The Glorious World of Scottish Football Commentary Gerry Hassan February 1st 2010 I am still recovering from the amazing experience of being at Rugby Park and the crazy world of last Saturday’s Kilmarnock v. Dundee United match. A gorgeous Scots winter day for a start; it has taken me thirty years of football-watching to see a 4-4 draw and honestly it could have been much higher. United were 3-1 up after 35 minutes and looked like they would score a barrowload, and then when Killie fought back, aided by United kamikaze defending, and went 4-3 ahead in the

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Scotland as a Magical, Foreign Land: Jonathan Meades Off-Kilter Guide to Scotland Gerry Hassan January 28th 2010 I have just watched the first part of Jonathan Meades three part series on Scotland on BBC Two, late Wednesday night, 11.20-12.20 available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ml5wx/Jonathan_Meades_Off_Kilter_Episode_1/, and was astounded by the sheer brilliance and aplomb of it on every level. Here was an hour-long programme about Aberdeen and its architecture. An hour-long programme about Aberdeen which was compelling, challenging, deeply serious and yet with a rich undertow of humour. An hour about Aberdeen with no Aberdonians, no talking heads, no stupid vox

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The Nation of Imagination: The Slow Birth of Creative Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, January 28th 2010 Tomorrow a long run Scottish soap opera reaches a new stage. I am not talking about BBC’s ‘River City’, but the appointment of the chief executive of Creative Scotland, the new quango bringing together the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. It has been a long and painful birth. Creative Scotland was like many things not originally an SNP idea, instead stemming from Scottish Labour with its genesis a concept coming from UK New Labour thinking. Many pinpoint long gone Culture Minister Mike

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The Strange Case of the Missing Scottish Independence Bill Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, January 26th 2010 The SNP are driven by one over-riding factor, the restoration of Scottish statehood and independence. More than left versus right, this is what matters in the party. It is woven into its DNA, and provides the soul of the nationalist movement. The SNP government has undertaken a ‘national conversation’ and published a White Paper on independence, ‘Your Scotland, Your Choice’. All of this was meant to lead to the publication of the referendum bill yesterday – on Burn’s Night - and then if

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Scotland in Cyberspace: New Media, Blogs and Public Conversation Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, January 26^th 2010 The role of the internet and emergence of the blogosphere is much commented upon in the political and media world. Do people such as Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale have a new found political influence? Will a whole host of Labour bloggers emerge out of the ashes of the party’s election defeat? In Scotland, there is the influence of the ‘cybernat’ community who have a huge influence. Its black and white zealotry was recently profiled by the Universality of Cheese run by Mark MacLachlan,

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A Letter to The Spectator on Charles Moore, Jonathan Ross and Rod Liddle Gerry Hassan January 25^th 2010 To the Editor, Am I missing something in my understanding of Spectator coverage? For month after month Charles Moore (Spectator, passim) rightly berated the BBC for employing Jonathan Ross for however million and stated that he would withhold one of his TV licences as a result of the Ross-Brand scandal, inviting readers to do the same. Jonathan Ross then leaves the BBC and not a squeak from Mr. Moore. Has he started paying his TV licence again? And why the strange

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The Times We Live In: George Orwell, Rod Liddle and Me Gerry Hassan January 25^th 2010 I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, And woke to find it true; I wasn't born for an age like this; Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you? George Orwell, 1935 (1) The influence of Gordon Orwell throws a long shadow and influence on many of us who choose to write, are active politically and define ourselves as ‘left’. I think of it as an impressive, friendly, beneficial shadow: a guide, a set of suggestions and inspiration. Most of all I value Orwell for the

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The Tories, Labour and the Politics of and the Disunited Kingdom Gerry Hassan January 23^rd 2010 One answer to the Tory ‘no mandate’ cry is provided in today’s Scotsman and argues that this might all well be a problem, but what happens when the Scots vote Labour and England votes Tory resulting in a Labour government, or as one correspondent argues, ‘what about poor old Northern Ireland’ which never votes for a UK government (1)? Well it is a great deal more complicated and simple than that. Lets take England first. Since 1945 England has voted Tory and got a

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The Return of the Tartan Tory Bogeyman Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, January 22nd 2010 Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Tories has taken the brave step of acknowledging that the Tories have a problem in Scotland. She has stated that if the Tories win a UK election this year, but win few Scots MPs this is no reason for the return of the ‘no mandate’ argument. This is the reality the Scots Tories face: the only part of Britain immune to the Cameron bounce, and a place where the Tories have consistently flatlined since 1997. Goldie argues that the ‘no

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Vincent Cable on the Merits of Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan January 18^th 2010 It is worth reflecting on Vincent Cable’s essay in ‘The Red Paper on Scotland’ edited by one Gordon Brown in the long distant era of the radical, student 1970s (1). Brown then did a good impersonation of Citizen Smith, the TV character in the BBC series, mouthing the in-word ‘cool’ phrases and reference points of the age, making all of the right gestures, and yet despite it all being quite conservative for the times and radical politics. Tom Bower’s long and frankly at points laughable biography of

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