The Divine Right to Rule: Power and the Scots Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, March 12th 2011 Scotland likes to see itself as a land of passion, romance and rebellion: a disputatious society where no one is allowed to get too big for their boots: a permanent ‘diverse assembly’ in Robert Crawford’s telling phrase. At the same time the Scots have displayed a curious attitude towards power, who has it, how they exercise it, and what it means. One could characterise it as an indifference, but it slips over into something much stronger: acquiescence. One account, found in the Scottish Government

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Scotland and the Politics of Change after Social Democracy Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 9th 2011 Scotland likes to see itself as a radical nation. An egalitarian country. A country of socialism and more latterly social democratic and progressive values. A nation which never voted for the Tories in large numbers in recent decades, didn’t like Mrs. Thatcher and didn’t buy into Thatcherism. A political community which has stood for timeless Scottish values of caring for the vulnerable, compassion and not buying into the certainties of the last few decades which have obsessed Westminster and Washington. It is a

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After Devolution: How Do We Change Scotland? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, March 8th 2011 The last decade of Scotland has shown the limits of devolution and the power of the forces of caution and conservatism – despite our belief that we are radicals, rebels and challengers of orthodoxy. There were several accounts of devolution, but the dominant, prevailing one was not about transforming Scottish society or a supposed ‘new politics’. Instead, it was about legitimising the existing vested interests and forces of institutional Scotland. There have been many positives in the last decade: the effortless establishment of the

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Scotland’s Shame Deniers and the Silence of Men Gerry Hassan Open Democracy. March 7th 2011 The power and pull of Scottish football reaches into every nook and cranny of Scottish society for good and ill. It obsesses us, transfixes us and blinds us to addressing so many things in our country. The most recent Celtic v Rangers game has shown that football has a life force of its own which takes over most of Scotland: three Rangers players sent off, 13 yellow cards, the Celtic manager and Rangers assistant in a bitter exchange, hundreds of arrests, and the number of

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How We Grow Up in Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, March 5th 2011 Scotland we know has its fair share of problems, but we used to tell ourselves a set of comforting stories to disguise this. One was that we were an egalitarian nation. Another was that this was a child friendly society – due to things like Children’s Panels – but fortunately you don’t hear that much anymore. Susan Deacon, former Labour minister was commissioned by the Scottish Government to look at early life experiences - with ‘Joining the Dots: A Better Start for Scotland’s Children’ the result. Deacon

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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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