Scotland embarks on a New Era Gerry Hassan Irish Times, May 9th 2015 Scotland has had landmark Westminster elections before. There was 1997 when Scotland voted out every Tory MP. Then in October 1974 there was the first ever Scottish-wide Nationalist surge; in 1955 there was the high tide of Tory Unionism when they won over half the votes and seats; and in 1922 Labour broke through for the first time and ‘Red Clydeside’ went to Westminster. This is one of those moments - and more. History has been made by the collective expression of the Scottish people. Records have

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Scotland’s Football Revolution of Recent Years Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 6th 2015 The last few years have seen the natural order of things disrupted in Scotland. The once dominant force in the land has been humbled, its traditional place and authority usurped by others, and a series of ineffective and incompetent leaders have promised salvation and then not delivered. This is the story of Glasgow Rangers, although there are similarities with the recent experience of Scottish Labour. And yet until the last six months or so of the indyref, the big news story of our country was not

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A Cut Out and Keep Guide to Understanding the 2015 General Election in Scotland Gerry Hassan May 5th 2015 This has been an election campaign like no other in living memory in Scotland. While Westminster commentators have regularly stated that this is the ‘most boring’ and ‘risk free’ election they can ever remember, north of the border nothing like this has ever been seen before. Scotland is on the cusp of huge political change which could see Scottish Labour’s Westminster political establishment vanquished, and a new political dispensation and map of the country created, which will not only have

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Scotland’s Quiet Revolution: How we changed and what it may mean Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, May 3rd 2015 What in the future will people say about the state of our nation today? They will say they saw a Scotland on the cusp of historic change, shifting from an older, predictable order to something new and potentially different. A SNP wave looks certain to wash over Scotland next Thursday, toppling most Labour and Lib Dem strongholds. Cameron has given up on the Scottish Tories - in the pursuit of undermining Scottish Labour and winning back soft English UKIP voters. Ed Miliband

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Can Scottish Labour clear up the mess it has got itself into? Gerry Hassan Compass, April 30th 2015 Something amazing is happening in the UK general election in Scotland. Its campaign and mood is so different from the rest of the UK. Voters are animated and engaged: one survey predicting 85% certain to vote, 20% more than the highest figures in England. The old certainties have gone. Whereas once Scotland returned a block of 40-50 MPs to Westminster, and nothing of any real significance happened here, now the entire world has been turned upside down. Instead of a Scottish Labour

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‘Peak SNP’ and how Scotland and the UK are changing Gerry Hassan New Statesman, April 28th 2015 Scotland is everywhere in the news only a few months after the indyref. Scotland and its politics are being widely discussed and portrayed not just north of the border, but by UK media and politicians, as well as getting significant international coverage. Scotland feels different. It is as if something fundamental has shifted in how voters see politics, the consequences of their votes, and themselves. For years a sizeable segment of voters have thought at Westminster elections that the most important issue was

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It’s a Family Affair: the Strange Relationship of Labour and SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, April 26th 2015 The forthcoming general election in Scotland, and to an extent in the UK, is being decided by the battle between Labour and the SNP. There is history and bad blood here which almost amounts to a bitter family feud. Insults such as ‘tartan Tories’ and ‘red Tories’ are exchanged – both phrases pre-exist their current Labour and SNP use, but are now synonymous with the enmity between the two. The past is a distant country in this. The SNP electoral breakthrough

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Britain’s Political Classes are living in a Fantasyland Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, April 19th 2015 What is this election about? To Westminster politicians it seems centred on the claims and counter-claims of monies: public spending, the deficit and debt. Take Labour, Tories and Lib Dems. The Tories are openly committed to £30 billion of cuts in the next Parliament. The SNP and many left-wingers say the same of Labour who flatly deny this. There is ambiguity on whether Labour are pro or anti-cuts. Jim Murphy has said that Labour would not need to make ‘further cuts to achieve our spending

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Scotland isn’t Mad, but Animated and Engaged Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, April 12th 2015 The election has definitely taken off this week. There were the two Scottish leader debates. The Tories getting personal with Ed Miliband. Labour daring to talk about tax. Scotland is in a different place. Some once thoughtful pro-union commentators have scratched their heads and come to the conclusion – ‘Scotland has gone mad’ and talked of ‘the madness of Scottish politics’. It is never good to start citing ‘madness’ and nearly always reflects back on who said it. The fact that pro-union commentators think this

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Are the Days of Scottish Labour Over? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 8th 2015 The official general election campaign kicked off last week. But in reality it has been running since the turn of the year, with all parties and observers knowing in advance that polling day would be May 7^th. Scotland has witnessed a palpable air of perma-campaigning for the last two or three years with the experience of the referendum. But there has been an air of excitement and expectation for some about the coming general election, since the aftermath of the indyref, and when the first polls

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