The Dream is Over: The Sixties, the Beatles and the Baby Boomers Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 15th 2010 This week is the 40^th anniversary of one of the most pivotal cultural moments of the post-war era in Britain and globally: the break-up of the Beatles. Forty years ago on Saturday, Paul McCartney released his first ever solo album. In it was a pre-prepared interview which announced to a shocked world that ‘the dream is over’ and the Beatles were no more. Some people have never quite got over that moment, or more accurately, have decided to choose to remain

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To the Editor The Guardian Letters Page April 12th 2010 The Guardian did it again with its coverage of Scotland. On Saturday in the Sports Section (April 10^th) there was not one mention of the two Scottish Cup semi-finals. And on Monday (April 12^th) no coverage of either result, including Ross County’s sensational victory over Celtic. But you did have space for the Spanish League. The Guardian seems to imagine its readers want to inhabit a parallel universe where they know nothing about Scottish football. This would be a place where they knew nothing about Celtic winning the European Cup

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Who Benefits from Future Labour or Tory Governments? Gerry Hassan Fascinating figures from YouGov’s Sunday Times weekend poll – which as far as I can find are only available online and not in the newspaper version (at least north of the border) (1). When voters were asked who they thought would most benefit from a Conservative Government they responded: The rich                                                   47% Married couples                                      37% Hardworking men and women                30% The poor                                                  11% Single parents                                           8% Immigrants                                                7% Continue Reading Who Benefits from Future Labour or Tory Governments?

A Tale of Two Labour Manifestos: ‘Choice’ and the Absence of England Gerry Hassan Open Democracy. April 12th 2010 The Labour manifesto has been launched finally today – the 25^th British election manifesto according to BBC lunchtime news. It is a day of multiple Labour manifesto launches with the main British programme, and Scottish and Welsh versions, published. I am going to focus my attention here on the British and Scottish editions, as these are the ones I am familiar with, so apologies to Welsh readers. The British Labour manifesto, ‘A Future Fair For all’ (also the title of the

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The Battle for Scotland and How It Can Change Britain Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, April 11th 2010 The Scottish election has begun - a contest taking place in a different land, terrain and politics from the rest of the UK. This is a nation with two Parliaments and two Governments (one Labour, one SNP) where a Westminster election comes at another point in the Holyrood election cycle: three years into a relatively popular SNP Government. Westminster issues for England such as health and education are debated in the UK media as if devolution never happened, and Scotland along with Wales

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Caledonian Dreaming and the Slow Separation of the United Kingdom Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, April 9th 2010 As David Cameron and Gordon Brown campaign in Scotland today one could for a brief moment think this is just another part of Britain which the big parties pass through and fight over for the next few weeks. Scotland is just not another part of the UK. It is increasingly another country, and is getting more so, with implications for it and the rest of the UK. Scotland does not have that many marginal seats; Labour won 40 out of 59 seats

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The Empire State Building of the United Kingdom Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 8th 2010 The 2010 election campaign has now formally begun, as politicians zigzag up and down the country in search of voters. There is a palpable sense of anxiety and doubt about the multiple crises the country faces: economic, democratic, and where we see ourselves in the world and how we conduct our foreign policy. Despite all this there is a propensity in our political classes to adopt a business as usual approach and talk in only the narrowest of ways of the crises we face. Politicians

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The Battle of Britain 2010 Edition and Living in the Shadow of Empire Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, April 6th 2010 After a seemingly never-ending period the ‘official’ election campaign has finally begun. The 2010 British general election will be about many things: thirteen years of New Labour, Cameroon’s Conservatives, the state of the economy, public services and public spending, and the condition and character of our politics, political system and democracy. Underlying all of this is a wider set of questions and issues which can be summarised as: who are we, what do we want to be, what kind of

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Doctrine and Ethos in the  Scottish Labour Party Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw Paper to the Political Studies Association Annual Conference,'Regionalist Parties and Territorial Politics' April 1st 2010 Before I was born my father was involved in socialist politics and from boyhood I have known all the great men – Hardie, Maxton, Tom Johnston and Wheatley. I have heard some describe the wonderful society that socialism will bring to the working class. All of them went down to the Parliament in London, and from there they could never deliver socialism to the Scottish working class.

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Some Thoughts on Sovereignty, Voice and Power Gerry Hassan from Rosemary Bechler (ed.), The Convention on Modern Liberty: The British Debate on Fundamental Rights and Freedom, Open Democracy/Imprint Academic 2010 What is the UK? British political science says that the UK is a unitary state. But it is not: it is what’s called a ‘union state’. A union state is shaped by national and regional differentiation beginning with 1707 and the negotiation of Scottish autonomy, the retention of pre-union rights, and so on. These are political concepts known across the world, yet the political centre has

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