Murder of a member of Parliament

 An important dimension to the murder of Sir Derek Amess is discussed in this article (about the position in Scotland):

CSM 05 - Amess and no Scottish surgeries

Enjoy!

The AUKUS deal and the rule of law

 A must read on Scotland's delicate position in the emerging global architecture, as dictate by English-speaking countries' responses to China's attempt to destroy the rule of law internationally:

CapX 05 - China, the Arctic and Trident 

Sturgeon in Scotland is like Putin - never listens to anything

 Try to substitute Putin and the Duma for Sturgeon and the Scottish parliament when you read this piece:

TCW - Answer the question, Ms Sturgeon

Here is the book referred to:

The Justice Factory (second edition): Can the Rule of Law Survive in Twenty-First Century Scotland?

Enjoy!

Rule of Law and democracy are NOT the same thing - though they ought to work together more than they do

 Very interesting article on the above subject:

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/eroding-the-rule-of-law-the-snps-brit-haters/ 

The imperialism of the anti-=imperialists

Check this out:  

https://countrysquire.co.uk/2021/06/16/the-imperialism-of-anti-imperialists/ 

When King Edward said: "I want to pump shit" ...

Chips Channon Diaries

This film is a review of the beautifully written diaries of a waspish insider (American who became and MP and married into the Guinness family) and obsessional social climber, from 1918-38. It includes his visit to the Olympics in Berlin and his impressions of the competitive party-giving by Ribbentrop, Goering and Goebbels (each of which he attended). It goes on to cover Channon's dislike of socialists (except Ramsay MacDonald as ex-socialist) and, most remarkably of all, the night the King came to dinner, and the extraordinary thing he said. I am sure you will enjoy watching - just 35 minutes! 60 - Chips Channon Diaries - ed. Heffer (2021) - YouTube

Elections and the Putin approach to Scottish poltics

 This is what happened when I tried to ask the candidates int his election a few questions: Hustings by Email in Scotland – COUNTRY SQUIRE MAGAZINE

And this is the latest 5-star review of my book on Amazon:

Jim

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book for anyone wanting to understand how modern Scotland is governed.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 May 2021

Verified Purchase

This is really two books in one, it is Ian Mitchell's 2008 explanation of different systems of law across the globe and an explanation of the development of Scottish law. It is very approachable and no where near as dry as the subject matter would lead you to believe. The final third is a codicil written lat in 2020 that explains the current defects in the Scottish political/legal system. An important book for anyone wanting to understand how modern Scotland is governed.

Enjoy!

Similarity between Peter III and Nicola Sturgeon

 

Reading in bed this morning an Edwardian biography of Peter III of Russia, a tragic figure because of his pro-Prussian obsession (he was also Duke of Holstein), I came upon a sentence describing him which struck me as applying to Nicola Sturgeon: "No stubbornness is so stubborn as that of a feeble mind under the domination of a fixed idea." (Nisbet Bain, Peter III, 1902, p. 43; to Bain and his contemporaries, “feeble” implied “narrow”)

I wish I had conveyed that point as clearly in my own book which, though not on Sturgeon specifically, mentions her a lot and is, in the second half, substantially about the SNP stubborn obsession with a fixed idea. The idea was born in the seventies, nourished in the eighties by Margaret Thatcher, and given an opportunity to come to fruition by Blair, Dewar and the Labour gang who thought it would make them friends in Scotland. Then – horror of horrors – it was rejected by the Scottish people, rather as the Russian nobility rejected the Prussianism of Peter.

Nonetheless, the circumstances have something in common. Let us hope that Sturgeon and the pilot fish that swim about her, catering to her every obsession, come to as abrupt an end as Peter did (though not in the same way: he was beaten to death by Count Orlov in his palace and the rumour put about that he had died of “haemorrhoidal colic”).

My description of the "court" surrounding Sturgeon, and the obsequiousness of its members, which reminds me of the eighteenth century Russian court, with all the corruption but without the talent, can be read here: "THE JUSTICE FACTORY: CAN THE RULE OF LAW SURVIVE IN 21st CENTURY SCOTLAND?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020)

It is not a party-political screed. It has been endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum here: Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow. The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II.

Details of the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

A Russian Tsar

   

 A Scottish nationalist

Who started the First World War?

Watch a video review of the most recent and authoritative biography of Sir Edward Grey, the man who took Britain to war in 1914 as Foreign Secretary. Considers the question of whose fault the war was and whether the "war guilt" allegation against Germany is fair. Compares the Prussian military militants with the Scottish political militants in Holyrood today in terms of both groups' preference for conflict rather than the negotiated settlement of disputes.

Was the "war guilt clause" in the Versailles peace treaty in 1919 fair in saying "Germany did it"?

Make you own mind up based on this biography of the man who took Britain to war in defence of the treaty rights of neutral Belgium.

At this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QYNgCS_K8Y

Scotland's problem today - it's mean, nationalistic, authoritarian, repressive government. Sounds familiar?

 

Having now become the envy of Europe with the vaccine, DUE to British free and flexible policies, Britain will no doubt go on to greater things. But Scotland must remember that the paramount issue is not money, or how many "likes" Sturgeon gets to her bureaucratic belches from Barnier or Von der Leyen. It is not even the number of matrasses lying in the street in Govan Hill. It is how successful we are at defending the RULE OF LAW.

I see grave dangers ahead due to Sturgeonish (but not only her) quasi-totalitarian tendencies. They manifest themselves in bureaucratic authoritarianism which apes the techno-oligarchy of Europe in its quiet suppression of the freedom of the individual.

I have tried to explain this, and the long history of the fight for the rule of law, in which Scotland played a distinguished part, in this book: "THE JUSTICE FACTORY: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020) It is not a party-political screed. It has been endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum here: Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow.

The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II. Details of the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

Scottish elections under threat from Putin-style Scottish National party

 

The general election in Scotland scheduled for this may will almost certainly be called off, using the excuse of Covid, if the SNP fear they might lose it. You watch. And they might well sense that something is wrong with the previously reliable electorate, which it undoubtedly is from their point of view.

 There are two reasons for this. First, respectable Scots (who are still in the majority) are beginning to realise that Sturgeon is Lady Macbeth, and Humza Yousaf (her likely successor if Salmond gets her out) the new Witch-Finder General (to mix metaphors).

Secondly, there is a new organisation, called the Alliance for Unity (A4U) which is adopting Alexey Navalny's approach to elections. In his case, he recommends to voters, through a website, which is the best party to beat Edinaya Rossia in any given seat. This was very successful in the regional Duma elections last year, and he has the Kremlin worried about the state Duma elections scheduled for this September.

A4U plans to adopt a similar approach in Scotland. It will do two things: it will advise voters which is the most likely candidate to beat either the SNP or the "quisling" Green Party (currently in coalition with the SNP, though they got 0.6% of the first-past-the-post seats in the last general election). Secondly, it will put up some candidates itself in seats where it might also make inroads into the "list" (i.e. proportional representation) seats. It is hoped to make an electoral pact with the opposition parties to increase the chances of eliminating the SNP-Green axis from these seats. This is quite possible under the d'Hondt system (which is incomprehensible to 98% of the electorate - in itself an EU-style abuse of the spirit of democracy).

In addition, the A4U plans to put up candidates of its own in the “list” seats. These will range from George Galloway, an ex-communist, to Professor Alan Sked, the founder of UKIP. This sort of rainbow coalition of traditional Scottish individualists will give life to the funereal Holyrood parliament (which makes sessions of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland look like a West Indian ganja rave), and also represent the sort of contribution which this country has made to the Union over the past three centuries. Part of the aim is to break the stranglehold on political debate that is now maintained by the Soviet-style, hyper-PC, over-woke, anti-individualistic, centralising bureaucratic authoritarianism of the increasingly corrupt SNP-Green government.

In other words, the A4U is a cross-party initiative. It aims to save not just the Union and the rule of law, but also political life and therefore democracy in Scotland. All of these are under threat, as I have argued in my new book THE JUSTICE FACTORY: CAN THE RULE OF LAW SURVIVE IN 21st CENTURY SCOTLAND? (Ian Mitchell, 2020). The Foreword is by Lord Hope of Craighead (cross-bench Convenor in the House of Lords until 2019) and the Introduction to Part II is by Alan Page, Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Dundee and author of the standard authority: “Constitutional Law of Scotland”. It has the support of Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist and Stone thief, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow. Like the A4U this is a “cross-party” text.

You can get all the background to the decay of politics in devolutionary Scotland, plus the wider constitutional history of the evolution of the rule of law in Great Britain, while also supporting the cause of national enlightenment on this subject (which is urgent given the election coming up in May), by purchasing a copy from Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

 

The culture of lies and lying (and moral corruption) in Scottish hyper-nationalist government today

It is not just Russia, Belarus or Donald Trump's Republican extremists that are afflicted by the collapse of democratic ideals. Scotland is too. The culture of lies and lying is everywhere now in this government of moral degenerates. Scotland is being run by the sort of clannish, half-brained wannabe-boss-class losers that once ran “Jim Crow” Alabama. They have to be stopped. Sturgeon must be put on trial for organising what amounts to a civil service lynch-mob.

The most important thing to understand about the SNP is that they are a bunch of HATERS. No issue is important to them than their own self-interest. They hate each other as much as they hate the rest of us who do not bow down to their self-proclaimed political divinity.

Nicola Sturgeon herself confessed to Mandy Rhodes, in a book called "Scottish National Party Leaders" (2016), that hatred has been "the motivation for my entire political career" (p. 358). This is an essentially negative position, and it springs from a psychological rather than a political root. They are mostly frustrated egotists who find normal socialisation difficult due to the fact that the world by and large does not take them at their OWN estimation of their value. All their geese are Concordes (Scottish built, of course).

I have written a book which describes the threats to the rule of law springing from their hatred (both self- and social-) at any restraint on their power, and their desperation to be in control of every aspect of all of OUR lives. The rule of law depends ultimately RECIPROCITY between the rulers and the ruled. Sturgeon’s self-obsession is a mortal threat to the main legal principle which Scotland has lived under since the seventeenth century.

The book is called "The Justice Factory: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020) The Foreword was written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and the Professor of Public Law who is author “Constitutional Law of Scotland” wrote the Introduction to Part II. It is not a party political argument, and has been endorsed by both Ian (“Stone of Destiny”) Hamilton QC and Adam Tomkins, the Tory MSP who is also Professor of Constitutional law in the University of Glasgow.

It is an as yet untold story, but a very, very important. You can support the cause of ridding Scotland of political haters by circulating the book as widely as you can. Details here (available on Kindle too): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860 

Here below is an article about the book and the problem in Scotland: 

Corruption of governance in Scotland under bureaucratic-authrolitarian nationalists

Nicola  Sturgeon, accused of bureaucratic corruption in Scotland, will NOT resign as First Minister, even though what she did was undoubtedly a resigning matter, and would have been for almost anyone else (possibly even Salmond). She is a different proposition.

Sturgeon is like Nixon in that she genuinely does not see that what she did was wrong. She believes anything which will further her cause is legitimate, in the same way that Nixon put it long after Watergate to David Frost in their television interviews. If I may quote from my book which starts with this case, and ends with a prediction of the destruction of Scottish legalism by a hyper-nationalist government:

 

"Nixon’s view was that executive privilege covered anything the President might want to do. 'If the President does it, that means that it is not illegal,' he said later in a televised interview with David Frost. This essentially monarchical conception of power is precisely what the framers of the Constitution wanted to avoid when they introduced into practical government for the first time in history the concept of the separation of powers." (p. 29)

 

“If Sturgeon does it, that means that it is not illegal” - that seems to be her view. And it is only the institutions of Scotland, in particular the judiciary, which have the power to force her out of office. The civil service has already been corrupted by politicisation (analysed in my Part II), and the police are now a form of gendarmerie, controlled by the state. There is only the judiciary left.

The battle between the judiciary and the whole single-government (i.e. legislature and partisan civil service) apparatus in Edinburgh is the defining conflict in post-devolution Scottish politics. I have already written here about how Donald Dewar introduced into the first draft of the Scotland Act a provision which would have given the First Minister the power to hire and fire judges, which would have meant the end of the separation of powers due to abrogation of judicial independence, held since 1701 under the Act of Settlement. (see pp. 320-2) That would have opened the way to quasi-totalitarian government, restrained only by the Human Rights Act and the UK Supreme Court.

Here the issue is this: what will the still independent judiciary do and - more importantly - WHEN will they be given the opportunity to do it? (This is an issue similar to that in the second Trump impeachment as, if they cannot act until after the May elections, that will be pointless.) My book tells the story of the post-devolution judiciary in Scotland and might be consulted by those with an interest in this key constitutional question: is the Frist Minister any longer bound by the conventions of democratic politics or does she have the sort of "executive privilege" which Nixon claimed?

My arguments are supported by some important figures in law. The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II.

See "THE JUSTICE FACTORY: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020)

Details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

Fascinating article on fascinating subject... Scotland's descent into medievalism

 https://scottishlibertarians.com/scots-the-noo-people-or-peasants/ 

Nationalists creating new borders WITHIN the United Kingdom

 

Sturgeon’s obvious glee at the bright idea of using Covid to separate holy Scotland from chauvinistic, useless, prejudiced, xenophobic, militaristic, Trident-loving, French-hating, Boris-obeying, non-SNP-voting England is embarrassing to behold. IF, and it is a big "if", there is any rational case for using geographical segregation as a tool against the virus, then it should focus on separating the diseased areas from the healthy ones, so that the former can be locked down and the rest allowed to get on with life and earning some money for the country as a whole.

Dividing by counties is absurd - Argyll embraces near-Glasgow areas which are diseased with others like the islands and Kintyre which are comparatively free of Covid. In fact, a close look at the virus map would reveal that it is the most densely populated areas which are worst effected (no surprise there). BUT – and here's the interesting point – if that is correlated with the political map it will be seen that it is overwhelmingly (though not uniformly) true that the most diseased areas are SNP-supporting ones. The least diseased are the Tory ones.

If "President" Sturgeon really wanted to help, she would close off the diseased areas of the country from the healthy ones, but that would disadvantage her supporters and give a boost to her "enemies" (as she sees them). So the whole of Scotland is made to suffer from her blunt-instrument approach, which is destructive. Much more importantly, it is an indirect attack on the rule of law. It is by no means the first in her administration, and will not be the last, I am sure. But a pattern is beginning to emerge. She used the state apparatus to further her political goals. THAT is very much what Donald Trump has been doing, and I think she should be seen in that light - which is why I recently published my book on the wider subject of Scottish history and legal virtue.

It is called "THE JUSTICE FACTORY: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020) It is not a party-political screed. It has been endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum here: Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow. The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II. Details of the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860  

Politicisation of the civil service undermines democracy and the rule of law

 Politicised civil service

 

 The rule of law cannot survive if you have a politicised civil service (never mind the other significant problems raised). Few people realise just how far that degenerative process has gone in Scotland since the SNP assumed the reins of government.
If I may quote briefly from my book on the subject:

"Immediately after the SNP got into power in 2007, it announced that it was going to change the name of the Scottish Executive so that both it and what was previously referred to as the Scottish Ministers became one entity called the “Scottish government”.
Announced initially as “re-branding”, it was made official when the Scotland Act was amended in 2012. The country is now run by a body officially known as the “Scottish Government/Riaghaltas na h-Alba”. This obscures the distinction between politically responsible ministers (responsible to parliament and the electorate) and politically neutral administrators (responsible to law for ethics and to minsters for policy). If they are still separate organisations, why do they have the same name? Who, outside the Edinburgh elite, understands the distinction between the Scottish Government/Riaghaltas na h-Alba and the Scottish Government/Riaghaltas na h-Alba?"

For further details, and much information on how the civil service was used to promote the SNP view of the 2014 referendum, and is still doing much they same thing, see "The Justice Factory: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020)
It is not a party-political screed. The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work on the subject, has written an Introduction to Part II.
This is an as yet untold story, but a very, very important one if the British state is to survive with the ideals it has embraced about civic government roughly since the Act of Union, of which the main one is the rule of law, at the centre of which is the principle of the separation of powers. The Scottish nationalists want to undermine that in order to establish a form of populist absolutism in Edinburgh. Now is the time for all good folk to come to the aid of the country and of course democracy. Without the rule of law, that is a dead letter.
Details of the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

 

Similarities between Donald Trump's mob in Washington and Nicola Sturgeon's nationalist mob in Scotland

 The SNP is becoming like Trump. Perhaps we should not be surprised as the universal effect of hate to become like that which you hate.

I as an anti-nationalist have had the most abusively Trumpish responses from nationalists to expressions of opinions different from theirs. Most are obscene; many are illiterate; and a good many exhibit a gloating triumphalism due to the writer's assumption that Sturgeon is creating something close to a one-party state in Scotland.
The most recent, was a commentator who said that after independence "there'll be a lamppost waiting for you, sooner rather than later." If this is not Scottish Trumpism I do not know what is.
The essential issue here is the rule of law. I believe its future in Scotland is no longer guaranteed. We cannot take civilisation for granted. We need to do something serious about that. If you want to understand the background and context of this (hitherto obscure) issue, you could do a lot worse than get yourself a copy of "The Justice Factory: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" (Ian Mitchell, 2020)
It is not a party-political screed. It has been endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum here: Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow.
The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II.
This book ought to sit on the desks of all important political commentators because it is an as yet untold story, but a very, very important one if the British state is to survive with the ideals it has embraced about civic government roughly since the Act of Union, of which the main one is the rule of law. Now is the time for all good folk to come to the aid of the country and of course democracy. Without the rule of law, that is a dead letter.
Details of the book (and Kindle) here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp...

Is "deliberative democracy" for England only?

 

It cannot said too often that one part of the UK – Scotland – is moving AWAY from the model of "deliberative democracy" and is PROUD OF THE FACT. Before the Union sunders as a result of one part ("deliberative England") not knowing what afflicts another part ("progressive Scotland" in which, as one Facebook commentator put it two days ago after a post of mine "there will be a lamppost waiting for you, sooner rather than later"), it is essential that those of us who support the Union as a bastion in the world of the rule of law make ourselves heard on the reality of the dangers facing us right now.   

England may evolve towards a more caring, sharing democratic model, but Scotland is evolving towards one in which there are far too many people who are proud of their intolerance of what they see as "English Tory" opinions, views and way of life. This is not a new development. It has been in train ever since Mrs Thatcher expressed her own pride in the apparent destruction of the socialist outlook on life which had taken hold in Scotland in the early twentieth century, ousting the individualistic Liberalism that was the country's main political centre since male democracy was introduced by Disraeli and Gladstone. Now the people who lost under Thatcher are claiming their negativity back. They are desperate to unleash on what they see as Thatcherites the kind of revenge which the peasantry unleashed on the Russian landholding class after the near-revolution of 1905. (i.e. plenty of house and barn burning, but not too much murder - at least not yet; that had to wait for 1917).   

Many years ago, I started to write about this, and two months ago my book was published. I have tried to describe how the gerrymandering of the Scottish parliament by Donald Dewar has led to the situation we are currently in (and also how he tried to take the judges under political control, but was foiled in the House of lords). He wanted to create a permanent Labour majority, but ended up creating a permanent anti-Union one.   

I urge the political class in Britain which advocates for the tender care for democracy described in this well-meaning but to me limited article (as it does not deal with the UK outside England) to make themselves aware of the forces which are moving underfoot right at this moment (next Scottish election is in May; just for moths away).   

My book is called "The Justice Factory: Can the Rule of Law Survive in 21st Century Scotland?" It is not a party-political screed. It has been endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum here: Ian ("Stone of Destiny") Hamilton QC, the renegade nationalist, and Adam Tomkins, who is both an MSP (Tory) and Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Glasgow.   

The Foreword is written by Lord Hope of Craighead, ex-Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at Dundee, who is the author “Constitutional Law of Scotland”, the main reference work, has written an Introduction to Part II.   

This book ought to sit on the desks of all important political commentators because it is an as yet untold story, but a very, very important one if the British state is to survive with the ideals it has embraced about civic government roughly since the Act of Union, of which the main one is the rule of law. Now is the time for all good folk to come to the aid of the country and of course democracy.   

Details of the book here (paperback or Kindle)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1981993401?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860