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How to Defeat the Far Right and Fascism in Scotland, the UK and West

September 29, 2025
How to Defeat the Far Right and Fascism in Scotland, the UK and West Sunday National, 28 September 2025 Gerry Hassan The myth of British exceptionalism has collapsed in relation to the far right and fascism. There has been for too long a belief that Britain was somehow exempt from such politics and that its institutions and culture was immune. The Scottish version of this - a smug, self-congratulatory story - has stressed that our civic, inclusive culture makes us less susceptible to racism, racists and bigotry. This view was always deluded, especially given our history of anti-Irish racism. But

Continue Reading How to Defeat the Far Right and Fascism in Scotland, the UK and West

Britain is Broken: What it means and where are we going?

August 30, 2025
Britain is Broken: What it means and where are we going? Sunday National, 29 August 2025 Gerry Hassan Britain is in crisis. Doom and gloom are everywhere. The right see this as an existential mess where everything they detest can be torn down. Meanwhile what passes for the centre-left shifts ever rightward to appease the increasingly emboldened right. The UK has been in crisis before. The early 1960s saw widespread debate about national decline and the UK’s inability to economically modernise. The late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed similar discussions about the UK’s laggard economic performance and how to remove

Continue Reading Britain is Broken: What it means and where are we going?

Lonely at the Top: Sturgeon, Leadership and Regrets: Review of Nicola Sturgeon, Frankly, Macmillan £28.

August 17, 2025
Lonely at the Top: Sturgeon, Leadership and Regrets Bella Caledonia, 15 August 2025 Gerry Hassan Frankly is a major political occasion which has got people talking and taking sides – either defending or defenestrating Nicola Sturgeon as a leader, politician and her legacy. Sturgeon invites strong reactions. There are those who feel loyalty, even affinity, to her and what she represents. Equally there is a significant body of opinion who regard her as divisive, out of touch and having let down people – a view shared even by some in the SNP and pro-independence. There is no doubt that this

Continue Reading Lonely at the Top: Sturgeon, Leadership and Regrets: Review of Nicola Sturgeon, Frankly, Macmillan £28.

Dreaming of Post-War Scotland: How do we tell the full complex stories of ourselves?

August 10, 2025
Dreaming of Post-War Scotland: How do we tell the full complex stories of ourselves? Bella Caledonia, 8 August 2025  Gerry Hassan The Invisible Spirit, Surgeon’s Hall, until 9 August; the Space Venue 45, 11, 13-16 August; the Space, Niddry Street, 18-23 August. Make It Happen, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, until 9 August. Alistair Moffat, To See Ourselves: A Personal History of Scotland since 1950, Birlinn £18.99. The widely accepted belief that stories make a nation has become a cliché. It may be true but does not describe the kinds of stories or the storytellers - and who is included and excluded

Continue Reading Dreaming of Post-War Scotland: How do we tell the full complex stories of ourselves?

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Gerry Hassan is a writer, commentator and thinker about Scotland, the UK, politics and ideas.

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  • How to Defeat the Far Right and Fascism in Scotland, the UK and West
  • Britain is Broken: What it means and where are we going?
  • Lonely at the Top: Sturgeon, Leadership and Regrets: Review of Nicola Sturgeon, Frankly, Macmillan £28.

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