Britain is on Borrowed Time: The Future of Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, September 19th 2014 Scotland voted No to independence. In answer to the question, ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’, 1,617,989 voted Yes (44.7%) and 2,001,926 voted No (55.3%) in a massively impressive turnout of 84.6%: the highest ever anywhere in the UK in post-war times. The result, and campaign, will be rightly mulled over and analysed for years, but in the fast moving aftermath it is important to lay down some thoughts and calm-headed thinking. Scotland has changed and shifted in how it sees itself

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A Hopeful Guide to Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 17th 2014 This week, depending on the building US-UK government clamour for more military action in Iraq, Scotland will be the biggest story on the planet. News crews and journalists from all over the world are covering this. Glasgow and Edinburgh hotels are enjoying an unexpected bonanza with high occupancy rates. For at least one week, James Robertson’s famous dictum about ‘The News Where You Are’ will be met by the shock that for a short while, ‘The News Where We Are’ will be the same! It has,

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Is Scottish Labour Having a Good Independence Referendum? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 9th 2014 Scotland is on the move. The polls have shown a significant shift towards Yes. One poll so far has produced a Yes lead, a watershed moment not just in the campaign, but also in the history of Scotland and the UK. Change is all around us. There is the enthusiasm of Yes; the incompetence and fear of No; the distrust in Westminster, Cameron and Miliband (the latter two earning each 23% trust ratings in Scotland), and the quiet sentiment that the Scottish Parliament is best

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Beyond the Cultural Cringe: The Need for a Multi-Story Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 3rd 2014 The independence referendum is remaking Scotland. History is being made which scholars will look back and study years from now. The very idea of Scotland is on the move and changing, as is what we think of as politics and even the notion of what is public. One of the constant refrains, both in the independence debate, and over the last 30 years, has been the importance, role and, critically, the fragility of Scottish culture. Whether it has been the existence (or not)

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Scotland: On the Eve of a Historic Choice Gerry Hassan, Caledonian Dreaming: The Quest for a Different Scotland, Luath Press £11.99 Reviewed by Joe Lafferty On the eve of a historic referendum on Scottish independence in September 2014, Gerry Hassan’s Caledonian Dreaming is a landmark book. He articulates, with incisive political and historical analysis, the landscape of what has taken the UK and Scotland to where they are today. And at the same time, this is a profoundly human book. Hassan is no stranger to serious and heavyweight political analysis with a number of books under his belt from The

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A Journey into the World of George Galloway Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 27th 2014 Many ridiculous things have been said in the independence referendum. There was Alex Salmond’s questioning of Alistair Darling in the first debate on the possibilities of ‘aliens’; Jenny Hjul in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ on ‘the enemy’ next door and then trying to pass it off as humour; and only last week Polly Toynbee in ‘The Guardian’ referenced Alex Salmond and Robert Bruce, then wrote, ‘That’s what fighters the world over say’, listing a host of warzones from Gaza to Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, and then

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Tom Devine, the Indy Ref and the Myths of Modern Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 20th 2014 The independence referendum to some is their lifeblood; to others it is a distraction; but what it inarguably has done is to reveal much about what Scotland is, thinks and feels. Something interesting happened this week when respected historian Tom Devine came out for independence. His reasoning was, he said in an interview in ‘The Observer’ that, ‘It is the Scots who have succeeded most in preserving the British idea of fairness and compassion in terms of state support and intervention’. The

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The Power and Absence of Doubt in the Nationalist Independence Cause Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 13th 2014 It has not been a great week for the independence cause and for the SNP. This has been made worse by the self-denial and delusion expressed by a host of independence supporters including parts of the commentariat, the SNP and on-line opinion. The SNP’s position on currency union, along with EU membership, has for ages been the weak flank of their entire proposition. Thus, it should have been no surprise to anyone when Alistair Darling basically mugged Salmond on the former in

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What does it take to be a good man in Scotland? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 6th 2014 This is the day after the first gladiatorial debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling - two respectable, rather conventional, men of similar age only divided by the constitutional question. A large part of the independence debate like significant elements of Scottish public life is defined and shaped by gender and in particular, the behaviour, actions and views of some men. For decades Scottish politics, at Westminster level, was a male-only zone; as recently as 1979 only one woman Scottish MP was

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The Glasgow Games, the Great War and A Requiem for the Post-War Dream Gerry Hassan National Collective, August 4th 2014 Two very different tales of a city and a country - Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games followed by the Glasgow Cathedral commemoration of the outbreak of World War One when the UK declared war on Germany. The Commonwealth Games showcased Glasgow on a Scottish, UK and global stage, aided by ‘Team Scotland’s’ best ever haul of medals. The games profiled Glasgow as an international city and tourist destination – a transition which has been underway for at least the last 30 years.

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