Glasgow Govan: The Seat that Rocked and Made Modern Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 7th 2018 Thirty years ago Scotland was a very different place. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, the poll tax was yet to be implemented, and there was no Scottish Parliament. Then along came the Govan by-election – a seat that produced a political sensation and set of shockwaves that reverberated throughout Scottish and UK politics with an impact years after the event. Exactly thirty years ago this weekend – on 10 November 1988 – Jim Sillars, ex-Labour MP, left-winger and powerful orator, won the

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Telling the Missing Stories of Working Class Culture in Cinema: ‘Peterloo’ and ‘Nae Pasaran’ Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, November 3rd 2018 It is a rare occasion when two films are released on the same day about working class histories of Britain. This weekend sees such a situation with the release of Mike Leigh’s much awaited ‘Peterloo’ and Felipe Butos Sierra’s ‘Nae Pasaran’. ‘Peterloo’ is the story of the infamous massacre at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, on 16 August 1819, when fifteen people were killed in cold-blood by the authorities, demonstrating naked power and to remind them of their place. It

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Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban: This is not an Age of Fascism Yet Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 31st 2018 A spectre is haunting the modern world: fascism. All around the world people are talking about and identifying fascists. Newspaper headlines abound in the US such as ‘Is Donald Trump a fascist?’, ‘How fascist is Donald Trump?’ and even more emphatically, ‘Donald Trump is actually a fascist’: all from mainstream liberal papers. The threat of fascism is now a worldwide phenomenon. We have just seen in the Brazil the victory of ‘strongman’ Jair Bolsonaro; the Hungarian authoritarianism of Viktor Orban; the rise

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British politics, Misogyny and the Prejudice which festers in the Tories Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 24th 2018 The political world has been seen as an abrasive, macho and male club for centuries. Across the West this has meant to have changed in the last couple of decades with record levels of women’s representation and women leaders across the world. Yet, despite this, the male exclusivity tag still hangs over much politics. Neither the Labour Party or Liberal Democrats (or their predecessors the Liberals) have ever had a woman leader. The Tories may have given the UK two leaders and

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Coming Together or Falling Apart? Freedom of Speech in the Age of Noise Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 17th 2018 The context and limits of freedom of speech have always been important, but everywhere this seems to have become increasingly contentious. Whether it is white supremacists in the US declaring they are protecting the US way of life, our very own home-grown hate speak from Tommy Robinson, or the multiple sensitivities, claims and counter-claims on transgender issues something seems to be going on. Only last weekend there was a mini-controversy when Ann Henderson, Edinburgh University’s Rector, retweeted details of an

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A Vision of the Future comes to Dundee: A Tayside Renaissance? Gerry Hassan New Statesman, October 12th 2018 Dundee is being talked about. This marks a big change for a city that traditionally has been ignored or presented in clichés - of jute, jam and journalism, the Tay Rail Bridge disaster, and William McGonagall. Now Dundee is on the map, and not just the Scottish and UK one, but internationally as a tourist and cultural hot spot, and a must-see destination. The major reason for this sudden interest is the opening of the V&A this month. It has been a

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Toxic Masculinity must be defeated. Silence is not an option for any of us Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 10th 2018 Hate seems to be everywhere in public life. This week Scottish Justice minister Humza Yousaf floated making misogyny a specific hate crime illegal, while in the previous week, the Scottish Government launched a high profile campaign against hate crime. Look around the world for numerous, state-sponsored examples - US President Donald Trump, the Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte with his rape comment after the killing of an Australian missionary Jacqueline Hamill that ‘the mayor should have been first’, and Brazilian

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Britain and Scotland have changed: The Tory Story of Britain is Dead Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, October 3rd 2018 The British Conservative Party is one of the most successful electoral parties in the developed capitalist world. They might not look like it at the moment but this is a force which has adapted to numerous challenges and changes: the coming of the mass franchise and rise of the working class, emergence of Labour, the post-war settlement, and demise of Empire and the UK’s diminished global standing and influence. The Tories are the party of privilege and entitlement; of a ruling

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Could Corbyn’s Labour be the future? A work in progress, but now imaginable Gerry Hassan Compass, September 27th 2018 Labour conference this week is an important staging post in the new Corbyn-led, energised mass party - not just the biggest in Britain, but bigger than all the other party memberships put together. The Jeremy Corbyn-John McDonnell leadership has been three years at the helm, and are the new establishment running and defining the party. They are now in near-total control of the party, its institutions and in tune with the expanded grass roots. This is their party now and

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Whatever happened to the springtime for democracy? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 18th 2018 Three decades ago democracy was the future and carrying all before it. The Soviet bloc was collapsing, the South African apartheid regime was crumbling - and all across South America brutal dictatorships were being replaced by democracies (however imperfect) symbolised by the fall of the Pinochet junta. Today the state of the world could not look more different and feel less optimistic. There are still many more democracies than there even a decade ago, but somehow the springtime for people power promised three decades ago has

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