How to make and understand the Case for the Union Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 19th 2012 This week has seen important developments in the pro-union campaign. First, we are not meant to call it that; the organisers have indicated that the word ‘union’ won’t play any part in the title of the campaign. Second, they have revealed that they will have lots of money, resources, and celebrities. There have also been reflective pieces by Colin Kidd and Bill Jamieson in this paper which have added to public deliberations, the former in particular making a nuanced historical argument for

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The Limits of Modernisation: Blair, Cameron and Salmond Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 12th 2012 ‘Modernisation’ is one of the defining words of our time, along with ‘legacy’ and ‘journey’. It is a word used by Tony Blair, David Cameron and Alex Salmond. It is an in-word for those who feel they shape and define the age, change and the world. It has had an interesting trajectory; it was once bright, shiny, confident, swaggering with confidence, impatient with opposition, and believing the future was theirs for shaping. It became associated with Tony Blair and New Labour; modernisation was about

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Throwing the Three ‘Rs’ Away: Rupert Murdoch, the Referendum and Rangers FC Gerry Hassan May 8th 2012 It has been a dramatic few months in Scottish politics and one which reveals something about our nation and its public life. We have a problem with how we do politics, public conversation and understand power. There is an inability, or more accurately, unwillingness across large swathes of Scottish society, from our political classes and institutional forces to even many of the radical and alternative voices, to confront some of the difficult issues we have to. This pattern has been evident

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The Story the Media Should Have Told You About Glasgow Gerry Hassan May 7th 2012 The story of the recent Scottish elections was clear and unambiguous: voters are returning home to Labour and the SNP honeymoon is over. All of this is magnified in the Glasgow result: Labour holding or as most of the media interpreted it ‘gaining’ back the city it had briefly lost. All of this ‘analysis’ was done with no breakdown of the Scottish local election party share of the vote; no doubt we will have to wait until David Denver’s research several months down the

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The Problems of Living with Capital-ism Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 5th 2012 London is ‘the world city’ of these isles, a place which attracts and pulls talents from across the UK and the world: on a par with New York, Paris and Tokyo. Yet the London love-in of our political classes, media and business elites is fast pushing things to breaking point. We have had to endure Boris v. Ken as if it were a national contest, and this week the militarisation of the London Olympics and Heathrow chaos have dominated the airwaves. As UK politics and society

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The Glasgow Effect (and the Strange State of Scottish Democracy) Gerry Hassan May 5th 2012 This is a seismic weekend for politics and democracy. There is the French Presidential election and the Greek parliamentary election; therefore we need to put the UK and Scottish local elections in a bit of humble context. Saying that these were fascinating and complicated elections: Labour’s decent polling, the kicking of the Lib Dems and the narrow triumph of Boris over Ken. In Scotland the first mainstream media reaction has been to emphasise Labour’s performance, question the Nationalist momentum, and talk up the battle

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The Beginnings of an Alternative Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 28th 2012 What a week it has been - Murdoch, Trump, Rangers FC and of course the economy going into double dip recession. It is all-reminiscent of that last period of acute crisis, a failing, nervous political class and economic instability: the 1970s amplified by Dominic Sandbrook’s excellent current TV series on the decade. Scottish debate on the economy has for many years been shaped by two contradictory strands. The first has been the power of conventional economics, concerns over our relative economic growth rate compared to the

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Alex Salmond, Rupert Murdoch and the Pitfalls of Crony Capitalism Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, April 26th 2012 Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, has emerged as a significant player in the Leveson inquiry. This is a result of the release of 163 pages of emails from News Corporation which have publicised the extent of their contacts with the Scottish Government. The charge is that the Scottish Government were prepared to go into bat for the Murdoch empire as a quid pro quo for ‘The Sun’ supporting the SNP in last year’s elections. This is contested and denied by Rupert

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The Saga of ‘Team GB’ and the Country that doesn’t know its own Name Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 21st 2012 This week the clock counting down to the London Olympics passed the 100 days to go mark, while the Olympic authorities announced their rigorous social media and Twitter guidelines like a rerun of some Beijing 2008 police operation. The story of ‘Team GB’ the Olympic football project continues to offer more entertainment, bewilderment and anxiety with a ‘shortlist’ just announced of 80 players. Steven Fletcher, along with David Beckham is apparently included. Next week the draw takes place

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What is the story of Scotland’s biggest city and who will tell it? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 14th 2012 The forthcoming local elections are reduced in most of their coverage to their impact on UK and Scottish politics. Most attention is focused on the tragi-comedy and pantomime of Boris versus Ken, with even the plethora of local referendums on Mayors across some of England’s cities concerned with what happens to this or that Labour MP. The only other place that gets a serious look in is the battle for Glasgow, between Labour and SNP for control of

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