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katiemacl.bsky.social
Refugee and Asylum work by day, sea swimmer and coastal rower by night. Love kids, Kev, kindness and tattie scones (in no particular order) 🤍
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Books, women, archives and activism: back in one of my favourite places @womenslibrary.bsky.social

Word of the Day is ‘ingordigiousness’ (18th century): extreme greed at the expense of principles.

Last week, the new owners of the Observer wrote to tell me they would *not* be issuing me with a new contract. 🤷‍♀️ So...I want to say publicly that it was an absolute privilege to speak on behalf of my Observer colleagues during our strike. I don't regret doing so. And I learned so much from it. 1/

Star Observer writer @carolecadwalla.bsky.social has had her contract ended by @tortoisemedia.bsky.social ahead of take-over of the title on 20 April. NUJ expresses "serious concern" that her exit follows her making public criticism of deal. pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/n...

The reason the USA is so messed up is because everyone thinks bad things will never happen to them.

🗣️ “It is not just about the music. We talk about playing for change because we work towards all kinds of transformations – economic transformations, united communities, less violence and more healing.” A really powerful feature. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. Dante Alighieri

Tyranny requires your fear, your silence, and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage.

The most unpatriotic members of any society are the far right. They will always align with foreign interests against the interests of their own nations. They will always undermine national institutions and national values in pursuit of their own interests. When they pose as patriots, they lie.

This is weird, they've left the woman out of the picture again?

Tonight #KeepTellingOfGaza I'll be talking about the work I've been doing in Gaza over 16 years, the work with @khawlabadwan.bsky.social through the genocidal conflict and forced displacement, and what is now happening & important during the ceasefire. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/keep-telli...

#Uisge #Cromarty #CoastalRowing 🚣🏻‍♀️

Wave power 🚣🏻‍♀️ @gillianhnicoll.bsky.social #Uisge #Cromarty #CoastalRowing

I had insomnia the night Russia invaded Ukraine and watched it unfold in real time. And tonight watching, here in London, that's what it feels like again. A dark, implacable malevolent takeover. That's accompanied by almost total silence amid so much noise. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

"But no-one on the right is going to believe Starmer hates asylum seekers more than Farage. And most of us on the left don’t want to hear him pretend that he does." My @heraldscotland.bsky.social column on the need for Starmer to start standing for something. www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...

Welcome to the National Library of Scotland's Bluesky account! We're chuffed to be joining you all here 🦋 Lets run through some introductions!

This is a lovely, weary but hopeful thing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vsZ...

Raise your voices women ✊🏻

"I like these concerts, but more in theory than in practice. I like the IDEA of them. Maybe I like the idea of being the kind of person who would like them. Maybe I’m trying to make myself that kind of person." Column in which I try to listen to classical music www.newstatesman.com/culture/2025...

@jessphillipsmp.bsky.social is magnificent.. smart, brave, totally committed and effective. Why is it the power men feel the need to attack the good ones?

Labour Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips tells me Elon Musk’s posts have ‘endangered’ her 👇 Newsnight 1030pm BBC 2 and BBC News

Prof Alexis Jay, chair of public inquiry into child sexual abuse, says further national inquiry into grooming gangs isn’t needed & would delay action. “The time has passed for more inquiries, we’ve had enough… We’ve set out action required & people should just get on with it, nationally & locally”

75 minutes before sunrise this morning.

Re-jailing a 77 year old climate protestor because her wrists are too slender to wear an electronic tag is fatuous. Welcome to a parable about how the people who claim to crave law and order have lost the plot. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/68...

“Investment in academia appears to be part of a broader strategy to normalize issues such as strong anti-migration narratives, which sometimes escalate to invoking culture war rhetoric.”

Some people in recent days have alleged a ‘cover-up’ over the grooming & rape of hundreds of young girls in predominantly northern UK towns, leading to calls for a ‘national’ public inquiry into child sexual exploitation FWIW here’s a non-exhaustive list of inquiries into #CSE in last 12 yrs…

Despite all of the challenges - legal and meteorological - we did it! After 40 years of damaging deregulation, Greater Manchester has this morning successfully retaken control of the whole its bus network. 🙌🏻

#SpeyBay #Garmouth 💙

A first look at tomorrow's front page of The National 📰 BBC is disastrously failing with its Gaza reporting

This is what the Observer team & I were doing between strikes. Please read it because it couldn’t be more relevant. I interview @asifkapadia.bsky.social about his alarming new film, 2073. It’s a stark warning of where Trump, Musk & Farage are taking us.. www.theguardian.com/film/2024/de...

Have @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social & Rory Stewart just gone & solved the small boats crisis in their latest episode of @restispolitics.bsky.social? Huge if so! So I've looked into it... www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFk...

The plight of women in Florida is dystopian, including the rise of fake abortion clinics offering the untested practice of "abortion reversal." After the failure of the abortion rights referendum in the state, the situation will get worse. Our News Agents film. www.youtube.com/watch?v=df5B...

Scotland is a proudly compassionate and welcoming nation who opened our arms to refugees. While the Tories this week chose to sow division, we choose humanity, dignity, and hope. These are our values, and this is who we are. 👇 youtube.com/shorts/rGs6X...

"The only hope we have is to get justice." I spoke with Tasnim Helmi - the hugely inspiring Syrian refugee who made a new life in Scotland after fleeing Assad's regime - on false dawns, endless suffering, and her hopes for a brighter future. www.scotsman.com/news/it-feel...

In which Krishnan Guru Murthy, Lina Khatib and I try to disentangle what’s going on in Syria youtu.be/Wppxuvsl2L8

background

The last government ignored difficult issues and allowed incompatible policies on #migration. Stephen McNair breaks down what the real challenges are, which are far more complicated than most politicians suggest.

It’s driving me insane how neither politicians nor the media seem able to speak honestly about where the immigration numbers are at NOW. A *very* significant drop is already baked in. We’re talking net numbers halving & the discourse is all still “omg record highs how do we bring them down?” 😱

So it turns out they spent £715 million on sending a grand total of FOUR volunteers to Rwanda. For comparison, this is more than you could expect to spend on building an entire brand new hospital in the UK

A relief the govt has seen sense & will delay the otherwise inevitably disastrous hard deadline for the planned switch to e-visas at the end of the year. The e-visa system is not ready & people with the right to be in the UK were already getting trapped by it www.theguardian.com/politics/202...