Thursday , March 28 2024

Effie Deans

Effie Deans is a pro UK blogger. She spent many years living in Russia and the Soviet Union, but came home to Scotland so as to enjoy living in a multi-party democracy! When not occupied with Scottish politics she writes fiction and thinks about theology, philosophy and Russian literature.

And now, the end is near

The odds of Boris Johnson remaining Prime Minister in 2022 are now 1/41. If you think he will stay until 2023 you can get odds of 29/1 or until 2024 37/1. This means we are going to have a new Prime Minister soon. There is no point any longer debating …

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Sturgeon lacks the intelligence in both senses of the word

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. …

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Putin the Terrible

It is difficult to write about a fast-moving conflict with limited information and much disinformation. But it is impossible to write about anything else as every other topic looks trivial. I am uninterested in the domestic politics of the UK and cannot bring myself even to notice whatever Nicola Sturgeon …

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He and She

When the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed and China briefly looked as if it might go the same way with the Tiananmen Square protests, the West declared itself the victor, history had ended and we could sink into our sofas. We began to get fatter and lazier. …

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Never send for whom the birthday candles burn

There may have been some former Prime Ministers who were so saintly that everything they said and did in private in 10 Downing Street would have met the standards of probity set by Britain’s media, but I can’t think of one of them. Nor would I or anyone else that …

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Many are called but few are chosen.

I think Britain was at its happiest in the first few years of Tony Blair. Thatcher had kept winning, because the alternative was Michael Foot and then Neil Kinnock, but most people did not much like her, let alone love her.  We were willing to tolerate the tough unpleasant medicine of …

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Twitter might as well ban Jesus Christ too

I had only vaguely heard of US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene before Twitter banned her. From what little I have read of her I disagree with what she has said about Covid, vaccines and many other issues. But I can only disagree with her if I am allowed to know …

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What’s the real level of support for Scotland leaving the UK?

What’s the real level of support for Scottish independence? We don’t know. What’s the real level of support for Scottish separation? This might be a different number, but we still don’t know it. What’s the real level of support for Scotland leaving the UK rather than remaining in the UK? …

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Only the terrorist is guilty

Whenever there is a terrorist attack in somewhere like Israel, we are told by the BBC that it carried out by militants. It gives the impression that the far left from the 1980s stopped handing out newspapers to blow himself up. Only when a terrorist attack happens here in Britain …

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Are Scottish civil servants scared to tell Sturgeon the truth?

The SNP’s latest document “A stronger economy with independence” masquerades as some sort of objective analysis put together by impartial observers. We know however that those civil servants who were paid to write it depend for their jobs on coming up with the right answers. Telling Sturgeon that we would …

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The SNP have just been badly defeated

Things haven’t been going terribly well for Nicola Sturgeon in recent weeks. Her one-time Covid elimination strategy looks still more foolish now when even New Zealand has had to abandon it. If the saintly Jacinda Arden cannot manage to keep Covid from spreading in a country two and half thousand …

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End feminist prejudice

If there is a terrorist attack committed by a British Muslim, we are not allowed to make generalisations about Muslims. For instance, if I wrote a sign saying “End Muslim violence” this would be considered to be Islamophobic and racist. If there were a murder committed by someone who had …

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Scotland is poorer because of Sturgeon not Brexit

Nicola Sturgeon thinks the wicked Tories came up with a cunning plan to stop Scotland becoming independent. They invented Brexit, which was designed to make Scotland poorer and more dependent on the UK. Having done their worst to make Scotland poorer these despicable Tories now dare to say we can’t …

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A new wicked Tory Poll Tax?

The SNP has responded to the rise in National Insurance by calling it a poll tax on Scottish workers. The complaint is that the tax rise will be used to fund health and social care in England, which will mean Scottish tax payers paying for something they won’t use and …

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Refusing to serve Dominic Cummings is mere bigotry

Last year Boris Johnson went on holiday to the Applecross peninsular in the West Highlands. After a few days his presence there was discovered and he and his family were forced to leave. This year we learn that Dominic Cummings went to the Ceilidh Place in Ullapool and the staff …

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Afghanistan keep out

The Afghans succeed in destroying the British Army which invaded in 1839 and causing the British Empire no end of trouble until we decided to finally leave it alone. They succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union after the invasion of 1979 and have now defeated the coalition led by the …

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The worst thing the SNP can do to you

What’s the worst thing the SNP could do to you personally? Many Pro UK people would assume that it would be if Sturgeon achieved her goal of Scottish independence. But this is not true. Whatever we might think about the economic consequences of the breakup of the UK these would …

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What shall we call them?

They joy of being a civil servant in Scotland has just increased. The Scottish Government is backing proposals to encourage eight thousand of them to take a pronoun pledge. Fortunately, this will not involve abstaining from alcohol as previous pledges once did, nor will it involve polishing wooden furniture. Rather …

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The Great Indy and Ref Swindle

If I go around knocking on doors collecting for a local cancer charity, but it turns out the money is going to me, I am liable to be convicted of fraud and might expect to spend some time in jail. If Nicola Sturgeon asks independence supporters to provide money for …

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