A Great Moment for Scotland and Equality: Now Let’s Get Serious About It Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, January 4^th 2015 As the clocks this week marked Hogmanay, Scotland’s first ever same sex marriage ceremonies took place. Each of the couples had their own unique and personal histories and backstories. Many had lived through times less enlightened and more repressive where people often had to hide their love, feelings and identities from family, friends and work colleagues. On that momentous night, at the Bell and Felix bistro in Glasgow’s Southside I had the honour of being amongst those who saw Gerrie

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The Battle for Britain 2015 Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, December 28^th 2014 Britain has had a tumultuous year. And 2015 will be as dramatic and difficult to predict. The UK general election will take place on Thursday May 7^th. None of the three established Westminster parties are popular and nor are their leaders. Cameron’s poll ratings at least run ahead of Tory support, whereas Miliband and Clegg are massively unpopular with 22% and 13% satisfaction ratings respectively; and Miliband is more unpopular in Scotland than the Tory Prime Minister. At the last UK election in 2010, the Conservatives finished 20

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What happens to the Spirit of 2014? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, December 21^st 2014 It has been an action packed 2014. Scotland’s year has witnessed drama, theatre and spectacle: the Commonwealth Games, First World War anniversaries, the Ryder Cup, and of course, the Big Day in September - the independence referendum. Scotland voted to stay in the union for now, but changed in the process, became more self-confident and more sure in its capacity to self-govern itself. The UK political classes seemed less sure-footed by the day. The spirit of 2014 witnessed the greatest democratic expression of Scots ever seen

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Message to the Messengers Part Two: Where next after the indy referendum? Gerry Hassan Scottish Left Project, December 12th 2014 The winds of change are without doubt blowing through Scotland. There is the decline of traditional power and institutions, the hollowing out and, in places, implosion of some of the key anchor points of public life and a fundamental shift in authority in many areas. This is Scotland’s ‘long revolution’ – which the indyref was a product of and which then was a catalyst of further change. It is partly understandable that in the immediate aftermath of the referendum,

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The Arrival of Jim Murphy and Scottish Labour’s Challenge Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, December 14^th 2014 A once impregnable organisation is in trouble and lost its way. It yearns for a now distant golden age and has continual problems of leadership and falling ratings. The above is about Glasgow Rangers FC, but it could be equally true of Scottish Labour. Two pillars of the Scottish establishment now on hard times. Scottish Labour yesterday elected Jim Murphy as its seventh leader in fifteen years, and Kezia Dugdale as deputy leader. That degree of change is the mark of an institution where

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Message to the Messengers: What do we do after Yes? Gerry Hassan Scottish Left Project, December 5th 2014 It is a frenetic, dynamic time to be living in Scotland – politically, culturally and in many other aspects of public life. Nearly three months since the momentous indyref Scotland is still gripped by a sense of movement, possibilities and new openings – up to and beyond the 2015 and 2016 elections. Yet at the same time in parts of the independence movement there are unrealistic expectations of political change, of belief that the union is finished, and that Scotland can embark

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Mr. Smith Comes to Town Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, November 30^th 2014 The Smith Commission arose out of last minute panic by the pro-union parties in the independence referendum as the polls swung against them in the last few days. This produced ‘the Vow’, Gordon Brown’s whirlwind tour, and the three Westminster party leaders rushing north. Such ill-concealed panic rarely produces good politics, and so it has proven with the Smith report. It isn’t all black and white. Smith represents simultaneously the best and worst of Scottish traditions. On the plus there is the no nonsense getting down to serious

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Reflections on Turning Fifty in the Scotland of 2014 Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 26th 2014 I knew from an early age I would turn 50 in 2014. It was simple maths. At age eight, reading the ‘Tell Me Why’ encyclopedias of facts and figures, I became aware of a sense of time. Apparently the sun would explode in around five billion years wiping out all life on planet earth and any chance I had of immortality. And at around the same time, confronted with this reality, I worked out that I would be 36 in 2000, 50 in 2014

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The Power of the Small: A Journey into a Hidden Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 19th 2014 Football is everywhere in modern life and no more so than in Scotland. It is a partial story, concentrating on the theatre, drama and tropes of a very select few: the changing fortunes of Celtic and Rangers, the predictability of the Premiership, and an over-focus on a few clubs in the Central Belt (along with Aberdeen and the two Dundee clubs). A whole array of football is missing from these accounts: the Scotland of the non-league game represents what is in

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The Challenge of Success for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, November 16^th 2014 The SNP are in good spirits with new leader Nicola Sturgeon describing the party as having ‘the wind in its sails’. The party might have been on the losing side of the recent independence referendum, but is riding high in the polls for Westminster next year and the Scottish Parliament elections the following year, with party membership sitting now at 85,000 and rising. This is the party that Nicola Sturgeon inherits from Alex Salmond this weekend. ‘The country has changed, and changed utterly’ claimed

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