It's currently pishing down in the centre of Glasgow which may well be a good thing. The generalized racial tensions across the UK and the US, the slow emergence from lockdown, combined with the availability of 'takeaway' drink in town has been contributing to as tense a time as I can remember here.
It will need a proper investigation into what happened yesterday but Farage's attempt to make it all about immigration is even for him a low. The man is a racist piece of cockcheese. As a city not unfamiliar with knife crime, the shooting of someone with a knife is deeply shocking. Obviously the actions of the police will have been driven by circumstances but it's only a couple of years from when I was 'locked down' in a close by bar because of a set of knife attacks in the area. After a football match of course, and the immigration in issue was more to do with a hundred years ago from Ireland. The ongoing attempts this week to 'protect' statues from Fenian bastards underline this is not a new divide.
It's sad to see and feel this tension in my beloved city but the love that I have for it has always been based on a knowledge and forced acceptance of its dark side. It needs calm and considered reactions from politicians, and from citizens. We need to work together to get by but I hope that we will become more welcoming to refugees, or refuwegees as my earlier link covered.
Thoughts are with those still in hospital, with PC David Whyte now stable.
