Glasgow arts centre 'deeply sorry' for handling of Palestine protest
Protesters had planned to take over the building for five days, hosting events, workshops and screenings exploring 'the complicity of Scotland's cultural institutions' in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
READ MORE: 'America could stop this horror today': Protesters to welcome JD Vance to Scotland
However, the CCA announced a temporary closure after the first day of the takeover led to the arrest of a 63-year-old woman and an injury to one individual. The centre has remained closed, though officials have now said they are 'deeply sorry' for how the incident was handled.
Police vans outside of CCA on June 24 (Image: NQ) A statement shared on the venue's website reads: 'CCA Glasgow acknowledges the disruption, confusion and harm experienced over recent weeks, particularly by our community, artists, staff, tenants and partners.
'We sincerely regret the outcome of our decisions on June 24 and that an individual was injured. We recognise that a lack of clarity on our choices had real human consequences, and for this we are deeply sorry.
'We apologise for the delay in external communications, as we focused first on internal dialogue so that we could provide clear and considered information when speaking publicly.
'We are listening and know that trust cannot be repaired with words alone, but through consistent, honest, and long-term work.'
Following on from the prolonged closure, CCA have said they are 'accelerating' plans for leadership changes within the institution.
A new finance manager is set to be appointed this month and once the current chair's term ends in October, the venue will seek a 'new permanent leadership for CCA'.
New board members are also set to be recruited, with 'an aim to widen the scope of experience, background, and representation, including global majority voices'.
Amidst the centre's closure, an independent bookshop housed within the premises has been 'asked to leave' after 17 years.
Aye Aye Books – whose aim is to think about the world we live in, how it works, what powers it, who runs it, and how we might need to respond to that – was asked to relocate by the centre.
In an email from CCA shared by owner Martin Vincent, the centre said that whilst it undertakes discussions with funding sources to work towards reopening, 'it is probably sensible to accept that this period of closure marks the end of CCA's relationship with Aye Aye Books'.
Almost two months after the protest, the institution has decided to reverse its decision on stance on supporting PACBI measures, noting the 'urgency' of calls to endorse the movement.
The CCA will reopen 'without formal endorsement', but said it is working towards 'adopting an ethical fundraising and programming policy'.
READ MORE: Row as gender-critical book excluded from National Library exhibition
'We condemn the violence of the Israeli state, the ongoing occupation, genocide, and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza', the statement continues.
'We stand firmly against all forms of oppression and in support of the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.
"We respect the calls for CCA to endorse PACBI (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel).
'We are grateful to those who have challenged us and held us to account and have clearly and powerfully expressed the need for cultural institutions to take a stand.'
A provisional re-opening date has been set for August 25.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Secret Service and US military engineers face scrutiny over raising river water level for Vance's birthday
The US Secret Service and US military engineers are facing scrutiny after Adam Schiff, the California senator, demanded they answer questions about the Trump administration's recent decision to change the water level of a lake in Ohio to facilitate a family boating trip for JD Vance on his birthday. The Secret Service has said that it requested the outflow of the Caesar Creek Lake in Ohio be changed shortly before the vice-president's 2 August trip so that his security detail could safely navigate the Little Miami River, which the lake feeds into. The story was first reported by the Guardian last week. The Secret Service also said that neither Vance nor his staff knew that it had made the request. In a letter to Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and army corps of engineers leadership, Schiff suggested the use of funds to alter the outflow of the lake for personal use may have been inappropriate, and said he wanted information on the process and documentation of the decision. 'The misuse of public water resources for the vice-president's family is particularly offensive considering this administration's cuts to federal agencies, cuts which are already harming outdoor recreation opportunities for American families,' Schiff wrote. The Guardian reported last week that was not unprecedented for military engineers in Louisville, Kentucky, who have jurisdiction over the area, to modify water outflows to accommodate public use – for example, for use in community river events and training for emergency responders. Regulations regarding requests for so-called 'deviations' – or any changes to normal practices – require approval and documentation that demonstrates why the deviation is justified. This process also ensures that risks associated with any deviation – including a flood risk or other environmental impact – is detailed. The USACE said in a statement last week that the Secret Service request 'met the operational criteria outlined in the Water Control Manual for Caesar Creek Lake and did not require a deviation from normal procedures'. But in his letter, Schiff accused the army corps leadership of improperly leveraging access to public services for personal use and waiving standard documentation that is required to identify and justify risks associated with the deviation. 'Accordingly, I request an explanation of this USACE action and a commitment to no longer using federal resources for such unjustified and frivolous purposes,' Schiff wrote. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion The California Democrat also pointed to the Trump administration's 'frivolous release' of billions of gallons of water from California reservoirs as another instance in which the army corps executed 'questionable abuses'. The water was released following an executive order from the White House for the alleged purpose of helping to fight the Los Angeles fires, though the army corps allegedly and reportedly knew the release would not be delivered to southern California directly. Vance's communications director, Will Martin, has defended the canoe trip in an article on Breitbart, saying Democrats were trying to 'turn it into a story about elitism'. He accused Democrats who were critical of Vance for benefiting from public infrastructure for his birthday trip of having 'no clue how normal families operate' and that the idea of a family canoeing together is 'completely foreign to them'. 'The far-left media is desperate to smear Vice-President Vance and they've hit a new low by attacking him for enjoying his birthday with his wife and kids,' Martin said, referring to the Guardian.
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
David Lammy is anything but a man of the people
It was the most stomach-churning political photograph of the summer. That was until, deliciously, it began to disassemble. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, 'fishing' with JD Vance, the US vice-president, at the start of the 41-year-old's British vacation. JD had accepted an invitation from Lammy to pop by Chevening, the grace-and-favour house near Sevenoaks in Kent used by foreign secretaries, for a spot of fishing and then tea in the drawing room. I saw the photos and swore I could hear the distinct sounds of gurgling and spluttering, such as emanates from an ancient bathtub as the waters drawn by gravity exit the plughole and descend into the deepest reaches of some ancient plumbing system. That was, in fact, the hideous noise of Lammy sucking up to Vance. Lammy is on that revolting conveyor belt of nauseating genuflection with which the Trump administration has managed to bewitch the world. Let's hope it doesn't spread farther than the Trumpaline circus. God forbid you're in a rural pub, you hear an American voice and suddenly start fawning over the brash tourists, telling them how much you love their movies, cars, doughnuts and grande lattes – and before you know it you've lent them your fishing rod. Not that David Lammy is a fisherman. That much is clear from the photographs, as he stands by the 18th-century-constructed ornamental lake holding a rod like a man clutching a saucepan who's lost an oven. Neither is he dressed for the part, in comfy black shoes, beige trousers and dark blue shirt. Vance at least looks like he couldn't give a damn – a stance and attitude that appears to serve him well. And they're standing far too close together, of course. You don't fish like that. Fishing is solitary. Or you fish while your pal sits on the bank eating a sandwich. And only weirdos fish for carp in ornamental lakes. Muddy carp aren't nice on toast, so it's not worth their torture of being caught. The only people who fish for carp in Britain are illegal eastern European migrants who are fed up with being arrested for catching swans. Thus, the flunkies set up the photo. And Lammy does his gruelling best-buddies-with-Vance act, which must sit so deeply uncomfortably with him. He's a man, after all, most at home in front of a radio microphone, mouthing off about Right-wing monstrosities. He was lucky, though, to be given the mouthpiece of LBC, as his garbled rantings were little better than the spewings I used to listen to that emanated from the pirate radio stations of west London. Except that Lammy, ex-SOAS London and a spell at Harvard, always dreamt of bigger things. Which, unfortunately, were finally gifted to him by a catalogue of shambolic Conservative administrations and a fed-up and gullible electorate. While he might be more comfortable parading about a stately palace, he now plays the man of the people. And there's no more blokey accoutrement than the fishing rod. 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Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Perverted liberalism has led to neo-Marxism, perverted patriotism may yet lead to neo-fascism
It is, on balance, helpful, that the current American president and vice-president are both interested in Britain. We are one of the few allies not deliberately antagonised by the Trump administration. This is a Brexit benefit. Yesterday, Donald Trump had things to do in Anchorage, Alaska, but last month he was in Aberdeenshire, and next month he will be over here for his second state visit. JD Vance, the vice-president, ended the week staying on an estate in Ayrshire, after spending a few days near Adlestrop in the Cotswolds, scene of Edward Thomas's much anthologised pastoral poem about a summer railway station where nothing happens. What draws these two powerful men here? Mr Trump likes – and owns – golf courses, and his mother came from the Hebrides. He seems to prefer her Scottish roots to his father's German ones, and he is in love with the British monarchy. Mr Vance has Scottish roots, too, but his quest seems more cultural, intellectual and political. He was mixing a family holiday (accompanied by a few non-political old mates) with discussions about ideas with his English friend, Dr James Orr, a Cambridge theologian, and Danny Kruger, the Conservative MP who recently made a powerful parliamentary speech in favour of Christianity in Britain. He saw the billionaire businessman Sir Paul Marshall, owner of The Spectator and patron of several conservative and Christian causes. The vice-president entertained and was entertained by Tom Skinner – patriotic Essex man, former market trader and star of The Apprentice, whose catchword is 'Bosh' – and a much more famous public entertainer, currently from Clacton, called Nigel Farage. Through the good offices of George Osborne, a surprising ally, given Mr Osborne's Remainer, globalist views, Mr Vance also met assorted Conservatives – Robert Jenrick, Chris Philp, Laura Trott and the rising star of the party's new intake, Katie Lam. It was a mark of how even Tory centrists feel the need to trim to the Atlantic wind that the journalist Daniel Finkelstein was among the guests. Lord Finkelstein's column this week was a fine read for Kremlinologists, as it sidled cautiously closer to Mr Farage. There is something attractive about Mr Vance's quest for ideas. Although it can be tactless (and may be intended to be), his readiness to propagate them is refreshing too. Since the days of Theodore Roosevelt, who invented it, the 'bully pulpit' has been the property of the US president. Mr Trump, however, is more bully than pulpit, and Mr Vance, a Catholic convert, is a most articulate preacher. He is searching, like so many, for a conservatism which goes deeper than economics and pays greater heed to those left behind by social change and discriminated against by modern public doctrine. He is influenced in this by the National Conservatism movement in the United States. In developing these views, Mr Vance and Maga allies identify 'woke' as their main internal opponent. They see woke doctrines, advancing under the camouflage of liberal tolerance, as neo-Marxist attempts to set different groups, tribes and classes against one another and to dissolve the proud historical identity of the nation state. This is an even more incendiary subject in America than in Britain but, goodness knows, it is hotting up here, chiefly because of this century's huge increase in immigration encouraged under both main parties. Mr Vance has expressed this vividly: 'I think the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don't belong today.' He seeks allies for a comparable message here and, in more directly political terms, for the best political vehicle. He is contemplating a different party configuration on the Right. At present, he sees Reform, if allied with 'sound' Tories, as the likelier means than the present Conservative Party. I have my doubts about the practicality of that, and the wisdom of foreign politicians, Anglophile though they may be, getting involved. But what I want to discuss today is not party-political manoeuvring. It is the philosophical and moral ways in which the Vance Anglosphere crusade – given the militant Christian roots involved, the word 'crusade' may be apposite – could all go wrong. I write as someone who wants it to go right. The first danger – though I agree that Christianity is the most important single root of our institutions, our civil society and our shared culture – arises because there is usually something unscrupulous about using Christianity as a political weapon. Look at how politics in the Muslim world is corrupted by Islamist ideology and you will see the analogy. The second danger is that the anti-wokeists may replicate on their side what they so dislike about their opponents. Just as woke people try to smear all conservatives as racists, so some conservatives smear all wokeists as unpatriotic traitors. Many Maga supporters are doing this already, especially online. They lament how the 'mutual loyalty' of American society has been gashed by political correctness, but they are not doing much to bind up the wounds. Like that of woke, their rhetoric attracts people who enjoy hating other people. If perverted liberalism leads to neo-Marxism, could not perverted patriotism lead to neo-fascism? Take, for example, Dr Orr's recent advocacy of the slogan 'Faith, Flag and Family'. All three are indeed good things, but he, an intelligent and well-educated man, must know how similar are these words to the propaganda of Vichy France (' Famille. Travail. Patrie '). One well-known Vichy poster contrasted an attractive, well-built house founded on these principles with a crumbling one built on 'capital', 'Jewishness', 'democracies' and other supposed evils. Does that not worry him? It should. In the United States, sometimes assisted by people as prominent as Tucker Carlson, anti-Semitism, which in the past 30 years has become increasingly the property of the Left, is being reclaimed by elements on the Right. A good index of bad trends of thought is what some on the Right say about Ukraine. There are, of course, reasonable arguments to make for peace talks, but note the omissions. Neither President Trump nor his vice-president ever says that Putin's invasion struck against the 80-year peace of all Europe, which depends on inviolable borders. Neither draws attention to Putin's more minor but significant provocations and infiltrations in most other eastern European nations. Note, too, the shifting of blame – most strikingly on to President Zelensky himself, whose crime seems to have been to refuse to run away as the Russian tanks rolled towards Kyiv – and also on to the West in general (a persistent claim made by Nigel Farage). Finally, note how the wilder attacks on wokeism in the West invoke Putin almost as the goodie. On the BBC in May, Dr Orr appeared with the Liberal Democrat MP, Max Wilkinson. Complaining (rightly) about growing free speech restrictions in this country, Dr Orr said, 'A lot more people have got into trouble in the UK for free speech offences than in Putin's Russia.' When challenged for this astonishing statement, he 'gladly' promised to send Mr Wilkinson the evidence to back it up. He has never done so. If Maga people are sincere, as I believe they are, in wishing to reassert the self-determination of independent nation states and disapproving of imperial 'forever wars', why do they excuse Putin's Russia and disparage Ukraine's battle to maintain the rights of nationhood? How did the national conservatism of Edmund Burke get muddled up with the Putinist opportunism of Viktor Orban's government in Hungary?
