New Labour

The lessons and warning from New Labour Gerry Hassan The National, 26 October 2021 The spectre of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and New Labour may seem a long time ago given the mess the UK is in, but their period of dominance still casts a long shadow over British politics and offers lessons and warnings for the present. The new BBC five-part series: “Blair and Brown: The New Labour Revolution” is a major political documentary with all the main players - including Blair and Brown, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson - present and correct. This is “big beast”, Westminster-focused, insider

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The SNP, Salmond and Sturgeon and the limits of court politics Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 5th 2020 The UK is in turbulence. The UK Government has failed us on matters of life and death. Scotland has felt very different, even if on some of the fundamentals of COVID19 it has not been actually that different. At the same time the SNP has soared in the polls, Nicola Sturgeon’s ratings have outshone everyone else and independence has moved into the majority. To some this looks like our future - a slow disentanglement from the UK state. Yet across the world,

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Tony Blair and the Road from Baghdad to Boris Johnson’s Brexit Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, October 26th 2019 Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and others from the New Labour era have of late been on our airwaves talking endlessly of the evils of Brexit and the need for a second referendum on Europe. But seldom if ever do they publicly reflect on their own disastrous role in fanning the flames which led to the current Brexit debacle. Blair and Campbell advocated and led the case for the Iraq war - an illegal war based on a campaign of disinformation,

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Debating the Future of Labour: A Conversation with Polly Toynbee Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, August 28th 2012 The Edinburgh of Scotland’s late summer is awash not just with rainstorms but a plethora of festivals and happenings: the International Festival, the Fringe, the Book Festival, Television Festival, and even a Festival of Politics in the Scottish Parliament. If all this sounds like an expression of the Scots ‘democratic intellect’ or a modern day ‘Enlightenment’ city, while conversations, deliberations and cultural happenings cover a multitude of concerns, there is usually an absence of connection to the host city and anything seriously

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There is a long story to the crisis we are in Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 14th 2012 As the economic, social and political turmoil mounts across Britain, Europe and the West, some voices of certainty have arisen. One of the most vocal strands of opinion concerns who to blame for the wreckage and debris we see before us, with some wanting to lay the responsibility solely on the shoulders of Thatcherism, ‘the Big Bang’ and 1980s. It is very simple and easy to understand; the human need to rewrite history as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The 1980s as the epitome

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The Comeback of ‘Gorgeous George’ and What It Says About British Politics Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 30th 2012 A seismic shock has been delivered to the British body politic and its insular, complacent, steady as she goes assumptions. It is one with many levels, layers and complications: the return of George Galloway as the ‘Respect’ MP for Bradford West overturning a Labour majority of 5,763, winning by a margin of 10,140 over Labour, with an impressive 18,341 votes (55.9%), considerably more than the combined Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem vote of 12,402. Already the qualifiers are out, implying

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The age of the rainbow coalitions Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 24th 2011 Political colours are all the vogue at the moment. We have had Red Tories and Orange Book Liberals. And now we have the latest manifestations, Blue Labour and Purple Labour. The last two are signs of some intellectual activity in British Labour, as it tries to come to terms with the post-Blair/Brown era. Blue Labour is associated with Ed Miliband’s favourite guru, Maurice Glasman, which emphasises community, authority and the need for the state to provide some solidarity in society. Purple Labour is the creation of

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The Pains of Labour after Blair and Brown Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 18th 2011 The condition of British Labour may seem a distant subject to many Scots. We after all have a SNP majority government and our politics now march to a different beat. Despite everything, British Labour still matters. It is the majority Scots party at Westminster, winning 41 out of 59 seats only last year. And British politics still matter, for as long as Scotland remains part of the UK. There is a strange atmosphere in what used to be called ‘the people’s party’. Ed Miliband’s

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The al-Megrahi Release: Britain, Libya, Scotland and Doing Business Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, February 12th 2011 The al-Megrahi release may come to be seen as one of the defining moments of the early years of the Scottish Parliament. It was certainly a defining point for the SNP Government – a rare occasion where the world stopped and took notice of Scotland. There is the central role of the British Government whose actions have been examined in the report of Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary published this week – which found that it did ‘all it could’ to secure al-Megrahi’s release. There

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The Blairite Ascendancy Goes On and How We Have to Stop It Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, January 21st 2011 What a fascinating end to a watershed week in British politics. A week shaped by the continued Blairite dominance of British politics. Cameron’s ‘modernisation’ of the health service opened the week, and Blair’s evidence to the Chilcot inquiry and Andy Coulson’s resignation, David Cameron’s Head of Communications, closed it. The Blairite ascendancy continues shorn of its New Labour platform. In many respects this worldview does not now need to be rooted in any one political party to

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