BY EFFIE DEANS Nicola Sturgeon compared the legal case which the Scottish Government lost to Alex Salmond paying him more than half a million, with the case about minimum unit pricing for alcohol. She said that in every such case there is negative legal advice and if a Government ceased every case whenever a lawyer suggested it might lose it would never be able to … Continue reading Teflon Nicola?
BY PHLEGYAS On this historic day, I stand before you to make a commitment – a commitment that I’ve been wanting to fulfil all my life – and even before. Scotland will be independent! We will break asunder the bonds of the Act of Union! We will become separate from the Constitution and institutions of the United Kingdom at Westminster! We will stand tall and … Continue reading Scottish Election Victory Speech
BY EFFIE DEANS Nicola Sturgeon thinks that Alex Salmond is a fantasist living in an alternative reality. It was his behaviour towards women that led to his going to court rather than a conspiracy orchestrated by her. She thinks there is no evidence whatsoever that she did anything wrong. It is quite clear that she believes that Salmond is a liar lucky to be acquitted as … Continue reading Resign, Sturgeon
BY STEVE GRANT Body cameras and dashcams for gamekeepers. Have things descended to this? As reported last week, BASC revealed the results of a new survey which showed almost two-thirds – 64 per cent – of gamekeepers across the UK have received abuse and threats purely because of their occupation. Among the 1,000 responses to the survey are shocking reports of gamekeepers receiving death threats … Continue reading Gamekeepers’ Body Cams & Dashcams
BY EFFIE DEANS Joanna Cherry recently said that the SNP “shouldn’t be about the cult of leader, whether it’s Alex or Nicola, or anyone else”. Cherry is unquestionably one of the cleverest Scottish nationalists. She wrote Mental Health and Scots Law in Practice in 2014. She is willing to think for herself on moral issues such as gender rather than simply take the easy route … Continue reading Cult SNP
BY EFFIE DEANS The SNP has a relationship to truth which is at best overoptimistic and at worst downright deceitful. Sometimes the SNP is wrong because it claims to be fact something that it is merely predicting at other times it becomes a first rank member of the “big lie” school of politics. Make it big. Tell it often. Keep a straight face. But at … Continue reading SNP Lies Part I
BY EFFIE DEANS Something odd happened yesterday. No. Let’s leave to one side the peculiarities of opinion polls, the American voting system and matters across the Atlantic that don’t really concern us, no matter how excited we might get about them. The SNP lost a vote in the Scottish Parliament. Opposition parties including the usually loyal Scottish Greens united to defeat the SNP Government 63 to … Continue reading Angry Salmond Haunts the SNP
BY EFFIE DEANS We have all rather forgotten about Brexit in the past few months. Whatever damage Brexit might have done to the economy is trivial compared to what Covid has done. Being locked up in our homes with an illness killing thousands with no end in sight has rather put other matters in perspective. If we can manage Covid and we will have to, … Continue reading No Deal & Scotland
BY EFFIE DEANS The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints has come to a halt. It cannot proceed further at the moment because of witnesses not attending and evidence not being supplied. The Committee (otherwise known as the Salmond Inquiry) is waiting for responses from the Scottish Government, SNP Chief Peter Murrell (Nicola Sturgeon’s husband) and Alex Salmond. Linda Fabiani (an SNP … Continue reading A Gun Soon To Smoke
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?
BY EFFIE DEANS Scotland entered lockdown at exactly the same time as the other parts of Britain. We did so because we were following the advice that had been given to the British Government by the SAGE committee of scientific experts. Boris Johnson announced a very cautious easing of this lockdown some time ago, but Nicola Sturgeon decided that nothing would change in Scotland. Why? … Continue reading Jockdown
BY EFFIE DEANS Scottish nationalists like to think of Britain as a mini European Union made up of four members and four different peoples. But their hatred of Britain is blinding them to what is happening, and I think this is why they are beginning to make a series of misjudgements. We all have different ideas about how well or how badly the Government is … Continue reading Lady MacSturgeon
BY EFFIE DEANS The Conservative manifesto promised that there would not be a second Scottish independence referendum. The Conservatives won a large majority. That should be the end of the matter. This being Scotland it isn’t. Independence is the bone, Nicola Sturgeon is the dog. Scottish nationalists will teach their toddlers that “No means No” or else raise spoilt brats. Young independence supporting women will go … Continue reading Nae
BY EFFIE DEANS One of the key tasks in British politics is to stop voters voting tribally. For generations people in the north of England voted Labour automatically. The same was the case in Scotland. It didn’t matter how good or bad a Conservative Government was, these voters would vote Labour no matter what. But this has changed in the past five years. Voters in … Continue reading Scotland Ripe for Tory Surge
BY RUTH LEVINE In the last few years, as this magazine has reported before, the last resort of the beaten has been to smear opponents with Russian collusion. The Democrats in the US were first (they have now switched tack to “the Ukrainians”), Continuity Remain in the UK were next (who through the likes of Dominic Grieve rant on about the “Russian Dossier” and Brexit … Continue reading Vote SNP, Please Putin
BY JAMIE FOSTER As ever huffing and puffing to no avail, Ian Blackford, the SNP leader in Westminster, opened the SNP conference with a claim that Brexit is a democratic outrage that crystallises the case for independence in Scotland. His claim is based on the fact that Scotland backed Remain in the referendum by a margin of 62 to 38%. He said that the SNP … Continue reading The Broken Record of the SNP
BY JOHN ISMAEL Why has Nicola Sturgeon not resigned as leader of the SNP? The SNP lost 476,867 voters compared to 2015 on June 8th – 33%. One in three of its voters! That’s nearly twice as many voters as the Scottish Tories lost when they were wiped out in Scotland in 1997 when John Major duly resigned. The SNP mantra over the last few … Continue reading Lame Duck Sturgeon Should Go
CSM EDITORIAL The big problem that UKIP have this general election is Brexit. The UK Independence Party seems as sensible a name after Article 50 as advertising Christmas bargains in January. No wonder that Paul Nuttall is struggling to hold his party together. No wonder they have been through torrid leadership elections since the EU Referendum. Little wonder that Nigel Farage is staying well clear … Continue reading SNP: Temporary, Brittle & Divided
BY JOHN ISMAEL It seems Nicola Sturgeon is still struggling to control extremists in her party. The modern political scourge of SNP’s cybernats doesn’t seem to be going away despite her party’s efforts to sort the problem out during that low point of abuse when former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy faced a torrent of foul online messages from nationalist supporters in the weeks before … Continue reading Damaged SNP Unleashes Cybernats
BY VADIM STELKOV It seems to be the season for blaming Russia for everything. And no doubt, though it may come as a shock to civvy street, there is substance in the losing Democrats’ claims of the US elections being disrupted by Putin’s Russian hackers – and Obama political appointees in US intelligence agencies have confirmed as much. The extent of Russia’s hacking is a … Continue reading The SNP Russian Adventure
