been positively vampiric in their predations). It also highlights the eternally adolescent quality of the Sturgeon persona, a woman who had never had a serious job outside politics, a woman who avoids all serious scrutiny (even yesterday she cancelled what could have been uncomfortable interviews with the media) a woman who didn't learn to drive until she was in her 50s, a woman who recently got a tattoo. Sturgeon never moved on from her teenage obsession with independence. She never seriously addressed independence's huge practical obstacles or seemed interested in doing so, and certainly does not attempt this in Frankly. She never seems to have acquired wisdom or depth or humility, and never truly managed to emerge from the shadow of a charismatic mentor – Alex Salmond. Rowling takes a well-aimed swipe too at Sturgeon's propagandistic assertions that the 2014 referendum was a glorious inclusive positive exercise in democracy, a revisionist mantra from the still active veterans of the Yes camp repeated so often it's in danger of becoming accepted as gospel truth. The actions of those Yes voters at the time would suggest otherwise. As Rowling says: 'Oddly, this message didn't resonate too well with No voters who were being threatened with violence, told to fuck off out of Scotland, quizzed on the amount of Scottish blood that ran in their veins, accused of treachery and treason and informed that they were on the wrong side of, as one 'cybernat' memorably put it, 'a straightforward battle between good and evil.'' She is also right to have a dig at Sturgeon's 'London friends' who were dazzled and beguiled by the first minister, and couldn't see or were not interested in hearing about her and her party's endless failings. Rowling points out that these serial calamities get no serious mention in the book. As she rightly says, the omission of any reference to Scotland's soaring drugs deaths figures in particular is, frankly, appalling. Rowling is also relentless and remorseless in highlighting the dangers of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRRB) and the culture of intolerance and vilification of any criticism Sturgeon engendered in its wake. Many political commentators focus on this piece of legislation in terms of its apparent consequences for Sturgeon's career, for her party, and for the broader independence cause, ignoring or downplaying the surely more important point that it relegated biological women to a sub category, putting them potentially in harm's way, and then told them to shut up and live with it. As Rowling puts it: 'She's caused real, lasting harm by presiding over and encouraging a culture in which women have been silenced, shamed, persecuted and placed in situations that are degrading and unsafe, all for not subscribing to her own luxury beliefs.' But where Rowling perhaps misses the target is in taking Sturgeon's support for the GRRB at face value, in assuming that her interest in self-ID was genuine and sincere. She says that Sturgeon was 'unshakeable in her belief that if men put on dresses and call themselves women they can only be doing so with innocent motives.' Really? Not everyone agrees with that, starting with Alex Salmond who once remarked that Sturgeon had never shown any interest in the issue of gender self-ID in the long time that he had known her, hinting in that Salmond-ish way that perhaps something else was going on. To find out what that something might be, one must, as so often with Scottish politics, depart the mainstream and head to the media by-waters, to the bloggers that pick through the rank smelling weeds of Scottish politics. Robin MacAlpine, a freelance journalist and former director of the Common Weal think tank (and independence supporter) has charted Sturgeon's shifting positions on gender issues over her career and sees them in purely strategic terms. As he puts it: 'Sturgeon and Murrell operated through fear… and their most aggressive punishers were young, digitally savvy activists – who happened to be strongly committed to trans politics. Sturgeon's most effective thug squad had to be kept placated. That (I believe) is why Sturgeon was so quick to announce gender ID legislation and so slow to produce it. She needed their rage, but not the legislative headache…' Which might explain the initial interest. But why then actually push for full enactment of self-ID? Why not just fudge the issue? MacAlpine explains: 'Then something else happened; the fall-out of the Salmond trial and the parliamentary inquiry. This nearly finished her career and some of the most dangerous revelations were down to her lack of a parliamentary majority when the Greens voted for disclosure. It is really important to understand the significance of this. Sturgeon was utterly desperate to close down the Scottish Parliament as a body that would scrutinise her and the way to do that was to have an overall majority bound by collective responsibility.' MacAlpine points out that Sturgeon could have had a parliamentary majority with the Scottish Greens in 2016. But she didn't pursue one, preferring to pass most of her legislation with votes from the Scottish Tories. MacAlpine calls the Bute House agreement an 'anti-transparency' move which he believes was designed to ensure total control at a critical moment and ensure the Greens were friends not foes. In other words, the GRRB perhaps had little to do with trans rights and was more about keeping a lid on a potentially explosive scandal. In which case, the cause of independence, her party's reputation, the women and girls of Scotland were expendable. Rowling ends by admitting she may have missed the point of Frankly, that perhaps it isn't intended to entertain, or enlighten but to serve as a CV distinguisher, and assist her on the way to her long coveted 'cushy sinecure' with UN Women. Well perhaps, though cynics might suggest that unlike the ferry Sturgeon 'launched' back in 2017, that ship has sailed. More likely Frankly is not just a CV distinguisher. It may just be a pre-emptive plea for mitigation.
