The British political crisis is deeper than Boris Johnson and the Tories Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 10 November 2021 The UK is undergoing one of its periodic spasms of concern about Tory sleaze and corruption. Two complacencies underpin much of this coverage. The first is about Boris Johnson’s unique slapdash version of morality, monies and government. The second is that the decline in trust and crisis in institutions is merely cyclical and can be tackled with a simple change of government and political renewal – as happened in the past with Tory troubles and degeneration in 1997. This is different

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The Keir Starmer-Brian Cox exchange tells us how Scottish independence needs to be reframed Gerry Hassan The National, 9 November 2021 The past week has been one of the worst in British public life for decades as the scale of corruption of the UK Government and the Tories has been further revealed. This should be a good time for Labour and Keir Starmer – the latter appearing on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show after a period in isolation due to COVID. Instead, Starmer gave an interview where his main takeaway was that the UK should shift focus from “Get Brexit Done”

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A Short Cut Out and Keep Guide to Scotland for COP26 Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 3 November 2021 Welcome to Scotland. This is your chance to contribute to saving the planet – or at least to making it a slightly more hospitable place. While undertaking your serious work in Glasgow here is your concise cut out and keep guide to some essential facts about life in Scotland.

1. Scotland is a nation. It was once an independent nation. It might be an independent nation in the future. And it might not.
2. Scotland has its own legal and education systems,

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As COP 26 meets ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’ which needs to change Gerry Hassan The National, 2 November 2021 The world’s media currently has one subject - will COP26 succeed in committing leading nations to act and change their ways on climate change. What is less talked about are economic assumptions and versions of the economy, who gains and who loses from it – not just in the UK and developed world but globally. Nearly thirty years ago Bill Clinton and the Democrats came up with “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” This not only prioritised economic growth but indicated that the

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The world comes to Glasgow: Time to Think and Act Big Gerry Hassan Sunday National, 31 October 2021 Glasgow can do big things. It has revelled in being an international host city – from the most memorable European Cup finals to European City of Culture 1990 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The city’s sense of swagger, ambition and constant reinvention has sustained it through good times and bad, and aided it through difficult periods such as post-war deindustrialisation and the Thatcher era. But alongside that, the city has been constantly battered by external forces and had huge change imposed on

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Can books really change the world? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 26 October 2021 The past two months has seen me spend much time packing and unpacking piles of books: putting them into boxes, labelling them, taking them out of boxes, and putting them up on newly built shelves as I recently have moved house. It has made me think many things: firstly, about the importance of books and ideas generally; secondly, about their role and impact in my life; and thirdly, on the role of books and ideas, considering the huge challenges we face as humanity and a planet.

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The lessons and warning from New Labour Gerry Hassan The National, 26 October 2021 The spectre of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and New Labour may seem a long time ago given the mess the UK is in, but their period of dominance still casts a long shadow over British politics and offers lessons and warnings for the present. The new BBC five-part series: “Blair and Brown: The New Labour Revolution” is a major political documentary with all the main players - including Blair and Brown, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson - present and correct. This is “big beast”, Westminster-focused, insider

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Challenging hate is not enough. We have to look at the collapse in trust Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 20 October 2021 The aftermath of the murder of David Amess has rightly seen a huge public reaction and revulsion to the politics of hatred and violence and a yearning for things to be different. Much of this has concentrated on social media abuse, anonymous trolls and the invective now commonplace in much public discourse. Yet this does not acknowledge, as Labour MP Chris Bryant has pointed, out the role of parts of the print press – newspapers such as the Daily

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BBC Scotland: Time to move beyond Defend or Demolish to Democratising Gerry Hassan The National, 19 October 2021 BBC Scotland has long fascinated and agitated a large part of the country, independence supporters in particular. It is inarguable that the BBC’s shortcomings do more than irk one political constituency. Rather, BBC Scotland falls between several different stools trying not to alienate people, and in doing so fails to passionately serve any compelling version of Scotland. In recent days the death of veteran broadcaster Colin Bell has caused much retrospection on the state of BBC Scotland, specifically on how things

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Luftwaffle: The Trashing of the Last Good Story of Britain Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 13 October 2021 The Second World War looms large in the life of Britain. Never a day passes without a politician, public figure or celebrity making some crass reference to the war, linking it to the present convulsions and challenges which the UK faces. Once upon a time World War Two references were few and far between, and chosen with care and humility. This was undoubtedly true for the immediate decades after the war of 1945-65 – a period which ended with the death of

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