Scottish Independence

Michael Marra and the Search for the Soul of Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 27th 2012 Scotland has had its moments in the last week: the drama of the SNP NATO vote, the revelations of the EU legal advice, and the tragic death of singer-songwriter Michael Marra. What if anything do politics, legal manoeuvrings and matters of life and death have in common? To take the last first, Michael Marra was a unique talent and voice, a gentle, unassuming man who spoke of his native Dundee, of Scotland and of the world in a quiet yet uncompromising manner which

Continue Reading Michael Marra and the Search for the Soul of Scotland

How the World of Eton Sees Scotland and Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 20th 2012 The name of Eton resonates down through English tradition and privilege: from the Dave ‘n’ Boris show to the wider return of the old Etonians across public life. It has produced nineteen British Prime Ministers and a host of Scottish and British iconoclasts and radicals from Tam Dalyell and Neal Ascherson to John Maynard Keynes and George Orwell. Eton was an august setting for debating Scottish independence in the week of the Scottish and UK Government’s agreement. On the same day the

Continue Reading How the World of Eton Sees Scotland and Scottish Independence

An Open Letter to Alex Salmond Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 13th 2012 Dear Alex, Next week you will address the SNP Annual Conference, closer than ever to what you have strived all your political life for: Scottish independence. You need to give a speech like you have never done before. Here are some suggestions. 1. Stop using the same template to shape your speech. Some of us have noticed that you have a habit of giving a rather similar speech year-in, year-out. There is a reference to a cultural figure, usually the Makar, Edwin Morgan. Then there is

Continue Reading An Open Letter to Alex Salmond

Searching for the ‘New Tartan Tories’ of Scottish Public Life Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 11th 2012 Scottish politics has certainly burst into life in the last two weeks if the scale of overblown rhetoric and insult is any gauge. The catalyst has been Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont’s speech challenging the consequences and cost-effectiveness of certain universal benefits in hardened financial times. The interventions from politicians and the ensuing public discussion tell us some revealing truths about our ability to have honest conversations. Firstly, lets look at some of the language used in this debate. Lamont talked about

Continue Reading Searching for the ‘New Tartan Tories’ of Scottish Public Life

Lets Start the Debate over the Future of Scotland’s Social Democracy Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 29th 2012 A number of pantomime villains have crossed our screens of late with malicious intent on their mind, out to harm vulnerable people, make mischief and engage in duplicity. This is not the latest outing of J.R. Ewing in the return of hit TV series ‘Dallas’. Instead, I am talking about that other retro-outfit seemingly stuck in the 1970s – the Scottish Labour Party – and the dismissive response of many to Johann Lamont’s attack on the ‘something for nothing’ culture of

Continue Reading Lets Start the Debate over the Future of Scotland’s Social Democracy

Scotland’s Democratic Revolution is Long Overdue Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 15th 2012 Scottish devolution was always going to produce centralisation, such as the Procurement Reform Bill along with single police and fire forces, and at the same time the rhetoric of change seen in the current Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill. It is over a year since the publication of the Christie Commission and as financial circumstances tighten, never has the time been more ripe for radical reform. One approach is already on offer: the English marketisation route beloved by Andrew Lansley when he was at health; an alternative

Continue Reading Scotland’s Democratic Revolution is Long Overdue

Time to Wake Up to the Realities of Fantasy Island Britain Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 13th 2012 The ‘phoney war’ of the referendum long debate seems like it is slowly coming to an end with Nicola Sturgeon’s appointment as SNP campaign head. In so doing, it has illustrated the paucity of much of what has passed for discussion so far. There are significant omissions and avoidances on the Nationalist side - the presentation of independence as continuity, a new state of affairs where everything can be different and the same, and where we can still be British and

Continue Reading Time to Wake Up to the Realities of Fantasy Island Britain

How Ed Miliband’s Labour could change the Face of British Politics Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 1st 2012 The state of the Labour Party matters in British politics, with consequences for who will win the next UK election, the dynamic of Scottish politics, and the future of the UK. Ed Miliband has been leader of the Labour Party for coming up for two years next month and for many the jury is still out: ‘Red Ed’ to some, Wallace and Gromit to others. Yet Labour has recovered significantly from its 2010 election defeat when it achieved its second lowest

Continue Reading How Ed Miliband’s Labour could change the Face of British Politics

Scotland, nationalism and the left A conversation between Douglas Alexander and Gerry Hassan Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, Summer 2012 Douglas to Gerry Before we get to where we’re going, I think it makes sense to be clear where we come from … My mother worked as a doctor in the NHS. My father was a Minister in the Church of Scotland. Both of them were inspired by their Christian beliefs to engage in the common life of the community. My first home was ‘Community House’ in Clyde Street, Glasgow: the mainland base of the Iona Community. We

Continue Reading Scotland, nationalism and the left: A conversation between Douglas Alexander and Gerry Hassan

Is Scotland Really the Social Democratic Country It Proclaims? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 18th 2012 There is a widespread assumption across most if not all of Scotland that this is a land of the centre-left; that we don’t vote Tory, didn’t buy into Thatcherism, and that we are all the children of social democracy. Leaving aside the Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys on Scots/English differences (which show there aren’t that big differences), there is a prevalent belief that centre-left, left and collectivist values percolate through and define our society. Some voices on the left believe that they speak for

Continue Reading Is Scotland Really the Social Democratic Country It Prociaims?