BY EFFIE DEANS How does civilisation begin? It begins with agriculture. Prior to the development of agriculture all we have is hunter gatherers in small bands living from moment to moment intent only on the bare necessities of life such as obtaining food and shelter. What enabled the transition to agriculture? It was the division of labour. In order for people to settle down and … Continue reading Casting Hume into the Flames
BY EFFIE DEANS The British Government has been attempting to maintain friendly relations with the SNP and the Scottish Government just as we have attempted to maintain friendly relations with the EU. There is clearly no point falling out with anyone unnecessarily. But cooperation and friendly relations ultimately depend on a foundation of there being the alternative of unfriendly relations. At times the UK has … Continue reading How to Defeat the SNP Forever
BY EFFIE DEANS The other day I wrote about my experience on a trip to the Highlands. I didn’t expect it to be particularly popular article, after all Gaelic is a minority language spoken on a daily basis by about eleven thousand people mostly in the Outer Hebrides. But suddenly my timeline was filled with raging Scottish Nationalists. Not one of them addressed the substantive … Continue reading Losing Our Way Part II
BY EFFIE DEANS For a few years as a child while my father helped build an oil rig, I lived in a very remote part of the West Highlands near to where Boris Johnson tried to go on holiday with his family. There were less than twenty children in the school and around one hundred people in the village. The elderly people could speak Gaelic … Continue reading Losing Our Way Part I
BY EFFIE DEANS How many SNP MPs do you know who claim to be English? Well why not? They live in London. Perhaps they might claim that their residence in England is only temporary. That their main residence is in Scotland. Well what about the approximately one million people born in Scotland who live elsewhere? Nearly 800,000 of these live in England. How many of … Continue reading Scottishness Dissimulated
BY EFFIE DEANS There used to be lots of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs and MSPs willing to fight for Britain. Where have they all gone? What happened to Jim Murphy? He’s only 52. He used to stand on Irn Bru crates and did a good job arguing against the SNP. Now he was last heard of working for Tony Blair. What happened to Alistair … Continue reading The SNP Fear Galloway
BY EFFIE DEANS There is almost no political correctness in Poland. Few statues were vandalised by Black Lives Matter activists in Warsaw, because there are very few black people living there. A few hundred thousand people from neighbouring countries like Ukraine live in Poland, but the largest ethnic/racial minority originally from Vietnam is less than twelve thousand. If you wander around Warsaw, you will find … Continue reading A Great Ally
BY EFFIE DEANS There has been quite a lot of attention recently to people crossing the Channel in dinghies, but the story needs to be put in perspective. In 2019 612,000 people moved to the UK (immigration) while 385,000 left the UK (emigration). There were 34,000 asylum applications. So far this year about 4000 people have arrived by crossing the Channel. The number of people … Continue reading The Truth On Immigration
BY EFFIE DEANS Few people in Scotland probably know very much about Belarus, a small landlocked country of 9 million to the east of Poland. But then again, few people in Belarus know much more about Scotland than that men wear skirts, play bagpipes and imitate Scrooge McDuck. People in Belarus are frequently blissfully unaware of the parts of the United Kingdom. They describe the … Continue reading Europe’s Penultimate Dictator?
BY EFFIE DEANS The strategic problem with Scottish politics is that there are now three small armies against one large army. The overall numbers are roughly equal, but the SNP can defeat Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in detail because the opposition is divided. This problem can be overcome in a number of ways. If either of the Pro UK armies were able to … Continue reading Grievance Versus Division
BY EFFIE DEANS When the Thirteen Colonies rebelled against Britain, slavery existed in each of them and did so legally. In Britain by contrast the Somerset v Stewart case (1772) made explicit what had been implicit for centuries – that there was no basis for slavery in law in Britain. If a slave entered Britain, he was thereby made free. In 1807 Britain abolished the … Continue reading The Third American Revolution
BY EFFIE DEANS I remember discussions in 2014 about whether Scottish independence would create a border between Scotland and the rest of Britain. Scottish nationalists insisted vehemently that there would be no border and that we wouldn’t notice crossing from Scotland into England just as an Austrian doesn’t notice crossing into Germany. Six years later and we discover what we knew all along. The SNP … Continue reading A Scottish English Border?
