British Labour Party

Can Gordon Brown and Scottish Labour Save the Union? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 29th 2014 In the past week two Scottish prominent public figures with significant stature, both of whom have had major domestic and international profile, and proved ultimately that they couldn’t cut it at the top, covered the airwaves. One was David Moyes, the short-lived manager of Manchester United, the other, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The similarities don’t end there. Moyes’ reign at Manchester United was defined by the shadow of Alex Ferguson’s domestic league and European Champions League triumphs over two decades of success. Brown

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The Strange Story of Scottish Labour: Unloved and Misunderstood Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 19th 2014 The Scottish Labour Party tends to get a bad press. People say it stands for nothing. That for years all it was interested in was power and self-preservation. They thus discount its contribution to public life down the years – and in particular its role in the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. Scottish Labour may not be in a good way but stereotypes evoked of it by some of its enemies are as unhelpful as they are inaccurate. Some nationalists propose that ‘Scottish Labour

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The Problem of Patriotism and the Left Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, December 7th 2013 This week Keith Vaz, chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, asked the ‘Guardian’ editor Alan Rusbridger, ‘Do you love your country?’. This was in relation to the ‘Guardian’s’ publication of some of Edward Snowden’s leaked documents on the activities of the US-UK surveillance state. Rusbridger, clearly surprised by the question answered in the affirmative, ‘We are patriots. One of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy and a free press’. Patriotism, for all the uses and misuses of

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The crisis of Britain’s institutions is one of the labour movement too Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, November 23rd 2013 One of the defining characteristics of the Labour Party through the ages has been its moral dimension - its indignation at the inequities and injustices of a rotten, economically and socially divisive capitalist system. It has critiqued this via its early socialist, radical and religious roots  – more Methodist than Marx, more the Bible and ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist’ than ‘Das Capital’. As politics and society have changed - the post-war consensus, Thatcher, New Labour - these strands have weakened but

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The UK is not skint – it is a playground for the rich and privileged Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 21st 2013 It has been Scotland’s week in the news with British and world media flocking north to cover the story of one year to the referendum. Such coverage paints a particular Scottish story by necessity and tends to leave the wider picture of what has changed and what needs to change at a British level. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a strange land; not technically a nation but a state. It is a unique

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Who is the Real Gordon Brown and Why It Matters? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 3rd 2013 Gordon Brown dominated Scottish politics for several decades. Now gone from the stage, he has only left memories and the issue of his legacy. Brown is a fascinating figure - a very public person, but private; moral in his deliberations yet filled with caution; supposedly radical but profoundly conservative. Kevin Toolis’s new play ‘Confessions of Gordon Brown’ (on at the Pleasance during the Festival) attempts to get inside the mind and psyche of Brown. This is a potent idea and something writers

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Labour and Independence: The Power of the Past Gerry Hassan National Collective, August 2nd 2013 Beyond the posturing, allegations and counter-allegations of recent days on the vexed subject of Labour for Independence, there are a series of important and often unexplored questions which tell us much about Scottish politics. Why does Labour, ostensibly ‘a non-nationalist, non-unionist party’ in the words of Lallands Peat Worrier’s reflective blog (1), so preclude not only any consideration of independence, but so firmly, trenchantly and aggressively, a rejection of it? The answer is complex, and can be found deep in the history and evolution of

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British social democracy is dying a slow death Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 8th 2013   Ed Miliband and Labour have been busy this week making policy announcements, marking out political terrain, and in the eyes of opponents, making unprincipled U-turns. Labour has announced it will not reverse the end of winter fuel payments for wealthy pensioners and child benefit for top rate taxpayers, as well as imposing an overall ‘cap’ on welfare spending for the first three years of a future Labour Government. There are short-term factors at work. Labour are increasingly keen to reposition itself and challenge the

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Can Ed Miliband’s Labour Challenge the Westminster Consensus? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 27th 2013 Ed Miliband does not have to seek out his troubles and much of it seems to come from his own side rather than from opponents. This week Len McCluskey, head of Unite laid into Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander claiming that if Miliband listened to them, ‘he’ll be defeated’ and ‘cast into the dustbin of history’. Worse, George Galloway endorsed Miliband for PM, just the sort of thing to scare off marginal voters. Labour’s poll ratings are on average 9% ahead of the Tories producing

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Seven Suggestions for Scottish Labour to be the Party of Change Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 20th 2013 It seems to be the age of seven questions as Tony Blair once again acts as an uncomfortable sage for Labour and Ed Miliband. With Labour meeting in Inverness this weekend and the party’s Devolution Commission interim report out, it is time for Scottish Labour to assess where it is and what it needs to do to change and to start shaping the political weather. Here then are my seven observations and suggestions for you Johann: 1. Careless Talk Costs Political Lives

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