BY EFFIE DEANS Sturgeon plans to hold an independence referendum next October, but she hasn’t published a bill. Yet somehow this unpublished bill is going to the Supreme Court to determine if it is legal or not. If it is legal, we will have an unofficial non-binding referendum with the same question as in 2014. If it is not legal, she plans to turn the … Continue reading The SNP Cannot Use A General Election To Leave The UK
BY CAPTAIN ED SWALES “Have we got this right?” opined Finlay Carson MSP, the Convenor of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, assessing the practicality of the proposed Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill; the committee’s aim to provide recommendations to Mairi McAllan, Minister for the Environment, to move this Bill into law. That was 3 weeks ago during the earlier sessions of the … Continue reading Hunting With Dogs (Scotland) Bill – The Alternative
BY EFFIE DEANS The SNP apparently wants “independence in the modern world” as opposed to independence in the ancient world or indeed in the world of the distant future. It wants Scotland to be wealthier, happier and fairer, but these would be changed little by independence. My wealth depends on the job that I do, what I inherit or my luck in winning a lottery. … Continue reading The Burden of Independence
BY EFFIE DEANS Nicola Sturgeon thinks that If Scots could have predicted what would happen after 2014, we would have voted for independence. In that case we would indeed have been wealthier, happier and fairer, but not for the reason she thinks. We could have bought Bitcoin when each one cost less than a pound. We could have predicted the winner of the Derby and … Continue reading O Brave New Scotland
BY CAPTAIN ED SWALES The Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act was passed in 2002 and whilst the title of this legislation sounds admirable enough, in fact its real aim was to do nothing other than ban hunting with dogs. At least this time around in the Scottish Government’s ‘salami slicing’ process of eroding our civil and rural liberties quietly and over a period of … Continue reading Hunting With Dogs (Scotland) Bill
BY EFFIE DEANS It is expected that soon Nicola Sturgeon will announce her latest attempt to have a second independence referendum. Lots will be written about this, but it is not the most important issue facing Scotland. The most important issue is demographics, but almost nothing will be written about that. Alastair Allan SNP MSP for the Western Isles has admitted the importance of demographics. … Continue reading Voting with Our Feet
BY EFFIE DEANS If there were a Scottish independence referendum tomorrow who would win? I genuinely have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. You might as well toss a coin. But let’s ask a different question. If you asked 1000 Scottish nationalists who would win an independence referendum, 999 or more would answer that their side would win. If you asked 1000 Pro UK … Continue reading Nationalists’ Misplaced Confidence
BY EFFIE DEANS When the clocks change each year in Scotland each spring, I am able to see more of it. The weather may vary, but the daylight doesn’t and by June we have so much light that it is possible to go almost anywhere and get back in the same day. I take my own coffee and buy sandwiches in a supermarket so the … Continue reading Peace and Prosperity
BY EFFIE DEANS There is a tower near where I live. It was built in honour of some now forgotten landowner. The tower itself is almost forgotten and must attract few if any visitors. Yet when I turned up for the first time in many years, I discovered that it was locked by a chain and padlock. At the beginning of the pandemic, I imagine … Continue reading The Bin Elections
BY EFFIE DEANS Any measure that could conceivably be made to limit illegal immigration would be condemned by various people on the Left as godless or evil. Sending migrants to Rwanda has Ian Blackford, Nicola Sturgeon and various Scottish nationalist commentators tutting about wicked Tories showing once more why virtuous Scotland has to leave the UK. But so too would doing anything else. It might … Continue reading The SNP Rwanda Hypocrisy
BY KEN GRIFFIN Dear Editor, Good day to you. A friend of mine took a humorous poke at me the other week and made mention of wolf reintroduction in Scotland, and it brings to mind something I have been working through my mind regarding the human species. I term it thus : The finite extent of otherwise educated rationale. This deals with the academic capacity … Continue reading Unintended Consequences
BY EFFIE DEANS The war between Russia and Ukraine is essentially about different forms of nationalism. It is for this reason that it is relevant to Scotland. This is why the SNP is trying to create a narrative which it hopes will be helpful to its goal. After all Ukraine is the result of a successful secession movement. But it is also the victim of … Continue reading What Ukraine Teaches Us About Scottish & Irish Nationalism
BY ROGER WATSON Over twenty years ago when I lived with my family in the halls of residence at The University of Edinburgh the best time of the year was the Christmas break when the students went home. Only a handful of families who served as wardens remained and we had twenty two frosty acres, under the shadow of Arthur’s Seat to ourselves. One evening … Continue reading Urban Fox Hunting: Worth Considering?
BY EFFIE DEANS There is a moment in the Godfather when Vito Corleone tells his rather dense son Sonny “Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking again.” He was right. The fact that Sonny revealed his opinion leads directly to an assassination attempt on Don Corleone and indirectly to Sonny’s death. I was reminded of this when Nicola Sturgeon chose to reveal her … Continue reading Having a Mayor
BY ROGER WATSON I was born in rural Scotland where people from the next village, about three miles away, were considered foreigners. The Black gangstas of South London had nothing on our territoriality. In North East Scotland, anyone from a smaller town was referred to as a ‘teuchter’. Thus, people from Aberdeen referred to us as teuchters and we—who lived in Banchory—referred in turn to … Continue reading At Last, I Found the Courage to Come Out!
BY NOEL YAXLEY If you want a case study in how to turn your country into an authoritarian hellhole, may I suggest you start with Scotland: notably the Scottish National Party. Nicola Sturgeon’s tartan tyrants could no doubt write a masterful account of the subject, an excellent vade mecum for the would-be aspiring dictator — although I’m sure they would find a reason to burn … Continue reading Spanking Dictators
BY EFFIE DEANS Ukraine as a truly independent state has already ceased to exist. It may end up as a Russian vassal or it may largely be absorbed into Russia, but it is hard to see how it can truly regain control over its territory in the near future if ever. The Russians have taken over the second largest country in Europe. They cannot take … Continue reading We Must Defeat the USSR Again
BY ROGER WATSON While we are not in the season for harvesting potatoes in this country, each time I open a pack of potatoes I cannot help being reminded of the October break we used to have from school in Scotland known as ‘The Tattie Holidays’ (the Scottish word for potato is ‘tattie’). They have almost faded from memory now as the generations of those—like … Continue reading The Acceptable Face of Child Slavery
BY EFFIE DEANS What is the greatest strategic threat facing the UK? Is it the next letter of the Greek alphabet Π [Pi] giving us a new more deadly variant of Covid? Well assuming that Π doesn’t offend the Chinese masters of the World Health Organisation like Ξ [Xi] did, it would still be no threat to the UK. An illness would have to be … Continue reading The SNP Variant
BY EFFIE DEANS When I read that Nicola Sturgeon wants to chop off the bottom of all the classroom doors in Scotland to increase ventilation my first thought was why don’t they open the windows instead? Decades from now as people wander through Scottish schools with doors like no others in the world, they might be curious about the phenomenon of the Scottish door. It … Continue reading Cutting off the Branch on Which She Sits
