A Very British Coup: And can this revolution be made to last? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 29th 2020 Coronavirus is affecting everyone. Across the world people are becoming ill and some are dying, with many self-isolating if they are symptomatic - or as a precaution to keep safe, reduce risk and remain well. And as in the UK, many millions of people are now required to stay at home. Britain and the world are changing. On Thursday at 8.00pm across the UK people emerged from their front doors and showed their appreciation of the NHS and carers. More than

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Alex Salmond, Conspiracies and 21^st century disruptions Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 25th 2020 This does seem to be a moment and crisis when everything you once thought was solid has been upturned. With the Conservative Westminster Government seemingly embracing radical Corbynism – guaranteeing wages and jobs, talking of nationalising railways and more, along with massive changes to public life and behaviour – welcome to our very strange Lilliputian world. This induces in me a strange brew of different feelings. One is apprehension. Another is empathy, sympathy and solidarity with those suffering the most and for those people who have

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There is an Alternative: Another World is Possible Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 22nd 2020 The world is in flux, filled with uncertainty, confusion, panic and fear where many, if not all, of the assumptions that have defined politics are now open for challenge. Many things are still unclear but one certainty is that the dominant global economic model of recent decades is now being openly questioned. The Financial Times Sebastian Payne talked this week about ‘the ideology of last week’ –meaning the assumptions of the past four decades politically. There are still numerous voices clinging to the wreckage of

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What do we do in a world without football? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 18th 2020 What do we do we in this strange world, facing so many unexpected challenges - including being without football? For some this will be a welcome respite but others will be bereft and lost in how they fill their time and understand life, but given the reach of the game across the globe this is no arcane and marginal matter. The temporary cancellation of all football matches – in England until April 4^th for now and in Scotland until further notice – raises huge

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The World Turned Upside Down: Goodbye to Thatcherism Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 15th 2020 The Tory budget marked a dramatic change in tone, content and politics from what we have become used to. The language of active government, investment and public spending saw UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak make commitments to an extra £30 billion in public spending. This raises questions about Boris Johnson’s government, the Tories, UK politics, and whether this change is superficial, tactical, or something more long lasting? And what, if any, are the consequences for Scotland and independence? It is now widely accepted that ten years

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We finally have to talk about the Dark Side of Scottish Men Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 11th 2020 Men in public life was always going to become a major subject of conversation in the first part of 2020 with the trial of Harvey Weinstein in New York, and that of former First Minister Alex Salmond in Edinburgh which began this week. Until recent decades Scotland has been a male-dominated society to the extent that it was often never talked about or even recognised as such. Men defined politics, business, the professions, institutional life and our culture – including

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Fantasyland Britain and its Zombie Economics are now in the firing line Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 8th 2020 Britain and the world are facing an unprecedented crisis: a worldwide epidemic with major consequences for public health, sustainability of societies and way of life. This is a defining point. It calls for government, state and public agency action – for solidarity and recognising that health and well-being are social and interconnected. As the writer Otto English wrote we have had ‘three years of ‘we don’t need experts, we survived the war, Project Fear’’ which have been shown even more to

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David Steel, Cyril Smith and how the establishment still looks after its own Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 4th 2020 Last week, as Harvey Weinstein finally faced justice in America, the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse gave its verdict on David Steel. It damned him for his years of silence and inaction on the child sex abuse of Cyril Smith, Liberal, then Lib Dem, MP for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992; saying that Steel had ‘abdicated his responsibility’ and had not been motivated by ‘the lens of child protection but through the lens of political expediency’. The backstory

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The State of the Union: Can Unionists reinvent their argument on the UK? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 1st 2020 In recent years the case for the union has been on the defensive - nervous and unsure of its own arguments and the future. It may have won the 2014 referendum, but there has been a rising sense of foreboding in pro-union opinion that the future is being made in the here and now by independence supporters. Such sentiment was one of the reasons behind the gathering last weekend called ‘Our Past, Present and Future’ organised by These Islands, the

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Trouble at the BBC: Time to Demolish, Defend or Democratise? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, February 23rd 2020 The BBC is in crisis. Boris Johnson’s Downing Street are floating the scrapping of the licence fee. This when the BBC need to appoint a new Director General after Tony Hall unexpectedly resigned in January against a backdrop of impending negotiations with the government over charter renewal and the funding of the corporation. On top of this BBC Scotland’s head Donalda MacKinnon has resigned after just three years in the post when the organisation faces future uncertainty, pressures and scrutiny from all sides.

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