Westminster, Referendums and Whatever Happened to ‘Respect’? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 9th 2010 The Scottish Parliament along with the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies will be beginning to think that they are unloved and uncared for by the Westminster Parliament. Plans to establish five year fixed term UK Parliaments meant that May 7^th 2015 would be a day when voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland voted in two sets of elections at the same time: devolved and UK contests. Now they have gone and done it again, proposing that the AV referendum is held on May 5^th 2011

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Scottish Politics Before the Storm Gerry Hassan Chartist, July/August 2010 The UK general election has brought defeat and bad news to Labour with the end game of the New Labour era producing a demoralised party with its second lowest vote since 1918. At the same time the results painted a mixed picture for the party: with its decent showing in parliamentary seats, and emergence of the Con-Lib Dem coalition government, feeding into a widespread sense of denial and belief that Labour isn’t in too bad a state. The national and regional results have aided this sense of complacency, with Labour

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After the Century of Isms: What is the Future of the Future? Gerry Hassan July 7th 2010 1. How Do We Think of the Future? This talk is going to take us on a journey into the future, look at the idea of ‘story’ and ‘the official future’, what it is, why we are living in it, and the possible alternatives. In this it will draw on the work of two futures projects – Scotland 2020 (1) and Glasgow 2020 (2) – which I led working with the UK think tank Demos. 2. The Notion of Futurology The conventional way

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The Coming British Revolution Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 6th 2010 In the streets and parks of Britain everything seems to be as it always has been. This feels like a typical British summer with those totems of modern life passing us by: Glastonbury, Wimbledon and England crashing out of the World Cup after another catastrophic underperformance. Yet behind these comforting cultural moments things are changing dramatically. The new Con-Lib Dem government is presenting the case for public spending cuts the like of which we have never seen in the history of the UK. Its call for a rebalancing of

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Salmond’s Big Leap Forward or Not: Rethinking the Case for Independence Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, June 30th 2010 Alex Salmond has dominated the last few years of Scottish politics, and become the leading figure of the first decade of devolution. Labour figures have come and gone, but it is Salmond who has transformed the SNP into a disciplined force, made what was called ‘the Scottish Executive’ into ‘the Scottish Government’, and the office of the First Minister into the undisputed leader of the Scottish nation. He has fundamentally altered the character and nature of Scottish politics, yet while he

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The Second Moment of Devolution Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 28th 2010 Scottish politics are on the move: the Calman/fiscal autonomy debate, the implications of the Budget and forthcoming cuts, and Alex Salmond’s repositioning of the SNP on independence. Salmond has stated in an interview in ‘The Times’, ‘The centre of gravity in Scottish politics currently is clearly not independence. You must campaign for what is good for Scotland as well as campaigning for independence.’ This is seismic stuff in an age of epic change where old assumptions are going to be ripped up. Salmond has surveyed the political landscape

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A New Era Starts for Scottish Politics: Alex Salmond and Independence Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 26th 2010 Scottish politics are on the verge of their biggest shakeup for decades. A linked debate on the Calman commission, fiscal autonomy and the implications of the Budget and forthcoming cuts, will now be shaped by Alex Salmond’s repositioning of the SNP on the call for independence. Not since the early years of the Thatcher Government has Scotland politically faced the prospects of such fundamental and irreversible change. Salmond shows the scale of his ambition and intent in an interview in Friday’s edition

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The ‘Anyone But England’ Phenomenon and the Scottish Psyche Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, June 23rd 2010 The Scotland-England relationship has been historically one of the defining features of Scottish life. In recent years Scottish football fans have begun more and more to identify with whoever England is playing whether it be the World Cup, European Championships or a mere friendly. All of this has now reached epic proportions. There has been the ‘Anyone But England’ (ABE) phenomenon which has spawned a website, campaign and numerous commercial ventures. Kilt makers Slanj have got into trouble for making ABE t-shirts and

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The Official Voice of Our Broken Constitution Speaks Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 19th 2010 Vernon Bogdanor is a respected authority on the British constitution, and someone who we should take seriously. In his writing and in his previous position as the tutor to the young David Cameron at Oxford University, Bogdanor has become in effect a pillar and part of the British constitution. Bogdanor is both a reformer and a deep conservative, someone who sees the British constitution in needs of radical overhaul, but believes in it as an idea and sees reform as reinforcing its legitimacy, authority and

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The Darkness at the Heart of Labour Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 17th 2010 British politics may have been changed utterly by New Labour and entered uncharted waters with the new coalition, but part of Britain has shifted back to what it sees as normal service. Labour post-election has returned to some of its favourite comfort zones, with the party viewing itself in opposition to what it calls a ‘Tory Government’ and opposing public spending cuts which it is seeing as the return of Thatcherism. What does all this say about Labour and the New Labour era? To many it

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