Changin Scotland A weekend of politics, culture and ideas …. And fun! Friday November 4^th-Sunday November 6^th The Ceilidh Place, Ullapool Details of Programme Below: (more…)

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The age of the rainbow coalitions Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 24th 2011 Political colours are all the vogue at the moment. We have had Red Tories and Orange Book Liberals. And now we have the latest manifestations, Blue Labour and Purple Labour. The last two are signs of some intellectual activity in British Labour, as it tries to come to terms with the post-Blair/Brown era. Blue Labour is associated with Ed Miliband’s favourite guru, Maurice Glasman, which emphasises community, authority and the need for the state to provide some solidarity in society. Purple Labour is the creation of

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The Missing Ingredient in Scottish Labour: Leadership Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 17th 2011 The Scottish Labour Party might be in a terrible place at the moment, but it believes that it is slowly beginning to dig itself out of the mess it is in. It has started to address the inadequacies of its structures through the Jim Murphy-Sarah Boyack review – which seems so far more cautious, than transformative. Politics isn’t just about structure, but more tangible issues such as culture, purpose and the issue of leadership. Labour politicians touched on this during and after the election when

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Modern Life Isn’t Rubbish: How do we celebrate Scotland while acknowledging complexity? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 10th 2011 Modern life is filled with anxiety, doubt and worry, and yet, for many, modern life has never been better. In Scotland, this predicament is pronounced. Supporters of the SNP and self-government feel this is the culmination of years of struggle: the belief that we have an opportunity for Scotland to break free and regain its nationhood. Labour and unionist opponents emphasis the uncertainty, coming cuts, and what they claim is the absence of a Nationalist vision of independence. Both

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It’s Time for a Radical SNP Vision for Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 3rd 2011 It was a strange summer. A few months ago the SNP won a landslide victory which challenged many of the assumptions about Scotland and Scottish politics. The SNP Government had then, and still has, enormous goodwill and support behind it. Immediately after the election, the SNP got embroiled in the spat over the Supreme Court, an important issue, but one where its tone and language was all wrong. Then came the mess of the Sectarian Bill, tackling one of Scotland’s biggest issues in

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My Own Personal Enlightenment: How the Internet is Remaking Us Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 27th 2011 One of the biggest stories of this week was the decision of Steve Jobs, Chief Executive of Apple, recently rated the world’s most valuable company, to stand down. Apple has changed our planet. It has given us the ipad, iphone, itunes and so much more, importantly leading the way in integrating fashionable products with ingenious software. We now live in an age redefined by Facebook, Twitter and the conversations and connections the Internet offers. There have been the supposed ‘Twitter’ revolutions in

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Why a Left Revival Won’t Happen and What Do We Do About It? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 20th 2011 The state of Scotland, the UK and the global economy rightly demands that we engage in radical, far-reaching thinking. To some this is the ideal opportunity for a revival of the left and challenging the conventional group think of the last few decades. Most of us recognise that Scotland and the wider world are not happy places. The scale of inequality, exclusion and relative poverty in our own homeland, let alone the globe should shock. The recent figures of

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The Age of Responsibility Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 13th 2011 As the burning embers fizzle out and the streets and cities of England return to some degree of normalcy, so the inquest begins into the causes and consequences of what we are all now calling ‘the English riots’. It is clear the losers are those who have chosen to simplify and attempt to make too obvious political capital out of the troubles: Ken Livingstone for one was disowned by many Labour colleagues for jumping on ‘the cuts were to blame’ bandwagon ahead of next year’s London Mayoral contest.

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A Citizen’s Politics for Scotland and the UK Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 6th 2011 There is a crisis of public life and ethics in Britain: of the standards of public institutions in politics, business and much of the media, which throws up huge questions about the purpose of politics and democracy. Our mainstream politics and politicians seem to be beyond understanding this. Thankfully away from this narrow, cloistered world, numerous writers, groups and initiatives are exploring ways of addressing these challenges. Charles Moore, arch-Thatcherite and official biographer of the great lady has written a fascinating piece, ‘I’m starting

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Argentina’s Dilemmas have Lessons for Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 30th 2011 For most of the last two weeks I have been located in Buenos Aires and its surrounding areas. This would seem at first glance to be as far from Scotland as you could imagine, excluding the ghosts of Ally’s Tartan Army of 1978. I was there for the Copa America football tournament, which saw the favourites Argentina and Brazil knocked out, and Uruguay’s free-flowing football triumph. Argentina in many respects felt very different. In the world of football, there was the celebratory nature of opposing fans,

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