Novak Djokovic, the Celebrity Class and the End of News Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 12 January 2022 The start of the new year brings the prospect of fresh perspectives but not it seems in the world of mainstream news. Across nearly all news outlets, and in particular TV and radio broadcasters, the main story for the past week globally has not been the Trump insurrection anniversary and US democracy hanging in the balance, or the Russian invasion and violence in Kazakhstan. It has not even been the ongoing domestic scandal of UK PM Boris Johnson’s continued evasions and refusal to

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Is this an elegy for the end of Britain? Gerry Hassan The National, 11 January 2022 The UK is in serious crisis – a malaise that affects its politics, political elite, system, and the ethos and practices by which they govern, act and think. That much is obvious to anyone studying the descent of Britain. But what is rare is for this to be spoken about openly and candidly, clearly directed at those who have produced this sorry mess. Tom McTague’s essay in The Atlantic magazine, “How Britain Falls Apart?” last week showed insight and honesty along with a

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The rise, fall and rise of party and movement and the changing idea of Scotland Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, 7 January 2022 Review of The National Movement in Scotland, Jack Brand, Routledge The SNP have been in existence for a long time and a serious electoral force since the 1960s. But at the same time there have been few studies of the party that have contextualised it within the wider nationalist movement and the changing nature of Scotland, and that have attempted to analyse and understand the dynamics of this relationship. The National Movement in Scotland by the late Jack

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The Queen’s Jubilee is the time to have a debate about Britain’s atrophied democracy Gerry Hassan The National, 4 January 2022 The monarchy goes to the heart of what the UK is and what it is to be British. It is strange then that most discussions try to avoid the implications and consequences that flow from the power, influence, status and role in public life of the monarchy. All of this will come to a head in 2022 with the Platinum Jubilee – marking the 70^th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth on the throne – on 6 February; then celebrated in

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