Labour’s Family Affair Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 14th 2010 The five Labour candidates gathered yesterday in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall before a packed audience of 400 party members. This proved to be a lively hustings with good humour, animated discussion and no rancour. If it had any faults it lacked any real disagreements, provided little detail, and pandered to what they thought a Scottish audience would want. Iain Gray opened the meeting declaring before anything had happened ‘that the hustings showed Labour was on the way back’. Then came the official story of Scottish Labour: the party had learnt

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Labour Begins its Long Conversation: The Leader Hustings Come North of the Border Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 13th 2010 The Labour summertime show headed northwards; the first UK party leader election since Tony Blair began the New Labour era in 1994. The five Labour candidates gathered in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall before a packed audience of 400 Scottish party members. This proved to be a lively hustings with good humour, animated discussion and no rancour. If it had any faults it lacked any real disagreements, provided little detail, and pandered to what they thought a Scottish audience would want,

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The Labour Leadership Contest and What We Do About the New Labour Generation Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 9th 2010 It is now the famous five with Ed, David, David and Andy joined by Diane Abbott. This is the widest Labour leadership contest for thirty-four years – since 1976 when Jim Callaghan beat Michael Foot for the leadership (and hence Prime Ministership) from a field of six candidates. Thank goodness for small mercies in terms of the number of candidates, yet as has been pointed out this is the narrowest, most unrepresentative Labour leadership contest – socially – in the

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Why Labour Needs to Ditch Both Fabianism and New Labour Centralism Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, June 3rd 2010 The Labour leadership campaign is one of the first indications of the state of the party. If the six contributions from the current candidates are anything to go by in yesterday’s Guardian (June 1^st), the party is going to have a long time before it gets it act together. Platitudes and generalities were aplenty; the party has to ’renew’, rediscover its ‘idealism’ and ‘moral purpose’. Underneath all the warm words one area was revealingly ignored: any understanding of the character and

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Labour’s Future and the Story of Labour Britain Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, June 1st 2010 The limits of Labour’s understanding of what has happened to it, where it is, and what it should do are becoming clear. This has been given added clarity by the contributions by the current six Labour leadership candidates who have written short manifestos and credos for ‘The Guardian’ (1). All of them display different degrees of ambiguity to the two questions Madeline Bunting poses: was the 2010 election result a good result for Labour or a disaster, and ‘how does one treat New Labour’s record

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The Taxing Issues of Tartan Taxes Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, May 26th 2010 The Queen’s Speech has shown that the intention of the Con-Lib Dem coalition is to be as considerate and thoughtful as possible to Scotland and Wales. To David Cameron this gives him the opportunity to show his reasonable manner towards the two hostile territories. The Scots have been promised implementation of the Calman Commission and the Welsh a referendum on more powers for the National Assembly. At the same time, the decade of growth of the Scottish Government budget which doubled over the period is clearly

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A Moment for Reflection and Radicalism Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 26th 2010 The first Queen’s Speech of the Con-Lib Dem government provided the opportunity to show how much they understand Scots (along with Welsh) sensibilities. We are different up here, driven by different political motivations, and with an entirely different set of political dynamics. So apparently the key word is ‘respect’, despite its overuse and misuse by the Blair Government for dodgy initiatives involving czars! Whatever we think of the Calman Commission’s proposals the next stage of Scotland’s constitutional journey has begun. No matter the road we take the

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The Next Scottish Constitutional Revolution: Why Calman Isn’t the Answer Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, May 25th 2010 The Queen’s Speech today is a remarkable moment in British politics: the first British coalition government in 65 years, the spectacle of the Cameron-Clegg double act, and the possible emergence of new political force, ‘liberal conservatism’. It is also a significant time in Scottish politics, with the announcement of a new Scotland Act, drawing from the ideas of the Calman Commission, but considering delaying or even ditching the most important part: the tax powers. Calman proposes that Scottish income tax rates would be

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The Next Radicalism: Comments on After the Politics of Left and Right Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, May 24th 2010 This is my response to comments and discussion on my recent essay, After the Politics of Left and Right: The End of ‘Modernisation’ and ‘Progressive Politics’. This is a perplexing, fascinating time both in terms of the big issues and values, and the immediacy of day to day politics. This sees the hesitant start of the ‘new politics’ of the Con-Lib Dem administration embracing a very unBritish politics, the final burial of ‘New Labour’ and the crisis of the neo-liberal project

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Scotland, the Return of ‘the Tories’ and the Politics of ‘No Mandate’ Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, May 19th 2010 The British political landscape has been dramatically altered by the arrival of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. All around Westminster, politicians, media and observers, are continuing to pinch themselves to check that what they are seeing in front of their eyes is actually happening and not some strange dream or illusion. One part of the UK stands apart from this: Scotland. The prevalent tones of Scottish political debate – marked by David Cameron’s visit north to the Scottish Parliament last Friday

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