Bella Caledonia

Are We Better Than This? The Tragic Killing of Jo Cox Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, June 17th 2016 This is an attack on all of us. The murder of Labour MP Jo Cox is an assault on parliamentary democracy but disgracefully not as much a shock as it should be. Part of British politics have sunk that low. This is an age of anti-party politics - of anger at the political classes and of populist indignation and cynicism. Across Europe, there has been the rise of racist, xenophobic and anti-immigration parties, and even the re-emergence of neo-Nazis as electoral forces

Continue Reading Are We Better Than This? The Tragic Killing of Jo Cox

Shining a Spotlight on Power in the Darkness in Scotland Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, April 29th 2016 A few months ago I watched the award-winning film ‘Spotlight’ - the story of the ‘Boston Globe’s’ investigative unit of the same name that examined allegations of Catholic Church sexual abuse. Although set in Boston in 2001 the film has a linear story - and old-fashioned feel. This is reinforced by its serious subject matter and straightforward approach that helped it win several Oscars this year, including for best film. I couldn’t help but be moved by the immediate story the film conveyed,

Continue Reading Shining a Spotlight on Power in the Darkness in Scotland

Britain’s Elites can no longer control our politics: The European Vote will change Britain and Scotland Forever Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, February 26th 2016 The European referendum is a milestone for Scotland and the UK. It is impossible to understate the historic times we are witnessing - a British establishment and political elite no longer in command of politics and affairs of the state in a way they are used to. The Economist this week, well known for its advocacy of economic liberalism and the maintenance of the union of the UK, acknowledged that this vote was ‘not only the

Continue Reading Britain’s Elites can no longer control our politics: The European Vote will change Britain and Scotland Forever

The Framing of the Scottish Independence Debate: A Tale of Two Referenda Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, May 15th 2013 Two independence campaigns are now running in the UK: one on Scottish independence; the other which has become more public in the last week, on the UK’s possible exit from the European Union. Strangely they operate in near complete isolation of each other, with the Euro referendum being talked about as if we still lived in the high days of untrammelled Westminster parliamentary sovereignty. In the last week, the front page of the Scottish edition of The Times reported a

Continue Reading The Framing of the Scottish Independence Debate: A Tale of Two Referenda

The Scotland of the Democratic Future: Some Tentative Lessons from Chile Gerry Hassan Della Caledonia, February 14th 2013 It has been a telling week for the contours of the future debate on whether Scotland becomes independent. Both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns contain different tones and messages within them, but what has been revealing has been the over-reach and uncompromising character of the UK Government in dealing with its pesky, upstart northern troublemaker. We shouldn’t expect anything better. The British state has increasingly become the vehicle of a narrow set of economic and political interests, introverted, obsessed with their own

Continue Reading The Scotland of the Democratic Future: Some Tentative Lessons from Chile

What Do 'Fred the Shred' and David Murray Tell Us About Scotland? Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, February 17th 2012 This is not another article on football. The Rangers crisis has filled the airwaves and media this week. For the second time this year Scotland has gone international and viral, spreading across the globe connecting the diaspora and other interested parties. Many people ask how this came to pass with Rangers. All kinds of reasons and conspiracies are proposed: pro-Rangers bias, anti-Celtic opinion, Protestantism/anti-Catholicism, and the carve up of ‘the Old Firm’ duopoly. We need to lift our heads from

Continue Reading What do ‘Fred the Shred’ and David Murray Tell Us About Scotland?

The ‘Three Scotlands’ and How to Win an Independence Referendum Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, January 4th 2012 Scottish politics post-the election and the return of a majority SNP Government have existed in a seeming state of limbo, a kind of political phoney war. The SNP have won a landslide victory but have yet to produce a serious strategy for winning independence; the unionist parties in Scotland have all been reduced to an existential crisis about defining their purpose and point; while David Cameron’s government (if it ever thinks about Scotland) is of the view that the break up of the

Continue Reading The ‘Three Scotlands’ and How to Win an Independence Referendum

How we Democratise Scotland’s Future: Challenging the Conceit that ‘There is No Other Way’ Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, December 8th 2011 The concurrent Scottish, British and European debates go on as mostly separate, but interconnected conversations; political and economic parallel universes often seeming oblivious to the existence of each other. The British state sovereigntists wax lyrically as if their moment has come, the Tory Party, in David Cameron’s once revealing remarks, returning to its comfort zone of ‘banging on about Europe’, while Labour slowly shift away from two decades of pro-Europeanism, and the Lib Dems and SNP fall nervously

Continue Reading How we Democratise Scotland’s Future: Challenging the Conceit that ‘There is No Other Way’

Ian Davidson, the Labour-SNP Divide and the Language of Violence Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, October 28th 2011 Does the recent Ian Davidson-Eilidh Whiteford controversy matter? Is it a storm in a political teacup? Or does it reflect something wider and more sinister in our culture? First, there are the alleged words of Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow South West, about giving a woman, Eilidh Whiteford, SNP Banff and Buchan MP, ‘a doing’, meaning threatening actual physical violence and abuse. This does sound like the sort of thing that Davidson could say; he has form with using aggressive, hard,

Continue Reading Ian Davidson, the Labour-SNP Divide and the Language of Violence