Dear readers, we’re entering winter, paradoxically, with a spring in our step. Not only are a growing number of you putting your hands in your pockets for precisely the sort of journalism we’re bringing you this morning — an investigation into who’s behind a campaign to bring down Glasgow’s Palestine-Salties — but we’ve also sold out our first ever pub quiz. Thanks to all of you who bought a ticket (see you on Thursday!) and signed up over the weekend following Calum’s long read into one of the city’s most controversial charities. We’ve got a busy one for you below, so let’s get on with it.
Shielding the truth
Last week, we reported that The Bell, along with local councillors and other members of the press, received a deluge of emails that called for the Palestine-Saltires to be removed from lampposts across the city. We reported that the majority of senders were not Scottish, and many were in fact from overseas — despite all the emails referring to “our” city. We’ve since discovered that the organisation behind the email campaign is an online Israel advocacy group called Shield of David (SoD).
SoD is run by a dog-loving Greater London woman called Tabatha Caplan. Caplan told The Bell that she formed the group in April as a “grassroots movement”; her Facebook account suggests it started slightly earlier. Because British Jews make up such a small proportion of the British population, she believes, “strong advocacy really matters”. She added that the group’s Scottish members, of which she claims there are “hundreds”, asked her to “put together a draft letter they could then use as a template to challenge the appearance of these combined flags”.
Caplan then posted the template link to SoD’s X account, which has over 2,500 followers, prompting the stack of emails we have received, and now totals 695. One of the councillors who received the emails was Govan’s Dan Hutchison. He told The Bell that “more than half” of his inbox was taken up by the emails after he got back from a week off. “It’s a bit mad,” he said over the phone. He added that “it definitely” takes away from “actual local issues”. Although such flags, as with the Saltires in the north, aren’t allowed on lampposts and will be eventually removed by the council, Hutchison said he’d “rather we were cleaning leaves out of drains not pulling down bloody flags”.
One of many, not the few
The campaign is just one of a number of similar email-driven conquests Shield of David has undertaken, such as successfully petitioning Dawn French to apologise for a parody of Israel’s response to the 7 October Hamas attacks by sending her 1,700 emails. Other targets include the BBC, Amazon, Essex Police, and the famous anti-semite who definitely didn’t begin his Labour premiership by expelling dozens of members over anti-semitism, Sir Keir Starmer, whose wife is Jewish. Caplan describes SoD as “apolitical”, yet her own social media accounts suggest otherwise. Caplan appears to be a fan of Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, having shared an image of him with the caption: “Imprisoned for telling the truth”. Yaxley-Lennon’s criminal record includes convictions for violence, financial and immigration fraud, cocaine possession with intent to supply and public order offences including assaulting a police officer. In an old X bio, Caplan describes herself as “anti-sharia law”. She has also posted a rather tastefully photoshopped picture of Angela Rayner wearing a hijab with the words “Make Gaza Great Again” overlaid.
‘There was no genocide in Gaza. Fact’
Despite the campaign purporting to be concerned with the safety of Glaswegian Jews, many people who responded to our emails were mainly interested in denying that a genocide had taken place in Gaza. Chief among them was Caplan herself, as well as Vicci Stein of Friends of Israel Glasgow, who concluded an email to The Bell with the sentence “There is no genocide in Gaza. There was no genocide in Gaza. Fact.”
But there is also genuine concern for the polarising effect the flags we’ve seen raised across the city might have. Southside reader Jamie got in touch, saying that “I'm generally not a fan of taking over public places with political statements, though I am of course a virulent supporter of free speech… I think the vast majority of opposition (yes, it is real and it is local) to [the flags] has been the ubiquity and permanence of it.”
Others who’ve weighed in on the subject include the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, and the Jewish Council of Scotland, who said in a joint statement, “This campaign is politicising public property in a way that appears intentionally divisive, causing significant distress to many within the Jewish community, particularly in Glasgow.” They added that “We are also troubled that Glasgow City Council’s 2024 decision to introduce an annual Palestinian flag-raising linked with the UN’s International Day of Solidarity has, in the current climate, contributed to the concerns felt within the Jewish community.” This refers to the council’s decision to raise the Palestinian flag over the city chambers, which they did last Friday.
Adding their 2p to the stooshie over the weekend was Irish rap group Kneecap, who posted one of the “Paltires” on their Instagram on Sunday when they were in town for their rescheduled gig at the Hydro. The concert was initially postponed back in May after they were dropped from the TRNSMT line-up following concerns Police Scotland expressed about the safety of a Kneecap performance. Group member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, AKA Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah. Speaking of the Iran-backed Lebanese group — graffiti supporting Hezbollah as well as Hamas’ 7 October attack has been sprayed on the shop shutters of a Govanhill business as well as on shipping containers in Queen’s Park recently. The graffiti’s proximity to the Paltire’s stronghold, Govanhill, does align with fears expressed to us by campaigners and readers that flag-raising encourages polarisation and tolerance of extreme views, as with Kieran Logan (a north Glasgow Saltire-raiser) and his neo-Nazi beliefs.
The views of Caplan and her army of email campaigners are not representative of all Jews, let alone those in Glasgow. The Bell spoke with the Glasgow Southside Family Chavurah (a group of anti-Zionist Jews), who told us they are “outraged” at the email campaign, which they believe “preys upon Jewish people’s fear of antisemitism and encourages them to view Palestinian solidarity as antisemitic”. In fact, they see the Palestine flags as a way of countering the ‘Raise the Colours’ movement across the UK, and view them as a “wider symbol of solidarity with refugees and other victims of oppression worldwide”. “In a moment when flags across the world have been turned into symbols of hate,” they added, “the Palestine-Saltire flags are a rare antidote… combatting Israel’s ongoing genocide. If anything, we want to see a flag hung up on every lamppost in the Southside!”
(Additional reporting by Lucy Adams)
Welcome to The Bell. We’re Glasgow's new newspaper, delivered entirely by email. Sign up to our mailing list and get two totally free editions of The Bell every week: a Monday briefing, full of everything you need to know about that’s going on in the city; and an in-depth weekend piece.
No ads, no gimmicks: just click the button below and get our unique brand of local journalism straight to your inbox.
Glasgow in Brief
🗳️ The State of the City Economy Conference didn’t get off the ground in the way Susan Aitken envisaged on Friday, as no sooner had it started than protesters stormed in and commandeered the hall. Living Rent’s intervention overshadowed proceedings, and also represented a security breach — given the First Minister John Swinney was sat front row. The biggest cheers came not for the protesters’ chants of “Our city, not yours”, but rather for Aitken’s simple response, “This city belongs to everyone who lives in Glasgow”. Aitken let the protesters say their piece, agreeing to meet with them at a later date (“My door’s always open” — met with shouts of ‘Lies!”). As the protesters exited the hall, one of them tripped over their own banner.
Continuing with her speech, Aitken talked up the “remarkable longevity” of Glasgow, and “its capacity for renewal and reinvention”. “Change is happening,” she told the assembled crowd at the Fruitmarket confidently. She might as well have been directing her words entirely to one man in the front row with a saltire button on his lapel, when she told the crowd, “Our pitch to national governments is clear, release the brakes holding the city region's potential back, and in return we'll unlock the most compelling opportunity in these islands for inclusive economic growth and transformation of place … be bold, grasp this moment and support us to unleash our potential.” The Glasgow City Region “stands ready”, she said to Swinney. Greater devolution was the watchword of the day.
The First Minister took to the stage next, reminding the crowd that Glasgow is the best city outwith London for foreign direct investment. But it was Swinney’s comments on a “more regionally balanced economy” that echoed Aitken’s calls for greater devolution. “Glasgow and its city region will lead Scotland in its economic renewal.” Swinney went on to promise a stronger Glasgow City Region, with more powers to progress the Clyde Metro, and to “enable infrastructure investments that will accelerate its inclusive economic growth”. Greater devolution of powers from Holyrood to the City Chambers will be roundly welcomed across the city — expect to hear a lot more of this in the lead up to the Holyrood elections next year. “[T]he more we empower our regions, the more we empower Scotland,” Swinney said.
The one thing that went largely unsaid was cold hard cash. Save for a £400,000 ScotGov funding pot to support the development of new regional structures and regional economic plans, there was no other mention of how Glasgow might achieve a Clyde Metro. Currently, SPT are patting themselves on the back; the £20m consultancy framework for the metro is “on track and on budget for completion in early 2027”. If it’s taking this long to complete a consultation, we might expect spades in the ground for the Glasgow 900th birthday celebrations.
🕵️ The former Rangers ultras capo, Ross ‘Miami’ McGill has gone to ground since being arrested — and then released — by Dubai police in September, alongside key members of the Lyons crime group. McGill was said to be a central figure behind a conflagration of gang violence across Scotland this year, despite being holed up abroad. His whereabouts remain unknown, and the subject of much tabloid interest. McGill, meanwhile, appears to be luxuriating in the speculation — goading everyone in the process, from Police Scotland and the Scottish media, to his enemies in Possil, the Daniel crime family. McGill had time to briefly pop back onto social media recently, largely to retweet posts from the official Union Bears account. But he did make sure to share one image of his coupon photoshopped on top of Wally’s red and white hoops front and centre — along with a lost list of flags representing places where the press have speculated he may have ended up: China, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia...
While Amsterdam was once the preferred bolthole for gangsters fleeing persecution, followed by Marbella and the ‘Costa del crime’, today it is Dubai — but the jackets of McGill et al are now on a shoogly peg post-arrest. The last flag on the list posted by McGill? Portugal, where Twitter/X showed his account was based. No sooner had McGill popped his head up than the account disappeared back into the black once again. One thing’s for sure: the name Ross McGill isn’t going anywhere.
Stories you might have missed:
Hampden Park to be renamed with new Barclays sponsor deal, The Herald (£)
Glasgow’s Chinatown reimagined as a cultural centre, Urban Realm
Women's World Cup 2035: Hampden on list of host venues, BBC
Former Brexit Party MEP denies taking payment from pro-Russian campaign, BBC
City Centre Business Improvement District approved, Glasgow Live
Ross 'Miami' McGill reemerges on social media on account based in Portugal, Glasgow Live
Revamp of Glasgow's Buchanan Galleries shopping centre approved, BBC
BBC Scotland HQ evacuated after fire breaks out, BBC
Read/listen/watch: Keir Starmer is not AI-generated, we promise
For reasons utterly unbeknownst to us, the Prime Minister decided to appear on a food-themed podcast made by the Scotsman, timed to coincide with a St Andrew’s Day event held at No 10 Downing Street. The charisma-deficient politician assured listeners that he indeed does have a personality, with knockout lines such as “I love all cuisines”, “whisky is always good and lovely to drink” and “every barrel has to be perfectly crafted from wood”. Despite his professed love for whisky, when asked, he failed to name a single brand, preferring the highly convincing line, “I enjoy pretty well all of them.” If you thought his penchant for Scottish produce couldn’t get any greater, he subsequently revealed his love for the salmon tandoori at Mister Singh’s restaurant in Glasgow “that has got to be my food highlight,” he told the Scran podcast. So why salmon, and why Mister Singh’s? Well, Mr Singh was in attendance serving up his tandoori salmon tikka — so it was literally the last thing Starmer ate.
Catch up and coming up:
- On Saturday, Calum took us into the daily legal wrangling between Homeless Project Scotland and the council. The charity says they send thousands of legal threats to GCC to ensure their clients are housed. The council, on the other hand, says unnecessary paperwork clogs up the system and impacts how many people they can support.
Reader ‘T’ summed up the debate nicely in the comments: “I really wonder where the truth is here. Are the council getting many duplicate applications, or are they disregarding many updated applications as duplicates. Are those updates potentially a means for increasing the time taken per application and increasing the claim for the solicitor? So many interesting questions from this, looking forward to where this story develops.”
Calum Grewar
- Later this week, it’s the big one, the investigation you’ve all been waiting for. In a marriage of his passion, expertise, and ultimate life goals, Robbie looks into accusations that Paesano has not only got worse since their takeover by DiMaggio’s, but is pulling the burrata over its customers’ eyes.
Headline of the week:
Lanarkshire man swallowed 'vallies' before crashing girlfriend's Mercedes into ditch
Re:view: Umami, 523 Sauchiehall Street
On a break from digging through the Mitchell’s archives the other week, I dashed out for a quick lunch between poring over old architectural plans and leafing through decades of newspapers. With scarcely 30 minutes to spare, I didn’t have high hopes for a nutritious and nourishing lunch eaten at pace. I was delighted, and surprised, to stumble across a Japanese café decorated with colourful cat flags and lanterns just around the corner — serving sushi, curry and teriyaki. A pot of green tea quickly arrived, followed by a bento box. Neatly presented were two vegetable gyoza, deep fried tofu, perfectly cooked sushi rice, pickles and a bowl of soup. All for under a tenner; if that’s not HumbleYum™, I don’t know what is.—Robbie.
Glasgow Calendar: Christmas markets
As it’s now December, and the reality of Xmas hurtling towards us is unavoidable, we thought we’d help you out by flagging some festive markets where you can support local businesses as well as pretend you’re in a provincial German town. This week, there’s a concentration of markets in the West End, with the church-turned-venue Cottiers putting on night markets on Wednesday and Thursday starting at 5.30pm. On Saturday, the quaint Byers Road market will once again head to Hillhead Library, where £1 entry gets you access to loads of locally-made goodies, including a Russian honeycake that Calum chomped last year. Also on the weekend, the Tea Green winter market at Kelvingrove art gallery starts at 10am on both Saturday and Sunday, and you can finish your week of winter indulgence at Òran Mór for their Christmas market and “jingles”, which runs from 11am to 3pm on Sunday. Also happening between Thursday and Saturday is a Palestine makers Christmas market in the Kelvinside-Hillhead Parish Church. Starts Thursday at 10am.
If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up to get quality local journalism in your inbox.
Comments
How to comment:
If you are already a member,
click here to sign in
and leave a comment.
If you aren't a member,
sign up here
to be able to leave a comment.
To add your photo, click here to create a profile on Gravatar.
