BY CALUM CAMPBELL Let’s cut straight to it. The Cairngorms National Park is shouting from the rooftops about a 30% increase in capercaillie numbers this year. They’re claiming their £12-13m Emergency Plan is working. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find something rather inconvenient. Kinveachy Estate – which is part of Seafield and Strathspey estates – saw their capercaillie numbers leap from 25 to … Continue reading Greenwashing Lek Counts?
BY ALEX STORY The Progressive haunts our public square. You will find him effortlessly promoting his creed on our screens, our universities, the HR departments of our largest companies, our civil service and our parliament. He is part of our “new establishment“, according to Andrew Neil, the veteran broadcaster. He is everywhere. You know him because he tells you, shamelessly, when he introduces himself. He … Continue reading The Progressive
BY SEAN WALSH Just to be clear, it is not the people who brought the truth to the Arday situation who are responsible for his death. That is an absurd, back-to-front claim. It is like blaming the specialist who spots the cancer for not saving the patient, even though he is the only one who tried. But precisely because it is an absurd and back-to-front … Continue reading The Cruel Mercy of Truth
BY DR ALEX BARATTA As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”. In 2026, this quote still has arguable validity, though it’s perhaps not about hatred per se. Rather, accent bias is more to do with believing that certain accents are a bad fit for specific professions and … Continue reading Accent – The Last Taboo in Britain
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a madness peculiar to the over-educated, chronically online progressive—a psychosis of over-correction, not always malice, though the post-Widdicombe-Kirk strain is real and includes those capable of more than mere cruelty. It is the fever of a machine built to measure injustice, running so hot it melts its own circuitry. Thankfully, we are hearing its death rattle. But death rattles can … Continue reading The Eradication of Difference
BY MANRAJ ATWAL The King is dead; Long live the King! Or so the media declare as Britain faces up to its seventh Prime minister in a decade. The seemingly ritualistic axing of our head of government has been accompanied by all the usual rites. The choir of voices declaring “The grownups are back in charge”, the scuttling of MPs as they preach the virtues … Continue reading Devolution Is a Deflection, Not a Diagnosis
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, there is a particular gift in the quiet moments of rural life that so often pass us by. Not the showy ones—not the blazing sunsets or the dramatic thunderstorms—but the quiet, steady ones. The countryside does not rush. It has its rhythms, its seasons, its own unhurried pace. But I have also been thinking, this week, about the treasure … Continue reading A Prayer for the Wisdom of the Elders
CSM EDITORIAL Amidst a political landscape saturated with gaffes, scandals, and the dystopian reality of an unelected Prime Minister in Andy Burnham, one might expect the Conservative Party to be capitalising on every Labour misstep with ruthless efficiency. The resignation then reappointment of Louise Haigh amidst her fraud conviction, the myriad of CV mistruths emanating from the inexperienced Labour frontbench, and the sheer illegitimacy of … Continue reading A Gift to Death-Spiral Labour
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I have been thinking, this week, about the invisible threads that stitch our communities together. The cup of sugar borrowed and returned with thanks. The gate left open for the postman. The nod of recognition from the tractor driver as he passes. The fruit left on the wall for whoever might pass by. These are the small, unspoken covenants … Continue reading A Prayer for Good Neighbours
BY ALLISON LEE I had the pleasure of visiting the Great Yorkshire Show again this year, and it was another fantastic experience. Due to high demand, the number of tickets increased from 35,000 per day to 37,500, and all four days sold out. Despite the lengthy queues to enter the showground, our usual hour-long journey took almost three times as long. The event was well … Continue reading The Great Yorkshire Show
BY SEAN WALSH It strikes me as strange that people can believe in God but at the same time say that they are sceptical about or indifferent to the existence of angels and demons – purely spiritual beings (composed exclusively of intellect and will), the former being His messengers, the latter in permanent rebellion against Him. Why have God without the supernatural trimmings, the bits … Continue reading Believing God, Doubting Angels
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a silence that falls over a Devon wood in high summer. Not an absence of noise, but an absence of argument. The oaks on the Taw Valley do not hold referenda on whether to unfurl their leaves. The badgers on Dartmoor do not form working groups to reconsider the velocity of their digging. The River Exe does not consult a … Continue reading Nature’s Unwritten Constitution
BY JAMIE FOSTER Barclay Price’s Nature’s Great Masterpiece, published by Amberley Books, is a delightfully esoteric and meticulously researched gem that unearths a truly surprising strand of British social history. As the subtitle clarifies, this is not a pastoral ramble through the countryside, but a captivating chronicle of the pachyderms that have walked, trumpeted, and occasionally rampaged through our island story. Price takes the reader on … Continue reading Nature’s Great Masterpiece
BY SEAN WALSH Instead of just being a regular guy and buying a motorbike, getting a tattoo, or doing the American Beauty thing, Andy Burnham had to include all of us in his mid-life crisis by becoming prime minister. It’s still shocking to think that the constituents of Makerfield hate the rest of the country so much that they would impose this on us. But it is … Continue reading Burnham’s Vanity Street Project
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Why Gary Stevenson’s Crusade is Economically Illiterate In the crowded marketplace of economic punditry, Gary Stevenson has carved out a profitable niche. With the zeal of a convert, he stalks the media studios, wielding his LSE and Oxford credentials like a cudgel, proclaiming himself a ‘proper economist’ while peddling a simplistic, morally grandiose solution to a problem he has defined entirely in … Continue reading The Inequality Con
BY BERT BURNETT RSPB, We Warned You As the smoke continues to drift across the A9 and the acrid smell of scorched Caledonian pinewood lingers in the glens, we must take stock of the reality that has unfolded in the Cairngorms over the past week. Over 10 square kilometres of one of our most fragile and treasured habitats has been reduced to ash. More than … Continue reading Burning Questions
Dear Editor, I write to propose a small but necessary addition to the next issue of Country Squire: a complimentary box of tissues, stapled inside the cover. The intended readership? Our Argentinian friends, who woke this morning to a triple dose of national humiliation. Let us begin with the football. A dour, cynical World Cup final—lost not to genius but to Spanish monotony—has exposed Argentina for … Continue reading Pass the Tissues
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a primal brutality to the schoolyard pick. It is a distillation of human worth, stripped of all social veneer and political correctness—a moment of unvarnished truth where utility is measured in cold, kinetic terms. At prep school, the scholarship cohort was a tragicomedy: thirteen of us, anointed as the brightest, yet a mere four could coordinate hand and eye well … Continue reading The Charity Draft
BY SEAN WALSH In an episode of the 1990s comedy series Seinfeld, Jerry’s dentist decides to convert to Judaism “for the jokes”. When Jerry is asked if this offends him “as a Jewish person” he replies “No! It offends me as a comedian”. Comedy is not something that should be taken lightly. The political class would do well to remember that. It is a good … Continue reading Count Binface: A Gimmick So Funny It Requires a Labour Donor
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that you are well and healthy. In light of the suspected murder of Ann Widdecombe, the following prayer is apt: Dear Lord,We come before You in this golden month, when the earth is soft and the light is long, and we ask for the grace of peace. Not the peace of absence—the mere silence of guns … Continue reading A Prayer for Calm
