‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ Still Matters Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 27th 2015 One year after the referendum has seen a golden summer and autumn of Scottish theatre. Adaptions of Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’ at the Citizens’ Theatre, and Alan Warner’s ‘The Sopranos’ at the Traverse, along with John McGrath’s ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ at Dundee Rep. These are all iconic, evocative plays that tell much about the Scotland in which the original texts were written, the times in which they are set, as well as the present day.  ‘Lanark’

Continue Reading ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ Still Matters

Corbyn and Anger: Rage Against the Machine is understandable but never ever enough Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 20th 2015 Jeremy Corbyn has dominated the news headlines this week. Let’s start with the obvious - the failure of mainstream politics. Conventional British politics are bust. The Labour right, the Blairites and soft left have nothing to offer their own party, let alone the country. More seriously, the Cameron Conservatives after five years in office have yet to find a convincing governing mantra. ‘Big society’ and ‘compassionate Conservatism’ are long dead, leaving little that represents Cameron and Osborne beyond living within

Continue Reading Corbyn and Anger: Rage against the Machine is understandable but never ever enough

Scotland and Britain Have Changed: The 'Big Bang' of the Indy Ref and After Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 13th 2015 One year ago Scotland went to the polls. An amazing 85% of us voted: 45% for independence and 55% against – both expressions of Scottish self-government and a desire for a different Scotland. Scotland did not vote for independence, but nor did it settle for the status quo of the existing union. Instead, it voted to continue in a kind of interregnum – a transition from something familiar to something still hazy with a destination as yet unknown.

Continue Reading Scotland and Britain Have Changed: The ‘Big Bang’ of the Indy Ref and After

A Revolution is coming to BBC Scotland – let’s seize it and make it happen Gerry Hassan Sunday Herald, September 6th 2015 The BBC is one of the key institutions of Scotland and the UK. It arouses passion in many forms: identification, reverence for some of its past glories, fury at current and historic shortcomings. These can come from anywhere on the political spectrum. In Scotland, many views of the broadcaster have become interwoven with how it covered the independence referendum. No-one really thinks the BBC had a good campaign. This unleashed allegations of bias, demonstrations at the BBC, and

Continue Reading A Revolution is coming to BBC Scotland – let’s seize it and make it happen

Where does real political power sit in Scotland? And where do we want it? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 6th 2015 The Scottish Parliament is one of the central pillars of public life. It has become the unquestioned landmark and focus of domestic politics in the country. People look to it, want it to have more powers, and generally trust it much more to look after their interests than Westminster. That is all good and well. Yet, when people think of the Scottish Parliament what they tend to have a vision of is not the reality, but the broad idea.

Continue Reading Where does real political power sit in Scotland? And where do we want it?

One Year on from the IndyRef: Making the Scotland of the Future Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, September 2nd 2015 Scottish public life has dramatically changed in recent times – the SNP 2011 first landslide, the independence referendum, and the 2015 tartan tsunami. Yet Scotland, like everywhere, is about more than politics. In this and other areas there have been huge changes, but also continuity and conservatism, the balance of which we are still trying to make sense of, and with huge consequences for the future of Scotland and the UK. Take the indyref. It didn’t come from nowhere. It came

Continue Reading One Year on from the IndyRef: Making the Scotland of the Future

Can Radical Scotland find its Voice? And if so could it be RISE? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, August 30th 2015 This weekend a new force in the Scottish political scene emerged – RISE – standing for Respect, Independence, Socialism and Environmentalism. What do we need a new political force for, you may ask? We already have a crowded political landscape. And why do we need another pro-independence one? At last count there were already four: SNP, Scottish Greens, Scottish Socialists and Solidarity. RISE, in case anyone thinks otherwise, has no connection to George Galloway (he is another kind of Respect)

Continue Reading Can Radical Scotland find its Voice? And if so could it be RISE?

The Sounds of Silence in Scotland Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, August 23rd 2015 Scotland is a land of tolerance and friendliness. Glasgow is the friendly city, Scottish people chat to strangers, and we are, many think, more convivial than the English. Some believe this the product of tenement living. There are moments which jar with this. There was the Section 28/Clause 2A battle on ‘promoting’ homosexuality in schools more than a decade ago. There was the revelation of the Catholic Church’s systemic covering up of child sexual abuse in its ranks, for which it apologised this week in the McLellan

Continue Reading The Sounds of Silence in Scotland

Let Us face the Future: Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and the Power of the Past Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, August 21st 2015 This is the most exciting and cataclysmic Labour leadership contest in a generation. The nearest comparison must be the Benn insurgency for the Deputy Leadership of the party in 1981, where he narrowly lost to Denis Healey. This marked the peak of the left’s influence in Labour - until now. What is occurring in the Labour contest, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the diminishing of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, is little more than

Continue Reading Let Us Face the Future: Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and the Power of the Past

Kezia, Jezza and Indy: Where are the Big Ideas of the Next Scotland? Gerry Hassan This week the SNP hit a new high mark in the polls - 62% for next year’s Scottish elections. Elsewhere Kezia Dugdale was elected Scottish Labour leader as the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon came to much acclaim north of the border. What do you with popularity? It is a question politicians seldom have to answer. The nearest equivalent to the SNP now is Blair’s New Labour – which, less we forget, was once hugely popular. There is the question of where opposition comes from and what

Continue Reading Kezia, Jezza and Indy: Where are the Big Ideas of the Next Scotland?