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 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
CSM EDITORIAL This magazine is proud to publish the writings of Effie Deans. She writes clear and illuminating articles – often to highlight the nonsense going on up north over the border as Sturgeon’s mayoralty gets a tad too big for its wee booties. The downside to publishing Effie’s work is the kickback that the magazine receives from the so-called cybernats. These comprise the SNP … Continue reading England’s Cyber Nats
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 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 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 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 NIGEL BEAN & PAUL READ After five years of trying to smear hunt folk with false allegations of illegal hunting up in Scotland using highly edited videos, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) appear to have finally thrown in the towel. If you want to read an account of what happened from a newspaper that threw its weight behind the League’s tawdry campaign then … Continue reading SNP’s Toxic LACS Relationship
BY EFFIE DEANS The problem with Scottish politics is that we have a devolved parliament that is uninterested in devolution. Scottish politicians of all political parties pretend to be interested in those areas of life that the Scottish Parliament actually controls, but campaign primarily on issues that we don’t control. The same goes for supporters. What areas are controlled by the Scottish Government. Well here … Continue reading The SNP Whelk Stall
BY EFFIE DEANS There’s a long street in Aberdeen called Union Street, but the name has nothing to do with England and Scotland. It was named after the Act of Union between the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland in 1800. The Conservative Party is officially the Conservative and Unionist Party. But the Unionist bit is due to the merger in 1912 … Continue reading Union Beware
BY EDWARD THOMAS BLACK Every country has its shameful past. Fortunately – for most – the past is well in the past. A product of different times and difference circumstances. However one country in Europe is in the unfortunate position of simultaneously living its shameful past and its shameful present. That country is Scotland. Why should we Scots be living through shameful times? For one. … Continue reading SNP Shame
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 MARK LEES There’s plenty to admire about Nicola Sturgeon. She’s come a long way since being nicknamed “Seaweed” at school – back then even the tide wouldn’t take her out. She’s graduated all the way up to First Minister and con-woman to boot. Be clear, people. Scottish Independence is a misdirection play. A distraction from the dire state of the NHS under SNP government … Continue reading Get Stuffed, Seaweed
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
Scottish Grouse shooting estates fear any introduction of a licensing system will expose them further to false claims by campaigners vying to have them closed down. In 2017, Scottish Government announced an independent review of grouse shooting, looking at new legislative options including licensing. Campaigners want licensing so that, should criminality be suspected on a grouse moor, licences could be removed on a reduced proof … Continue reading Scottish Estates Under Threat
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 NIGEL BEAN I have already discussed in a previous article the pivotal role fake news played in securing the hunting ban in 2004 and gave the example of an article written by Anthony Bartlett, then public affairs editor for The Guardian. The article was mischievously entitled “Vets say hunted foxes die in agony” when in fact not one vet actually said that. The article … Continue reading More Hunting Fake News
