Scottish Independence

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?

Back to the Future for a Democratic Politics for Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 21st 2012 The untimely death of Bob McLean in the last week might seem news from another era, but it offers an insight into the current and future state of our politics. McLean was a passionate home rule supporter, campaigner and catalyst for cross-party co-operation for a Scottish Parliament, who played an important role in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Labour’s slow journey from an Assembly to a Parliament, as convenor of the pressure group Scottish Labour Action (SLA). His political and civic

Continue Reading Back to the Future for a Democratic Politics for Scotland

How to live in a Scotland of the Heart and Mind Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 7th 2012 Politics is about feeling, emotions and instinct. But most politicians and political debate try to deny it; more often than not stressing the importance of rationalism, logic and reason. Yet this is not what drives most of life. This is the age of rage, of moral indignation at bankers, politicians and media. Or SPL fans fury at the arrogance of Rangers FC and alternatively Rangers FC fans sense of denial. The same is true of much of the Scottish debate. There

Continue Reading How to live in a Scotland of the Heart and Mind

Scotland United: The Need to Find Common Ground against the Free Market Vandals Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 30th 2012 One of the fundamentals that we often forget in our ongoing Scottish constitutional debate is how Britain and in particular England understands or more accurately doesn’t understand us anymore. This was brought home to me in this week’s ‘Spectator’ debate, ‘It’s time to let Scotland go’, held in London. Three people, Margo Macdonald, Kelvin MacKenzie and myself were asked to speak for the proposition, and three against, Malcolm Rifkind and Rory Stewart, both Tory MPs, and Iain Martin, with

Continue Reading Scotland United: The Need to Find Common Ground against the Free Market Vandals

The Perils of Content Free Campaign Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 16th 2012 The times they are a changing all over the world from Greece and Spain to the USA and China. There is unrest, voices of protest rising and authorities reacting with confusion as they cling to the wreckage of failed economic orthodoxy. At the same time the battle of Scotland unfolds; one which isn’t life or death or black and white thankfully. But to some it seems that way. The official independence campaign saw John Swinney this week declare his support for a ‘highly integrated UK financial

Continue Reading The Perils of Content Free Campaign Scotland

Britain and the Problem of Living in the Past Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 9th 2012 As Jubilee celebrations die down in the short period of calm before the Olympics, questions arise about what all this means, what Britain and Britishness is, and what the future might be for both. The familiar account states that Britain does pageantry well, putting on a show, the big occasion, seamlessly combining old and new, tradition and modernisation. But is this an adequate explanation? The British like anyone enjoy a party and having a good time but what we seem to have been

Continue Reading Britain and the Problem of Living in the Past

The New Flat Earthers: Barbarism Begins at Home Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 26th 2012 Once upon a time the world was filled with earnest left-wing revolutionaries confident that they were the future. They inhabited places like the Sorbonne, Berkeley and LSE campuses and thought they spoke for all humanity leading to a whole generation being caricatured as ‘Private Eye’ character ‘Dave Spart’, ‘television sit-com Citizen Smith’ and the propensity for endless ideological schisms seen in Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’. All these stereotypes are now many decades old but they still carry some currency because they hit a

Continue Reading The New Flat Earthers: Barbarism Begins at Home

State of InterIndependence: A Vision for Scottish Self-Determination Gerry Hassan May 24th 2012 Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in the future And time future contained in the past. T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets (1936) This week the Scottish independence debate reaches new levels with the launch of the ‘Yes Scotland’ pro-independence campaign, the emergence of the shape of the pro-union campaign, and the spectre of Tony Blair hovering threateningly over Scottish politics. Scottish independence has long been viewed by the British political classes as eccentric and unworldly. The Economist’s ‘Bagehot’ column made a revealing

Continue Reading State of Interindependence: A Vision for Scottish Self-Determination