Nicola Sturgeon

2016: The Year of the UK as a Disunited Kingdom in an Unstable World Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, December 27th 2015 ‘The future ain’t what it used to be’ - said American baseball player Yogi Berra. This year saw unpredictability, shocks and upsets. There was the election of a majority Conservative Government which no polls predicted. There was the tartan tsunami which saw the SNP sweep nearly all before it. There was the rise and victory of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, while across the world a whole range of populists, from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders to Marine

Continue Reading 2016: The Year of the UK as a Disunited Kingdom in an Unstable World

Let’s Talk about Tax if we don’t want to be Safety First Scotland Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, December 20th 2015 This was a significant week for the Scottish Government and Scottish politics. John Swinney presented his first ever budget since Scotland had been given limited income tax powers which allowed variety up or down by up to 10p. That he choose not to do so is significant. Swinney’s ninth budget came against the backdrop of a decade of real terms cuts by the Tories which we are only half way through. Against this backdrop and a Scottish election next year

Continue Reading Let’s Talk about Tax if we don’t want to be Safety First Scotland

If Independence is a State of Mind then we have to fundamentally change Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, November 8th 2015 Years ago the dream was that the Scottish Parliament would usher in a new politics. It was going to be different from adversarial Westminster – consensual, caring, thoughtful, leading to better debates and laws. Much of this was wish-fulfillment. There has always been mutual scorn between Labour and SNP – aided by the fetishisation of tiny differences, given they agree on so much. But in recent years all of this seems to have got worse. And the last week in

Continue Reading If Independence is a State of Mind then we have to fundamentally change

The SNP cannot afford to become the Party of the Status Quo Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, October 18th 2015 The SNP is understandably in good spirit. This is the sort of times that politicians dream of. In the aftermath of the indyref, the SNP has gone from strength to strength, winning 56 out of 59 Westminster seats in May, and looking certain to retain and even strengthen their parliamentary majority at Holyrood next year. Despite this the SNP leadership feels it has to negotiate a careful line. First, talk about a second indyref has been effectively banned in public. Even

Continue Reading The SNP cannot afford to become the Party of the Status Quo

‘Nationalism alone is not enough’ as the SNP finally shows it is mortal Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, October 4th 2015 After eight years of defying the laws of political gravity, the normal rules of politics are back. The SNP are, like everyone else, mortal. Michelle Thomson, newly elected SNP MP for Edinburgh West, has built a £1.7m property portfolio with her husband through buying properties at knock down prices from vulnerable people. Her solicitor, Christopher Hales, who undertook the conveyancing work on 13 properties was struck off last year by the Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal. Whatever the legality of

Continue Reading ‘Nationalism alone is not enough’ as the SNP finally shows it is mortal

Scotland and Britain Have Changed: The 'Big Bang' of the Indy Ref and After Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 13th 2015 One year ago Scotland went to the polls. An amazing 85% of us voted: 45% for independence and 55% against – both expressions of Scottish self-government and a desire for a different Scotland. Scotland did not vote for independence, but nor did it settle for the status quo of the existing union. Instead, it voted to continue in a kind of interregnum – a transition from something familiar to something still hazy with a destination as yet unknown.

Continue Reading Scotland and Britain Have Changed: The ‘Big Bang’ of the Indy Ref and After

Kezia, Jezza and Indy: Where are the Big Ideas of the Next Scotland? Gerry Hassan This week the SNP hit a new high mark in the polls - 62% for next year’s Scottish elections. Elsewhere Kezia Dugdale was elected Scottish Labour leader as the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon came to much acclaim north of the border. What do you with popularity? It is a question politicians seldom have to answer. The nearest equivalent to the SNP now is Blair’s New Labour – which, less we forget, was once hugely popular. There is the question of where opposition comes from and what

Continue Reading Kezia, Jezza and Indy: Where are the Big Ideas of the Next Scotland?

Time for an Independence of the Scottish Mind Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, August 9th 2015 A second independence may be off the agenda of SNP conference for now, but Alex Salmond regards it as ‘inevitable’. Such are the pressures and tensions of success. Where do you take a movement which came close to winning independence last September? How do you balance pragmatic and idealist hopes? What do you after the SNP ‘tartan tsunami’ of May this year which carried nearly all before it – and, when your opponents are so weak and disorientated? There is talk in places of a

Continue Reading Time for an Independence of the Scottish Mind

The SNP Ascendancy is changing Scotland and the SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, June 14th 2015 The Scottish sun is out, and summer is approaching. This is true not just of the weather but reflects the mood of the SNP, their popularity, and especially that of leader Nicola Sturgeon. In the last week a TNS opinion poll for next year’s Scottish Parliament election put the SNP on 60% and Labour 19% in the constituency vote - a historic all-time high and low respectively. This would give the SNP a second overall majority and more seats than it won in its

Continue Reading The SNP Ascendancy is changing Scotland and the SNP

A Tale of Two Nations. And Two Leaders Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, May 10th 2015 We awoke on Friday morning to a very different world. A nearly completely yellow Scotland. A bluer England. And a patchwork Wales. The first majority Tory Government elected since 1992 whilst Scotland passed in one night from Labour dominance to an even more impressive SNP strength. These and more things weren’t meant to happen. David Cameron’s re-election as Prime Minister with a majority has taken many people by surprise. No UK Government sitting for a full term has seen its vote rise since Anthony

Continue Reading A Tale of Two Nations. And Two Leaders