UK news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Being born in north-east England gives you grit, says Fiona Hill

      by

      There is a “resilience and grit” that comes from being born in the north-east of England, says Fiona Hill, who went from a working-class childhood in County Durham to a top intelligence job at the heart of the White House.But, she believes, it is also a big reason why she and other notable high achievers have had the success they have. The secret of success could be being from the north-east.Hill has talked to a number of figures from – or with strong links to – the north-east for her new Forged in the North podcast series, which will be launched at Durham book festival in October.They include two global figures originally from the same part of Wallsend: the Cramlington primary school teacher turned superstar Sting, and the Yale historian Paul Kennedy.“It’s basically just listening to two people who seem on the surface so completely different but have this common origin story,” says Hill.Other podcast guests are Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot; Brendan Foster, the founder of the Great North Run; the north-east mayor, Kim McGuinness; the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Sara Davies; the dramatist Peter Straughan; and the Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, who lives in Stockton-on-Tees.Hill was born and brought up in Bishop Auckland, the daughter of a coalminer and a midwife. She and her accent went on to be a foreign affairs adviser to US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump and she is considered one of the world’s leading experts on Russia and Putin.Last year she was named as one of three advisers to oversee the UK government’s strategic defence review.The new series is born, Hill says, of a belief that “too much happens down in London, as if the rest of the country doesn’t exist”.The hope is to “put the spotlight on a region that is normally only in the headlines for something going wrong: child poverty, the lowest life expectancy, worst nutrition”, she says.“The north-east is home of the Industrial Revolution – literally the engines of prosperity. Two hundred years ago, it was the forefront of innovation, and we’re saying, there’s still a lot of potential for innovation.”Hill turns 60 this year and is planning a trip back to the north-east from her home in the US. She says: “I’ve always wanted to walk along a portion of Hadrian’s Wall, I want to go back up the Northumberland coast. I want to come back for all the stories and storytelling I remember as a kid from the region.”It was in this context that the idea of the podcast series came about, with the aim of telling stories about the north “not just how it was, but how it is and how it might be”.Many cultural figures have talked passionately about the importance of where they are from. The Hull-born playwright Richard Bean once said: “Thank God I wasn’t born in Guildford. Thank God I was born somewhere there is tragedy and comedy every other second.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHill says coming from the north-east gives “a certain resilience and grit”. “Being from the north-east grounds you, it’s an anchor, a solid base with a strong sense of what’s right and wrong and a clear perspective and values.”She points to a recent poll revealing how people from the north-east have a stronger attachment to their region than other parts of England. “There’s a sense of solidarity that’s been forged in adversity. Everyone’s thrown all kinds of rubbish at the north historically … but it has a resilience.”The importance of investing in people while they are young is a theme of the podcast discussions, says Hill, who got a grant from the Durham Miners’ Association to take a Russian language course to pursue her ambition to go to university.Straughan and Hall got started with enterprise grants and through locally funded theatres. Interestingly, McGuinness and Davies, both younger interviewees, say they had to make their own luck, with Davies using her savings to start her successful business.McGuinness says the series resonated with her ambition for the north-east to be a cultural powerhouse. “This important podcast shines a light on how with the right support, talent can truly thrive.“Funding in our region’s art sector has been outpaced by the south for some time. I’m determined to fix that cultural chasm and the cycle of regional inequality, positioning the north-east as a strong contender in the UK economy.” More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      UK needed ‘unconventional’ US ambassador when picking Mandelson, minister says

      by

      The UK government believed an “unconventional presidential administration” required an “unconventional ambassador” when it appointed Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, a cabinet minister has said.But the Scotland secretary, Douglas Alexander, told broadcasters Mandelson would not have been given the role had the prime minister known the depth of his association with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Keir Starmer is facing increasing questions over what he knew and when of Mandelson’s ties with Epstein. The prime minister sacked him on Thursday after emails showed he sent supportive messages even as Epstein faced jail for sex offences.Alexander told Sky News he had reacted with “incredulity and revulsion” to the publication of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, adding he was “not here to defend him”.“The reason he was appointed was a judgment, a judgment that given the depth of his experience as a former trade commissioner for the European Union, his long experience in politics, and his politics and doing politics at the highest international levels, he could do a job for the United Kingdom.“We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgment that we needed an unconventional ambassador.”But speaking on BBC Breakfast, Alexander said “nothing justifies” Mandelson’s appointment in light of what had emerged in the past week.He was reported to have told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and told him “I think the world of you” the day before the disgraced financier began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMandelson’s friendship with Epstein had been known about, but Bloomberg and the Sun published emails showing that the relationship continued after his crimes had emerged. More

    • 175 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      From ‘hellhole’ UK to anti-Muslim rhetoric in Japan, Charlie Kirk took his message abroad

      by

      Charlie Kirk directed most of his rhetoric at the US political scene, but he also strayed into foreign affairs, drawing both favourable and critical comparisons between life in the US and in other countries on his shows and doing the occasional speaking tour.In May, Kirk visited the UK, debating against students at Oxford and Cambridge universities and appearing on the conservative GB News channel. Days before he was fatally shot in Utah he took his message to relatively new audiences on a tour to South Korea and Japan.Last weekend he addressed like-minded politicians and activists at a symposium in Tokyo organised by Sanseito, a rightwing populist party that shook up the political establishment in upper house elections this summer.In Tokyo, Kirk described Sanseito, which ran in July’s elections on a “Japanese first” platform, as “all about kicking foreigners out of Japan”, where the foreign population has risen to about 3.8 million out of a total of 124 million.Foreign residents and supporters of mass migration were, he claimed, “very quietly and secretly funnelling themselves into Japanese life. They want to erase, replace and eradicate Japan by bringing in Indonesians, by bringing in Arabs, by bringing in Muslims”.He spoke at length about his trip in a podcast released the day before his death, returning to a familiar theme – criticising women who choose not to have children – that echoed the views of his host in Japan, the Sanseito leader, Sohei Kamiya.In Seoul, he addressed more than 2,000 supporters at the Build Up Korea 2025 event, which drew predominantly young Christians and students from evangelical schools, representing a self-styled Korean Maga movement that has rallied in support of the impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol.The event invited a host of far-right American personalities, who openly promoted conspiracy theories including claims that China orchestrated “stolen elections” in both America and South Korea, and that Lee Jae Myung’s recent presidential victory was fraudulent.Kirk criticised special prosecutor investigations into Yoon and his martial law, describing “several disturbing things happening right now in South Korea” where “pastors are being arrested” and “homes are being raided”, adding: “If South Korea keeps on acting like this, it is the American way to step up and fight for what is right.”Kirk said he had “learned a lot” from his time in South Korea and Japan, recalling how safe he had felt on the clean and orderly streets of Seoul, where there were “no bums, no one asking you for money”.In his three-day visit to the UK in May, he clashed with students at the Cambridge Union debating society, arguing that “lockdowns were unnecessary”, “life begins at conception”, and the US Civil Rights Act was a “mistake”.Kirk made the same points in Oxford, also alleging immigrants were “importing insidious values into the west” and that police violence against Black people was a result of a “disproportionate crime problem” in the Black community.He told the rightwing GB News that the UK was a “husk” of its former self and needed to “get its mojo back”. The perception among US conservatives, he said, was that “this is increasingly a conquered country … We love this country from afar, and we’re really sad about what’s happening to it, and what has happened to it”.On his first show after returning to the US, Kirk described the UK as a “totalitarian third world hellhole”, adding: “It’s tragic. I don’t say that with glib, I don’t say that with delight. It is sad. It’s chilling and it’s depressing.”He claimed he had seen a cafe in which “every single table was taken by a Mohammedan and a fully burqa-wearing woman – not a single native Brit” and that people were being arrested for online posts that displayed no apparent harmful intent.“They invented free speech,” he said. “Now there’s so much wrong with that country and it is not worthy of making fun of. I mean, you can have some laughs and some comedy, but it is depressing. It is dark.”View image in fullscreenWhile he was fond of referencing Europe in his shows, Kirk’s only other recent public visit there appears to have been a trip to Greenland in January in the company of Donald Trump Jr.He said afterwards that Greenlanders should be allowed to “use personal autonomy and agency to disconnect from their Danish masters”, then have “the opportunity to be part of the US, no different than either Puerto Rico or Guam” (two self-governing “unincorporated territories” of the US) in order to be “wealthier, richer … and protected”.Kirk was also sharply critical of many countries in his videos and podcasts. “France has basically become a joke, for a lot of reasons,” he said last year, amid widespread French protests over pension changes. “What’s happening in France should serve as a warning to America.”After JD Vance attacked Europe for alleged free speech shortcomings this year, Kirk hit out at Germany. “Germans are a bunch of troublemakers,” he said. “German prosecutors say someone can be locked up if they insult someone online. Free speech is not a German value. Totalitarianism is a German value.”He was a vocal supporter of Trump’s China-focused policies, backing the president’s attacks on Harvard University in April, and the punishing trade war with Beijing.In April, he claimed Harvard had “raked in” more than $100m from China. “We need to ask serious questions in this country about whether we can trust our elite universities to put America first when so much money is flowing to them from America’s number one rival.”The same month, he told Fox News the US had become “a glorified vassal state” subservient to the Chinese Communist party, by relying on China for rare earth minerals. He said the CCP wanted to create “lots of little colonies all around the world through the belt and road initiative”.He also waded into the complicated waters of cross-strait relations. In April, Kirk told his podcast he had “a soft spot for the people of Taiwan”, but also showed a limited understanding of its history and the complexities of the dispute.“I would say, sadly if we took Taiwan, it would probably start a nuclear war. Our leaders have largely mishandled China. We probably should have taken it in 1950 right after world war two,” he said.There has never been any discussion of the US “taking” Taiwan. The US is Taiwan’s most important backer, providing billions of dollars in weapons and some military training, and has not ruled out coming to its defence in the event of a Chinese attack or invasion.In a video in May, Kirk used the escalating hostilities between India and Pakistan to push his argument against US military intervention abroad. Describing Pakistan as a “very, very sneaky actor”, Kirk was emphatic that “very simply, this is not our war … This is a great test of whether every great conflict is America’s problem”.Kirk was equally dogmatic on the issue of Indians being granted more visas as part of a US-India trade deal, accusing Indians of taking American jobs.“America does not need more visas for people from India,” he said. “Perhaps no form of legal immigration has so displaced American workers as those from India. Enough already. We’re full. Let’s finally put our own people first.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Peter Mandelson lauds Trump as ‘risk-taker’ in call for US-UK tech alliance

      by

      Donald Trump is a risk-taker sounding a necessary wake-up call to a stale status quo, Peter Mandelson has told the Ditchley Foundation in a speech before Trump’s second state visit to the UK this month.The UK’s ambassador to Washington portrayed Trump as a harbinger of a new force in politics at a time when business as usual no longer works for fed-up voters.The bulk of the speech was focused on a call for a US-UK technology partnership covering AI, quantum computing and rare-earth minerals as part of efforts to win a competition with China that Lord Mandelson said would shape this century.He said that such a partnership with the US had the potential to be as important as the security relationship the US and UK forged in the second world war, adding: “If China wins the race for technological dominance in the coming decades, every facet of our lives is going to be affected.”The first steps to that partnership are likely to be unveiled during Trump’s state visit, including new commitments for cheap nuclear energy to power the AI revolution.Mandelson, although a fierce pro-European, also said Brexit had not made the UK less relevant to the US, but by freeing the UK from European regulatory burdens had made Britain a more attractive site for US investors.Critics of Mandelson’s interpretation of Trump’s populism will argue that it assumes a set of common values between Trump’s Maga movement and European liberal democracy that is fading.In his pitch for a close US-UK alliance, he made no mention of key points of difference including Gaza, the international rule of law, Trump’s inability to see that Vladimir Putin is stalling in Ukraine, or Trump’s creeping domestic authoritarianism.Insisting he was not cast in the role of Trump’s “explainer-in-chief” and denying there was any need to be sycophantic with the Trump team, he praised the US president for identifying the anxieties gripping millions of impatient voters deprived of meaningful work.He accused those arguing for a pivot away from Trump’s America of “lazy thinking”, arguing that the America First credo on the climate crisis, US aid cuts and trade did not preclude a close partnership.He said: “The president may not follow the traditional rulebook or conventional practice, but he is a risk-taker in a world where a ‘business as usual’ approach no longer works.“Indeed, he seems to have an ironclad stomach for political risk, both at home and abroad – convening other nations and intervening in conflicts that other presidents would have thought endlessly about before descending into an analysis paralysis and gradual incrementalism.“Yet – and this is not well understood – although the Trumpian national security strategy is called ‘America First’, it does not actually mean ‘America Alone’.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We see him leverage America’s heft to put the right people in the room and hammer out compromises in order to grind out concessions.“I am not just thinking of Ukraine where the president has brought fresh energy to efforts to end Putin’s brutal invasion and bring peace to that region. If the president were so indifferent to the rest of the world, if he was so in love with America alone, he would not have intervened in multiple spheres of conflict over the last seven months.“Furthermore, the ‘international order’ people claim he has disrupted and the calm he has allegedly shattered was already at breaking point. So, I would argue that Trump is more consequence than cause of the upheaval we are experiencing.”He continued: “He will not always get everything right but with his Sharpie pen and freewheeling Oval Office media sprays he has sounded a deafening wake-up call to the international old guard.“And the president is right about the status quo failing from America’s point of view. The world has rested on the willingness of the US to act as sheriff, to form a posse whenever anything went wrong, a world in which America’s allies could fall in behind – not always that close behind either – and then allow the US to do most of the heavy lifting.”Going further than the UK’s official line, he praised Trump’s military attack on Iran, saying: “Trump understands the positive coercive power of traditional American deterrence, deterring adversaries through a blend of strength and strategic unpredictability, as we saw in his decisive action on Iran’s nuclear programme. Well beyond their military impact, these strikes gave a swathe of malign foreign regimes pause for thought.” More

    • 263 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      One by one, leaders learn that grovelling to Trump leads to disaster. When will it dawn on Starmer? | Simon Tisdall

      by

      Sucking up to Donald Trump never works for long. Narendra Modi is the latest world leader to learn this lesson the hard way. Wooing his “true friend” in the White House, India’s authoritarian prime minister thought he’d conquered Trump’s inconstant heart. The two men hit peak pals in 2019, holding hands at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Texas. But it’s all gone pear-shaped thanks to Trump’s tariffs and dalliance with Pakistan. Like a jilted lover on the rebound, Modi shamelessly threw himself at Vladimir Putin in China last week. Don and Narendra! It’s over! Although, to be honest, it always felt a little shallow.Other suitors for Trump’s slippery hand have suffered similar heartbreak. France’s Emmanuel Macron turned on the charm, feting him at the grand reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. But Trump cruelly dumped him after they argued over Gaza, calling him a publicity-seeker who “always gets it wrong”. The EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, desperate for a tete-a-tete, flew to Trump’s Scottish golf course to pay court. Result: perhaps the most humiliating, lopsided trade deal since imperial Britain’s 19th-century “unequal treaties” with Peking’s dragon throne.The list of broken pledges and dashed hopes is lengthy. Relationships between states normally pivot on power, policy and strategic interests. But with faithless, fickle Trump, it’s always personal – and impermanent. Disconcertingly, he told Mexico’s impressive president, Claudia Sheinbaum, that he “likes her very much” – then threatened to invade her country, ostensibly in pursuit of drug cartels. Leaders from Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea and South Africa have all attempted to ingratiate themselves, to varying degrees. They still haven’t fared well.All this should set red lights flashing for Britain’s Keir Starmer ahead of Trump’s state visit in 10 days’ time. The prime minister’s unedifying Trump-whisperer act has produced little benefit to date, at high reputational cost. Starmer apparently believes his handling of the US relationship is a highlight of his first year in office. Yet Trump ignores his Gaza ceasefire pleas and opposes UK recognition of a Palestinian state. He hugely boosted Putin, Britain’s nemesis, with his half-baked Alaska summit. US security guarantees for postwar Ukraine are more mirage than reality. His steel tariffs and protectionist policies continue to hurt UK workers.His second state visit is an appalling prospect. The honour is utterly undeserved. It’s obvious what Trump will gain: a royal endorsement, a chance to play at being King Donald, a privileged platform from which to deliver his corrosive, divisive populist-nationalist diatribes at a moment of considerable social fragility in the US and UK. Polls suggest many Britons strongly oppose the visit; and most don’t trust the US. So what Starmer thinks he will gain is a mystery. The fleeting goodwill of a would-be dictator who is dismantling US democracy and wrecking the global laws-based order championed by the UK is a poor return.View image in fullscreenAs he demands homage from abject subjects, this spectacle will confirm the UK in the eyes of the world as a lackey state, afraid to stand up for its values. Starmer’s government is now so morally confused that it refuses to acknowledge that Israel, fully backed by Trump, is committing genocide in Gaza, while at the same time making the wearing of a pro-Palestine T-shirt a terrorist act. The Trump travesty will be an embarrassment, signalling a further descent into colonial subservience. As next year’s 250th anniversary of US independence approaches, the chronically unhealthy “special relationship” has finally come full circle.Not everyone is genuflecting to Trump – and evidence mounts that resistance, not grovelling, is by far the best way to handle this schoolyard bully. Modi’s geopolitical fling in China showed he’s learned that when dealing with Trump, firm resolve, supported by alternative options, is the better policy. Last week’s defiant speech by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, reflected a similar realisation. Both he and Putin have discovered that when they dig their heels in, whether the issue is Ukraine, trade or sanctions, Trump backs off. Xi has adopted an uncompromising stance from the start. Putin uses flattery, skilfully manipulating Trump’s frail ego. The result is the same. Like cowards the world over, Trump respects strength because he’s weak. So he caves.The bigger the wolf, the more sheepishly Trump responds. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, like Putin, an indicted war criminal, has shown that by sticking to his guns (literally, in his case), he can face down Trump. More than that, Trump can be co-opted. After Netanyahu attacked Iran in June, against initial US advice, he induced the White House to join in – although, contemptibly, Trump only did so once he was certain who was winning. Then, typically, he claimed credit for a bogus world-changing victory. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, similarly bamboozled Trump during his first term. Having learned nothing, and nursing his implausible Nobel peace prize ambitions, Trump is again raising the prospect of unconditional engagement with Kim.Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has the right idea. The more Trump tries to bully him with 50% tariffs and a barrage of criticism, the more he resists. Trump is particularly exercised over the fate of Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s hard-right predecessor, who, like Trump, mounted a failed electoral coup. But Lula is not having any of it. “If the United States doesn’t want to buy [from us], we will find new partners,” he said. “The world is big, and it’s eager to do business with Brazil.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat’s the spirit! And guess what? Lula’s poll ratings are soaring. Wake up, Keir Starmer – and dump Trump.

      Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Publications aimed at LGBTQ+ audiences face discrimination from advertisers, editors warn

      by

      Publications aimed at LGBTQ+ and other diverse audiences are facing “good old-fashioned discrimination” as advertisers avoid them after political attacks on diversity and inclusion campaigns, editors have said.Senior figures at publications aimed at the gay community and other minority groups said a previous “gold rush” to work with such titles was over.There has been a backlash in the US over corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the past 18 months, which has led to some big names rolling back their plans.Tag Warner, the chief executive of Gay Times, said his publication, which had been growing digitally in the US, had lost 80% of its advertisers in the past year. It has also lost in excess of £5m in expected advertiser revenue.Warner, who has led the outlet since 2019, said his title’s growth had been accompanied by an enthusiasm from brands to embrace LGBTQ+ audiences. He blames an anti-DEI drive in the US for the dramatic shift.“I know that media and marketing is also going through a challenging year anyway, but when we’re thinking about other organisations that don’t talk to diverse themes, they’re not nearly as impacted as we are,” he said. “This is just good old-fashioned discrimination. Because discrimination doesn’t have to make business sense. Discrimination doesn’t have to be logical. Discrimination is discrimination.“We’re really experiencing the impact of what happens when voices that are pressuring organisations to give in to less inclusive perspectives start winning. Then it creates this massive behavioural shift in brands and organisations.”Nafisa Bakkar, the co-founder of Amaliah, a publication aimed at “amplifying the voices of Muslim women”, said there had been a “change in mood” among brands and advertisers. “There was this DNI [diversity and inclusion] gold rush,” she said. “It is, I would say, well and truly over.“We work with a lot of UK advertisers, but I would say that the US has a lot more emphasis on what they would call ‘brand safety’, which I think is a code word for ‘we don’t want to rock the boat’. I would say there is a lot more focus on this element.”Ibrahim Kamara, the founder of the youth platform GUAP, which has a large black and ethnically diverse audience, said he had detected a “relative difference” from 2020 in approaches from brands.He and others cited the economic pressures on advertisers generally in recent years. However, he said the “hype and the PR around wanting to support and connect with diverse audiences” had also subsided.“The thing that most people within these kind of spaces can probably agree on is that the energy and the PR is very different now,” he said. “It was almost a badge of honour to be able to say that you’re supporting certain communities. Now, I’ve seen that lots of the diversity and inclusion people that were hired around that period have probably lost their jobs. It doesn’t have the same PR effect any more.”Warner said the anti-DEI impact pre-dated the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Figures such as the conservative pundit Robby Starbuck have been engaged in a long-running anti-DEI campaign, pressuring firms to drop their diversity efforts. However, Warner said Trump’s arrival “gave everyone, I think, permission to be honest about it”.Not all publications in the sector have been hit in the same way as Gay Times. Companies with business models less reliant on US advertising, as well as some big players with long-established relationships, said they had managed to negotiate the changing political environment.“Brands are nervous, that’s for sure, or careful – or a combination of both,” said Darren Styles, the managing director of Stream Publishing, which publishes Attitude magazine. “They’re aware it can be a lightning rod for a vocal minority. But our experience is that most people are holding their ground, if not doubling down.”Styles also said he was not complacent, however, given the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the UK and its lack of historical support for the LGBTQ+ community.“I’m not incautious about the future,” he said. “Who knows what next year will bring, because that narrative is not going away. Obviously, there’s the rise of Reform in the polls.“[Farage] is quite clearly not an ally to our community and he’s expressed disdain in the past at the awards we’ve given out to people in the trans community. So it is a worry as political momentum gains around there. But I think broadly, consumers in the UK are a bit more capable of thinking for themselves.”Mark Berryhill, the chief executive of equalpride, which publishes prominent US titles like Out and The Advocate, said some brands and agencies “may have been a little bit more cautious than they have been in the past”. However, he said it had so far meant deals had taken longer to be completed, in a tough economic climate.He said the political headwinds made it more important to highlight that working with such titles was simply a sound business decision. “We’ve tried to do a better job in this political climate of just selling the importance of our buying power,” he said. “Everybody’s cautious and I don’t think it’s just LGBTQ. I think they’re cautious in general right now with their work with minority owned companies.“The one thing that maybe this whole controversy has helped us with a little bit is to really make brands realise it’s a business decision. It’s not just a charity or something you should do because you feel guilty.“You should do it because it’s the right thing to support LGBTQ journalism. We’re small. We need to get the word out. We have important stories to tell. But it’s also a good business decision. The more we show that side, certain brands will come along.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Not just Braveheart: black Scots become TikTok hit among African Americans

      by

      It began with a good-natured rant about the Scottish summer weather and has developed into a global conversation about history, diaspora and diversity on both sides of the Atlantic.Last week, Torgi Squire uploaded a TikTok post that any Scottish parent could relate to: why is it, he asked, that without fail the washout summer weather always improves the week that the kids go back to school?The 43-year-old high school teacher from Glasgow ended with his usual sign-off, wishing everyone “a belter of a day”, and thought nothing more of it. The internet had other ideas.The post was picked up by a US weather reporter and Squire’s comments were suddenly filling with African Americans expressing their amazement and delight at discovering a black man with a strong Scottish accent. But it didn’t stop there: black Scots on TikTok found themselves flooded with questions from their American cousins and seized the opportunity to respond with high calibre banter, as #blackscottishtiktok generated thousands more posts.“It’s been a whirlwind,” says Squire, who teaches design and technology. His original post has racked up nearly 4m views, and he’s since welcomed more than 200,000 new followers.“Americans are kept in a bit of an echo chamber by their media, and their only point of reference for Scotland is either Braveheart, Brave or Shrek. They don’t seem to have much awareness of the diaspora, particularly when it comes to the UK, which is maybe why they’ve reacted with so much curiosity.“But it’s not just Americans. I’ve had comments from people in England too, so there’s still surprise at a black person with a Scottish accent on both sides of the Atlantic.”View image in fullscreenScotland is certainly more diverse than when he was growing up in the 1980s – “of the 1,400 kids at my secondary school, only four were black and three of them were related to me”.“In my experience Scotland is a welcoming place and while there is still racism, it’s isolated and Scottish people are very good at calling it out. Perhaps because there are far fewer black people than somewhere like America, we tend to treat each other more like community.”When Ellie Koepplinger, who posts about race and politics on TikTok, saw the initial interest in Squire’s content, she thought: “This is going to be huge.”“Then other black Scottish people started to chime in and it was really exciting.”Koepplinger, who grew up in Glasgow and lived in the US for nine years, added her own post about being mixed heritage in Scotland: “It feels like finally people are understanding that we have our own racial politics.”But the interest from across the Atlantic has a more practical edge, she suggests: “Trump has made America so hostile to black people that having so many people talking about their positive experience in Scotland has got a huge amount of interest from people who are really keen to leave the States.”The flurry of content has also prompted some fruitful conversations among black Scots themselves, she adds. “It’s been really interesting to hear other Scottish people talk about the racism and the challenges they’ve experienced in Scotland. The black community in Scotland is fairly fragmented because it’s small, but it’s a population that’s excited to grow.”View image in fullscreenManny Daphey, a 20-year-old student, soon found his own content getting pushed by the TikTok algorithm, doubling his following as Americans flocked to his videos. “I was pretty blown by surprise, suddenly everyone was interacting and it felt like speaking to my long-lost cousins.”A few negative comments have been vastly outweighed by a barrage of positivity, he says: “Lots of Americans are very intrigued about living in Scotland, saying they want to visit.” Perhaps inevitably, there are also some women who appreciate a handsome face with a Scottish accent. American women can be “very direct” he says.When Roy Wood Jr, comedian and host of CNN’s Have I Got News For You US, arrived in Edinburgh a few days ago, he was ready to take in some shows at the festival. Instead, he’s been diverted on to a TikTok odyssey, travelling across the central belt to interview black Scots and prove to his fellow Americans they do indeed exist.In one of his posts Wood makes the point that part of the reason why black Americans don’t know about black Scots is because their schools “barely teach them about black people in America”.“People can laugh about dumb Americans not knowing there are black people in Scotland but this tells us a lot about the differences between education systems and what governments define as history.”In his interviews with Scottish creators, Wood says a common thread is the sense that black Scots are suddenly able to connect online in a way that wasn’t so familiar in the real world. “Coming from the States, I found there’s no black neighbourhood, no exclusive cultural enclave for black people in Scotland, so there was a common feeling of ‘now we’ve found each other’.”Wood tracked down Squire in Glasgow and the pair made a post together. “It’s an opportunity for black people across the whole diaspora to converse with one another.”“The conversations I’ve had in the past week have really enriched my life,” adds Squire. “It makes me happy that people are coming together.” More