BY EFFIE DEANS For a few months during the pandemic Nicola Sturgeon had what she had always dreamed of. She had independence. It’s true that the money still came from London. The vaccines were developed in London. The British Army put up the Nightingale hospitals. Still in every other respect she had something close to absolute power. In no previous time in Scottish history had … Continue reading The Worst Scandal in Scottish Political History
BY IAN MITCHELL Ian Mitchell’s Book Recommendations Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace – by James T. Costa Princeton University Press, 552 pages, Hardback 2023, ISBN 978 0691 233796 THE BEAUTY of life in the Scottish Highlands and islands becomes more evident than normal immediately after the Festive season. Quiet descends once the drunken hordes of the lost and lonely have … Continue reading The Destruction of the Scottish Mind
BY EFFIE DEANS Humza Yousaf’s wife Nadia El-Nakla is Scottish. She was born and brought up in Dundee. But unlike most Scots she has family living in Gaza. Her parents chose to ignore Foreign Office advice about visiting Gaza and ended up in a warzone after the 7th October Hamas attack on Israel. That was unfortunate and naturally Humza Yousaf and his wife were concerned … Continue reading Whiffier Than Rotting Fish
BY EFFIE DEANS Imagine if there were a new war between India or Pakistan. Let’s say the long-term territorial dispute over Kashmir flared up again and the Indian and Pakistani armies started fighting again. Or alternatively imagine that Pakistan tried to retake its former territory of East Pakistan, modern day Bangladesh. What line should we expect from Rishi Sunak? We should expect him to take … Continue reading Yousaf Hopelessly Biased on Gaza
BY EFFIE DEANS Unless something very odd happens in the next year we will have Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and a Labour Government in 12 months’ time. I’m not remotely on the Left, but nor do I vote tribally. I have voted Labour before. I have voted Liberal Democrat. Everyone should think about how to use their vote to obtain the result they want. … Continue reading 2024: Destroy the SNP
BY HAMISH GOBSON The Rule of Law, Abolition of (Scotland) Bill has been slithering its inglorious way through the Fake Parliament recently, with almost everyone outside opposed to it for one simple reason: it will destroy the independence of the judiciary, and deprive Scotland of the benefits of the rule of law. This is SNP policy. The question is: do the Humzoids understand what they … Continue reading Learning at the Feet of Erdogan & Putin
BY EFFIE DEANS Language is an extremely emotive topic in Scotland. People get awfully upset about the decline of Gaelic or the use of Scots. They worry about the number of pupils studying French at school or German at university. But while it remains an emotive topic, it is not emotive enough for anyone to actually bother learning any of these languages. In a university … Continue reading The SNP Has Destroyed Scottish Education
BY EFFIE DEANS From early 2015 to early 2023 it felt like SNP rule was permanent. It felt like that to Nicola Sturgeon too. It didn’t much matter how well or badly SNP politicians behaved. The various scandals were either not reported or else didn’t make any difference. The SNP did not have enough support to really push for independence, but it had enough to … Continue reading The Scottish Spring Has Turned into Winter
BY HAMISH GOBSON Humza Yousaf calling Suella Braverman “unfit for public office” seems to me to be a clear case of the pot calling the kettle white. Last Monday’s Herald reported our whiter-than-white First Minister, who thinks it wrong for Scotland to have so many “white” people in senior positions in public life, considers that no wrong was done when his Minister for Net Zero Moroccans, Michael Matheson, … Continue reading Yousurf, Matheson & Titillating Footie in Morocco
BY EFFIE DEANS In the Scottish Government’s latest paper An independent Scotland in the EU we learn that the SNP thinks that it would take between two to five years to join the EU. This is despite us learning that civil servants had previously warned that it could take up to eight years. The truth is that no one knows how long it might take for an independent Scotland … Continue reading But Does the EU Want Scotland?
BY EFFIE DEANS The Scottish Government in its latest independence white paper expresses concern that Scotland’s population is aging and the birth rate is declining. It argues that migration is the sole driver of population growth and would like migration to increase. It therefore sets out various new visa schemes that an independent Scotland might adopt, would make it easier for asylum seekers and add … Continue reading Does Scotland Need More Migrants?
BY HAMISH GOBSON In 1910 the future President of the SNP wrote to a suffragette campaigning for women’s rights—an objective he strongly supported—saying: “Women should not forget that a ‘cause’ is the means whereby a politician is put into the position of being able to plunder the nation.” In 1936, when already President, he told a journalist that “politics is a matter of rich men … Continue reading Yousaf, Jack & Chinese Emperor Gaozong of Qing
BY EFFIE DEANS Like everyone else I did not pay much attention to the SNP conference which took place nearby me in Aberdeen. The turnout was poor with plenty of empty seats. But this isn’t the SNP’s main problem, nor indeed is Humza Yousaf. The real problem is Scottish nationalism has become a movement of fantasists. In 1989 two million people in what are now … Continue reading The SNP is a Dwindling Band of Fantasists
BY HAMISH GOBSON In his play about Scottish politics, the prominent English opinion former, William Shakespeare, had “Three Witches” chant: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: / Hover through the fog and filthy air.” The Witches were not identified, presumably on data protection grounds, but the Director of a recent production of “the Scottish play” made them look like women, though they all had … Continue reading Fergus Ewing’s Witches Brew
BY HAMISH GOBSON When Greta Thunberg won the Eurovision Sob Contest in 2019, she was the youngest winner of a major compassion tournie since Mother Teresa took gold at the Nobels in Oslo in 1979. Like the “crinklie of Calcutta”, the tear-jerking Swedelette was taken up by the great and the good as if she were a new health recipe. One of the first politicians … Continue reading Beware the likes of Tintin Thunberg & Mrs Murrell
BY HAMISH GOBSON The revelation that Sir Michael Parkinson suffered from “imposter syndrome” would have caused a flutter in the nationalist dovecote were all the doves not so narcissistic. Part of narcissism is factionalism because everyone has to resemble me. Narcissists cannot have allies, only disciples. That is a terrific weakness. The SNP illustrates this perfectly. Does Humza Yousaf suffer from a bad case of narcissistic imposter … Continue reading A Bad Case of Narcissistic Imposter Syndrome?
BY HAMISH GOBSON Robertson is no Charlemagne One of the pleasures of living on an affordable island like Great Todday is that you have time to read for pleasure beyond the river of woke fiction that flows out of the Edinburgh Book Festival these days. Older readers will recall that Peter Cook once referred to the event, in a perfectly clipped “Moarrningsaide accountant” accent, as … Continue reading Angus ‘Jumbo on a Junket’
BY EFFIE DEANS It’s now around 13 years since we last had a Labour Government. People in their twenties will barely remember it. In Scotland too we have had SNP Government since 2007. The days when Labour and the Lib Dems were in coalition are a distant memory even for those of us who do remember. Change is coming in both the UK and in … Continue reading The SNP Can Now be Decisively Defeated
BY HAMISH GOBSON Even the Archers’ lesbian kiss would be subject to Yousaf’s Legal Services Bill Our anti-affordable “government” in Scotland has been conspicuous by its silence in the matter of the first lesbian kiss to be broadcast on The Archers, the celebrated radio series which has been telling “an everyday story of countryfolk” since 1951. This happened on 10 August yet Humza Yousaf, who has … Continue reading Thongweed & Lugworms
BY EFFIE DEANS Penny Mordaunt’s appearance at the Fringe in Edinburgh proved controversial for her statement that the SNP’s approach to independence fails because it is based on bile and hatred. But who does the SNP hate? The answer would seem obvious. England. The English. But both the SNP and its supporters deny this vehemently. There are two main hatreds in Scotland. Anglophobia and Sectarianism. … Continue reading Is the SNP motivated by Anglophobia?
