RIC Edinburgh April 2013

Cat Boyd @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013 Alison Johnston @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013 Kevin Williamson @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013

The Pound In Your Pocket

by Kevin Williamson On 19th November 1967 Prime Minister Harold Wilson made his famous “Pound In Your Pocket” speech.  His government  had just announced a devaluation of sterling and Wilson Continue reading →

The Holy Show – A Neu! Reekie! special

For the last two and a half years I’ve been helping organise a series of leftfield cultural gatherings under the Neu! Reekie! banner.  Neu! Reekie! is usually based in Edinburgh’s Continue reading →

Performing Tam o’ Shanter

by Kevin Williamson The lure and challenge of performing Tam o’ Shanter was far too enticing to  ignore. It’s the biggie, the epic masterpiece, all 224 lines of it, that Continue reading →

Happy David Bowie Day!

by Kevin Williamson The whole world, it would seem, has fallen back in love with David Bowie.  Today (on his 66th birthday) Bowie released Where Are We Now?  - his first Continue reading →

Spreading a despicable anti-English meme: The dirty war continues…

by Kevin Williamson Noam Chomsky wrote extensively and perceptively about the “manufacture of consent”.  It’s a process whereby an idea which can have little basis in reality, is not subjected Continue reading →

Unanswered questions have been raised about Scotland’s cultural institutions

by Kevin Williamson Scotland has a long and justifiably proud history of cultural exchange with creative artists from every corner of the globe.  Film festivals, writers festivals, music festivals and Continue reading →

For A’ That – Episode 7 – Creative Recountancy

Another quartet for this week’s For A’ That podcast. This time the group comprised Andrew (or “him”), poet, activist and Bella Caledonia co-editor Kevin Williamson and Rory Scothorne who was a co-founder of the National Collective. We discussed the Continue reading →

Culture is a not an industry. Creative Scotland n’est pas une pipe.

by Kevin Williamson “One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly Continue reading →

A week is a long time in Gaza. Or, how the BBC covered 38 consecutive breaking news stories …

Analysis by Kevin Williamson The BBC’s reporting on the current conflict in Gaza has been subject to claim and counter-claim of bias from pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli camps.  Surely they can’t Continue reading →

Essay for RLS Day: Kevin Williamson on Stevenson, Cocaine and Evil

Raise your rum glass and jingle your pieces of eight for today is Robert Louis Stevenson Day.  At long last the great Scottish writer is put on a par with Continue reading →

Media Notes Part 2: Identity, Extremism and the Independence Movement

In the second part of his Media Notes series Kevin Williamson reveals an unstated 3 point strategy of the NO camp; and the trap of the Scottish-British dichotomy. “Identity – Continue reading →

2014 v 2016: An Open Letter To Angus Robertson (and all YES campaigners)

  Dear Angus Now that both sides in the Indy debate have launched their respective campaigns you would think Scots would now be engaged in intelligent respectful debate, explaining what Continue reading →

The Man Booker Prize & 44 Years Of Institutionalised Anti-Scottish Racism

As the Man Booker Prize longlist is announced Kevin Williamson asks a question that seems to have eluded the mainstream media: Is the most influential prize in literature tainted with Continue reading →

Social Media and Independence: Opportunities and Traps

by Kevin Williamson If ever there was a need for patient debate and dialogue as well as positive campaigning the time is now.  The official YES campaign is only a Continue reading →

Cannabis, lung cancer, and the wild misleading claims of the British Lung Foundation: An Open Letter To Kaye Adams

AN OPEN LETTER TO KAYE ADAMS  ℅ BBC SCOTLAND Dear Kaye Adams Thanks for inviting me onto your BBC Scotland radio show this morning to discuss the alleged health risks Continue reading →

Something for the weekend: Big Burns Supper & Neu! Reekie!

by Kevin Williamson For anyone planning on being in the Edinburgh or Dumfries area this weekend, here’s a heads-up on a couple of events I’m involved with that might be Continue reading →

Scotland’s Stories: A pre-review of ImagiNation: Stories of Scotland’s Future

by Kevin Williamson What role will “story” play in the emerging Scotland?  It’s a question Gerry Hassan asks once again in his most recent Scotsman column (10th Sep 2011) to Continue reading →

Not in My Name

In advance of his Fringe show (National Library of Scotland 4-28 Aug), Darran Anderson from 3AM magazine interviews Kevin Williamson (see also the Not in My Name site here) 3:AM: Continue reading →

FED – Ideas to Sustain

Realpolitik and Bella Caledonia present ‘FED – Ideas Worth Sustaining’, a one-day program of talks, discussions, and, most importantly, ideas. FED takes its cue from July’s TEDGlobal Edinburgh conference – Continue reading →

FED – Ideas Worth Sustaining

On July 11, TEDGlobal will host its first conference in Edinburgh. ‘The Stuff of Life’ is the theme: for just $6,000 you can listen to Philip Blond wax lyrical on Continue reading →

Report from the Scottish Independence Convention

Kevin Williamson, Secretary of the Scottish Independence Convention, reports on a lively meeting held in the Scottish Parliament building last night. The first post-election meeting of the Scottish Independence Convention Continue reading →

What’s Going On?

First up from our occasional series of assorted & haphazard shtuffwhatshappening…is our own NeuReekie…Friday 27 May…Scottish Books Trust, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, The Capital. Here’s the blurb: “Neu! Reekie! Continue reading →

History in the making. And yes it feels good!

by Kevin Williamson On the night of the 1997 British general election, along with my friend Paul Reekie, I took part in an election night cabaret in West Pilton at Continue reading →

An Open Letter to the actor, James McAvoy, concerning the Highland Clearances

Dear James McAvoy I read with interest your comments in The Scotsman at the weekend.  It’s a fair point you make about their being no movies dealing with the Highland Continue reading →

BOOK REVIEW: A Nation Again, Why Independence will be good for Scotland (and England too). Edited by Paul Henderson Scott

Reviewed by Kevin Williamson “It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than Continue reading →

All is Not Lost

It is important to identify this development in order to juxtapose it to the traditional structures and institutions of power. Similarly if the concept of a Scottish left is to have any meaning it may need to be considered as an emerging fuzzy entity rather than ring-fenced in advance by rigid absolutism or fixed ideology.

Corporate Britain versus Enterprise Scotland?

“In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy” GEORGE MONBIOT To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the Continue reading →

Please don’t kill the cute little Japanese babies

There’s a fascinating award-winning documentary being screened on More 4 tonight which will be of particular interest to those who find Japanese people adorable, relatively smart, and hilarious when they Continue reading →

Letter To George Osbourne

Chancellor of the Exchequer 11 Downing Street London England 24th June 2010 Dear George Osbourne It has come to my attention that while many of my friends and I were Continue reading →