A few reflections and found memories from the weekends …. Some of the best moments …. The nervousness of the first one. Hiring a minivan to take people up from Glasgow to Ullapool for it. The experience of seeing Croft No. 5 that first weekend – on the Saturday. An intoxicating mixture of traditional, jazz and dance music in a Ceilidh Place packed with young people enjoying themselves: a harbinger for future weekends and our country! The Wendy Alexander/Fiona Hyslop discussion on Labour-SNP lack of understanding. This was originally going to be Wendy and Jim Sillars after their legendary

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Changin’ Scotland No.  14  November 6-8th 2009 Action packed and diverse as ever! James Robertson on the Scots language, A. L. Kennedy and Stuart Kelly on stories and the future, Gerry Hassan, Jim and Margaret Cuthbert and Stephen Maxwell with Iain Macwhirter on the politics of the SNP post-crash. Andy Wightman on landownership from Princes Street to Rockall, Dennis Canavan on his political life, Wiliam Walker on Scots and the nuclear question, Christopher Whatley on the meaning of 1707 and why it matters today, and Antje Bednare on her research speaking to Scottish Tories. Plus and how do we

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Two Bullies, a Lie and War: Blair, Campbell and ‘In the Loop’ Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, April 21st 2009 It is a season of films about Britain, tapping a sense for nostalgia and who we are as the UK economy, our government and banks reel from crisis to crisis. Thus, we have ‘The Boat that Rocked’, Richard Curtis’s limp slapstick about an Austin Powers like swinging sixties where life was one long party, and ‘The Damned United’, on Brian Clough, mercurial football manager, and showing us what men and the North were like in the 1970s rebelling against the stuffiness

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The Cause of Liberty and the Left Gerry Hassan Chartist Journal, April 14th 2009 The health of democracy and liberty in Britain has become a growing concern in the last three decades due to the bitter experience of Thatcherism and then New Labour alongside the extension of the state, the rise of a risk-averse, safety-first culture, and anxieties and fears over terrorism and crime. Large parts of the left have always thought historically that they owned the term ‘democracy’ and either could afford to ignore it or do what they want with it. In the late 1980s this meant that

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Zygmunt Bauman on this essay: Combining 'the practical wisdom of an insider/actor with the detached/critical perspective of an outsider/thinker - an ability rarely nowadays encountered either among the practitioners or visioners of the polis.' The Politics of Liberty in the Age of ‘Liquid Democracy’ Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 27th 2009 It wasn’t, I realised after all, that the world had run out of ideas. It was simply that the world had forgotten how good ideas were created in the first place. Gordon Torr, Managing Creative People (1) The world has been turned upside down. Assumptions long held

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Changin’ Scotland No.  13  March 20-22nd 2009 Phillip Blond on the Conservatives and ‘Red Toryism’, David Torrance on Thatcherism and the Scots, Graeme Turner on economics and finance after the crash, Douglas Robertson on what happened to council housing, David Purdy and Pat Devine on what happened to Britain, Martin Cloonan on the Scots music scene, Janet Paisley on the Scots and stories and Alex Bell on civilisation and water.

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Why we need a very British Democratic Revolution! Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, February 19th 2009 Review of Peter Facey, Betham Rigby and Alexandra Runswick (eds), Unlocking Democracy: 20 Years of Charter 88, Politico’s Publishing 2008 You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run. Kenny Rodgers, The Gambler British politics are going through a rapid period of change, at once profoundly disorientating and emphasising the dislocation and disengagement at its heart between people and the system. In the last few weeks, we have seen the

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Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett Compass Epamphlet, January 2009 The world we have lived in, created from the twin oil-price shockwaves of 1973 and 1979 and validated in the eyes of many by the events of 1989, is at last suffering its own crash. The era of Thatcher and Reagan, inflated by their offspring Clinton, Bush and Blair; the era of unfettered financial capitalism, unrestrained consumerism and a near mystical belief in the power of markets; the neo-liberal epoch of corporate conceit and neo-con adventurism, is drawing to a close.

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Britain’s neo-liberal state Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett Open Democracy, December 16th 2008 The global financial crisis exposes anew the flaws of a British polity that resists democratic modernisation. In a long, sweeping overview, Gerry Hassan & Anthony Barnett declare the United Kingdom state unfit for purpose. The world we have lived in, created from the twin oil-price shockwaves of 1973 and 1979 and validated in the eyes of many by the events of 1989, is at last suffering its own crash. The era of Thatcher and Reagan, inflated by their offspring Clinton, Bush and Blair; the era of

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A Scottish Story of Spirit and Grace Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, December 7th 2008 Gil Heron’s death at the age of 86 marks the demise of not just a trailblazer who was the first prominent black player in Scottish game. It represents the passing of someone who not only gave the world his footballing skills, but the gift of his son, Gil Scott Heron, musician, author and campaigner, who was one of the forefather’s of modern hip hop and rap. (more…)

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