“It would appear that Police Scotland are more frightened of belligerent football fans than nonviolent anti-racist protestors. That may be entirely rational – one does not need to be an expert in urban pacification to conclude that the latter can be kettled and bullied far more easily than the former. This does not make the double standard any less grating.”

Sean Bell: It is Police Scotland’s responsibility to answer to us, not vice versa


“Based on past experience, it is unlikely that those who bear some measure of responsibility for the siege of Washington will be forced to answer for it. Who or what exactly has the power to compel them into accountability?”

Sean Bell: It can’t happen here…


“Some – generally those who entered 2016 with rather fixed ideas about political reality, and never got over the trauma of those ideas’ defenestration – may look back and struggle to believe that any of it happened at all. Others – the many, many others who have suffered loss, pain and persecution at the hands of the administration – will have no trouble bitterly remembering that it did.”

Sean Bell: After four years of Trump, what have we learned?