The ‘Forward March’ of Scottish Nationalism and the End of Britain As We Know It Gerry Hassan Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, Summer 2011 Introduction Scotland has been changed dramatically and fundamentally. The SNP landslide victory has resulted in a completely different political map of Scotland. This is a wider set of changes than just a northern, near-foreign politics of little real interest to the Westminster village. For a start there is the demise of the Labour hegemony north of the border. This is part of a deeper crisis of the British political class and state, British identity

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The Changing Tory Story of Scotland and the Union Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 16th 2011 While the British media and political classes have obsessed over the mega-story of the crisis of the Murdoch empire and parallel state within a state, the constitutional debate about Scotland has quietly and yet profoundly moved on. The Conservatives have a long and proud tradition in relation to the politics of the union. This doesn’t mean they haven’t made serious errors of judgement at points, whether in Ireland or post-war decolonisation. Taking a wider view there has been a potent Tory account of

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The Conservatives, the Union, Scotland and the British State Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 11th 2011 While the entire British political and media class obsesses over the Murdoch News International scandal, former Prime Minister John Major has made a major speech on Scotland’s place in the union. Speaking to the transatlantic Ditchley Foundation, Major laid out the case for Scottish self-government over nearly every aspect of domestic policy, raising its own taxes, and leaving economic, defence and foreign policy with Westminster. He stated: Why not devolve all responsibilities except foreign policy, defence and management of the economy? Why not

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The Time for a Scottish Media Voice Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 9th 2011 The world has been turned upside down these last few days. There have been elements of an old fashioned morality play and Citizen Kane all rolled into one. Things have been talked about in public which you are not meant to say in front of the children. Ed Miliband and Labour have finally after years turned on News International freed from their previous fear. David Cameron has tried desperately to find his moral compass and appeared at least temporally to have lost his political touch.

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The Crisis of the British State and the End of the Cameroon Conservative Project Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 8th 2011 This week has been a seismic moment in British politics and public life. Not just for Rupert Murdoch and News International, but for much deeper and serious issues about the condition of British democracy and about who has power and influence in contemporary society. In short, this goes to the heart of what the British state has become and to the role of our political classes in all of this. This may seem like a schadenfreude moment for

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The State of the Union Debate Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 5th 2011 BBC Newsnight addressed the difficult issue of the state of the union. Up for discussion was how we all get on with each other, Scottish nationalism, the English dimension, the four nations, the meaning of the union, and issue of Europe (1). The BBC had conducted a poll of English respondents with Com Res (2) which found that 36% thought Scotland should be independent with 48% disagreeing. There was a general feeling of ambiguity about the consequences of this. 19% thought England would be better off

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The Strange Death of Labour Scotland Gerry Hassan Chartist, July/August 2011 Things have changed dramatically in Scotland. Our political map has altered completely. The Nationalist landslide has carried nearly all before it, winning in areas it never thought possible. Labour have been pushed back to a few isolated pockets, overwhelmed even in its former West of Scotland heartland. It is possible to note the limits of the SNP’s appeal at the moment of their greatest triumph (45.4% on FPTP vote), just as it was salutary to do with New Labour in 97 and Thatcher in 87. This is

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After Rage against the Machine: The Search for an Alternative Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 2nd 2011 The return of mass public sector strikes; British living standards experiencing their biggest fall since 1977; the escalating Greek debt crisis; the shaky future of the eurozone and European project in doubt. These are just some of the headlines this week. All across the West governments are cutting public spending, services and benefits, and privatising and marketising what were once seen as public goods. Many governments are enduring significant unpopularity and even questions of legitimacy. They face publics uneasy, unsure and resistant

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How do we bring change to our public sector? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 25th 2011 One of the growth areas in the last few years in Scottish public life has been the establishment of various Commissions drawing together ‘expert’ opinion. We have had a broadcasting commission, Calman on the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and before that one on tuition fees. Next week sees the publication of the Campbell Christie Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services. Given the plethora of Commissions it is worth noting that the Scottish Government does not have a central resource of

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Rising Now and Being Four Nations Again! Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment is Free, June 24th 2011 The Olympics are coming to London and apparently it has been decreed by the high-heiduns of the British Olympic Association (BOA) that there will be a ‘Team GB’ taking to the football field. They insist this has absolutely nothing to do with their 1.7 million unsold tickets which went on sale this morning, mostly for football, or the losses they think they can cover with ‘Team GB’ replica strips. The Olympics aren’t really about football, so you could say does

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