The Last Utopia: Thatcher, New Labour and the Cameron Conservatives and the Demise of Social Democratic Britain Gerry Hassan University de Nice-Sophia Antipolis Keynote Lecture January 29th 2011; reprinted by Open Democracy February 28th 2011 The question that hovers above the Iraq inquiry is – since the evidence on Saddam Hussein’s weaponry was so flaky and the post-war planning so atrocious – why on earth Tony Blair did it. One theory, albeit not the one likely to be offered by Mr Blair himself, is that his militarism and messianism, the mix of responsibility and entitlement that he evinced,

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Whatever happened to Scottish Labour? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, February 26th 2011 Scottish Labour is a party with a great history, tradition and folklore. This was a party once filled with radicals, firebrands, dreamers, agitators and orators – people who believed in a better world – not just as a vague concept, but a living alternative to the inequities of capitalism. 1980s Labour had its Indian Summer of Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, John Smith and Donald Dewar who combined idealism and pragmatism. How come then it has ended up with Iain Gray? Is its current state terminal or if the

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