Tag: scotland

Books, scotland

The Destruction of the Scottish Mind

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

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scotland

Whiffier Than Rotting Fish

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

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Conservation, countryside

RSPB Fails & Anti-Shooting Bluster

BY BERT BURNETT We keep hearing this soundbite … “Scotland is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, and our country’s biodiversity has been altered by centuries of habitat loss, fragmentation and management changes.” But where is this decline taking place? It’s not on managed moors be they Highland, Perthshire, Angus or Southern. These areas abound with a complete package of waders, … Continue reading RSPB Fails & Anti-Shooting Bluster

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scotland

Yousaf Hopelessly Biased on Gaza

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

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scotland

Learning at the Feet of Erdogan & Putin

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

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scotland

The SNP Has Destroyed Scottish Education

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

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editorial

Some BTO Monitors Can’t Count

CSM EDITORIAL The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is responsible for dishing out licences to bird monitors. And such an established body would – one would hope – do some basic due diligence on those licensed operatives doing the counting in their name. Sadly, for a very long while now, raptor persecution has been the weapon anti grouse shooting animal rights extremists have chosen to … Continue reading Some BTO Monitors Can’t Count

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scotland

The Scottish Spring Has Turned into Winter

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

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scotland

Yousurf, Matheson & Titillating Footie in Morocco

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

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scotland

But Does the EU Want Scotland?

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?

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scotland

Does Scotland Need More Migrants?

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?

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scotland

Yousaf, Jack & Chinese Emperor Gaozong of Qing

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

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Labour Antisemitism

Keir the Feeble

BY EFFIE DEANS I was horrified by Jeremy Corbyn in a way that I wasn’t horrified by any previous Labour leader. I might have disagreed with previous leaders, but they were within the mainstream of British politics. Corbyn was not. He was an extremist who supported terrorists and quite frankly hated Britain. The one thing that has worried me since 2019 is that every single … Continue reading Keir the Feeble

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scotland

The SNP is a Dwindling Band of Fantasists

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

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scotland

Fergus Ewing’s Witches Brew

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

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Politics

The Left Has Disgraced Itself Over Israel

BY EFFIE DEANS There is probably nowhere in the world which has had such a long and on the whole successful experiment with socialism as Israel. In no other western country that I can think of are there anything like the kibbutzim in Israel. Here are small experiments in socialism which to various degrees put into practice the ideals of shared ownership, collective living and … Continue reading The Left Has Disgraced Itself Over Israel

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