2018 will be the Year of Dundee but whose Dundee will it be? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 20th 2018 2018 will be the Year of Dundee. There is excitement and expectation in the city. After years in the doldrums, Dundee has now been punching above its weight for over a decade. It is not just the anticipation of the V&A’s public opening on September 15^th. The city has been picking up international attention and plaudits as variously ‘Scotland’s coolest city’ (Wall Street Journal), the ‘coolest in Scotland’ and undergoing a ‘renaissance’ (Condé Nast Traveller), ‘Britain’s coolest city’ (GQ magazine),

Continue Reading 2018 will be the Year of Dundee but whose Dundee will it be?

A Warning from the Past: What happened to Scottish Labour could happen to the SNP Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 14th 2018 What goes up must come down is a truism worth remembering in relation to politics - as well as to economics and every kind of asset or property bubble. There once was a political party in Scotland which saw itself as the embodiment of the radical tradition, in touch with voters, and embodying social justice. It became more and more complacent, self-congratulatory, and out of touch – eventually morphing into the Scottish establishment. That party was the Scottish

Continue Reading A Warning from the Past: What happened to Scottish Labour could happen to the SNP

Time to Put the Culture into Creative Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 7th 2018 Creative Scotland’s latest stramash has again brought arts funding, decision-making and the role of the organisation centrestage. It is a recurring problem. After the good news story before Christmas, of Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop announcing - against expectations - a real terms increase in the funding of Creative Scotland, all seemed for a brief period sweetness and light. Then came the announcement on 25 January for Regularly Funding Organisations (RFOs), who have a three-year funding cycle, of significant cuts in a host of success stories

Continue Reading Time to Put the Culture into Creative Scotland

The Football Club That Refused to Die: The Tragedy and Beauty of Third Lanark Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 31st 2018 Glasgow’s history has long been the stuff of legend – the stories of Red Clydeside, rent strikes, the power of shipbuilding, the scale of slum clearance - and of course, football. In Scotland we seem to get too much football and too much bad football coverage. We get a narrow bandwidth of football which results in numerous stories, triumphs, tragedies, and moments becoming forgotten, as we surfeit on a diet of the stale Old Firm (cue a chorus from

Continue Reading The Football Club That Refused to Die: The Tragedy and Beauty of Third Lanark

The World Has Been Turned Upside Down: The End of the Era of Robber Baron Capitalism Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 24th 2018 The world has been turned upside down in the last few weeks. Ten years after the banking crash showed that the economic assumptions which shaped most of our lives were bogus, along has come the collapse of Carillion, the biggest outsourcing company in the UK. The taking of the public out of public services has been a long war of attrition which has been waged by all the mainstream Westminster parties. It hasn’t improved public services

Continue Reading The World Has Been Turned Upside Down: The End of the Era of Robber Baron Capitalism

Time to Wake Up and Ask Some Difficult Questions abut the SNP and Independence Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, January 23rd 2018 ‘What Do You Do When A Society Lies to Itself?’ So said writer Umair Haque this week in the context of the constitutional standoff in Trump’s America. But it is true of most nations most of the time; certainly it is true of today’s UK - and also of modern Scotland. Scottish politics are currently in what can only be described as a phoney war - a becalmed period of inertia and inactivity in-between the storms that buffet politics.

Continue Reading Time to Wake Up and Ask Some Difficult Questions about the SNP and Independence

Winston Churchill: The Man, the Myth, 1940 and Who can speak for Britain? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 16th 2018 Winston Churchill is everywhere at the moment. It is as if there are only two narratives about Britain’s past: the Second World War and dramas about people of privilege, class and money. The Churchill industry can cover both strands, and for some his is the last uncontested great story of Britain. To others he is the last statesman who unreservedly represented the moral case for Britain; whereas for many on the left he has long been a problem figure. And

Continue Reading Winston Churchill: The Man, the Myth, 1940 and Who can speak for Britain?

Brexit is turning Britain upside down – and Scotland has a chance to say No Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, January 15th 2018 Brexit has turned British politics and Britain itself upside down. But to the UK Government and Westminster political classes it is business as usual on the home front as far as Brexit and everything else is concerned. Not for them that Brexit is nearly entirely an English revolt (with Welsh acquiescence), or that Scotland and Northern Ireland are being dragged along against majority sentiment in their territories. Today the Scottish Government published its latest paper on Brexit,

Continue Reading Brexit is turning Britain upside down – and Scotland has a chance to say No

The World in 2018: Trump, Brexit, Britain and the Scottish Debate Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 10th 2018 The New Year is always a time for reflection. I spent the Christmas and New Year break in the United States, providing an opportunity for reflection and a different take on the world. Two and a half weeks in an American urban setting, even in one of the wealthiest and most creative clusters in the country around Boston and Cambridge, showcases what works and what doesn’t. Conspicuous wealth sits side-by-side crumbling infrastructure and poverty personified by the MBTA train system that looks

Continue Reading The World in 2018: Trump, Brexit, Britain and the Scottish Debate

My Favourite Music of the Year: 2017 December 19th 2017 NEW ALBUMS

12. The Visitor – Neil Young and Promise of the Real

Neil Young’s roving and rocking spirit look at the America of today. Hit and miss in places - but some hard rock and roll such as opener ‘Already Great’.

11. Dark Matter – Randy Newman

Newman in typical sardonic form with his first album in nearly a decade and trademark laidback musical style and acerbic lyrics, ‘Putin’ being one of the best.

10. Damn – Kendrick Lamar

Not as stellar and

Continue Reading My Favourite Music of the Year: 2017