Scottish Labour Party

Scotland’s progressive politics needs some championing Gerry Hassan The National, 30 November 2021 Scotland’s progressive values have defined much of our politics - the first 20 years of devolution, majority opposition to Thatcherism, and the independence debate. And yet for all their wide support they need attention, nurturing, and championing. On Saturday Plaid Cymru voted to endorse a deal with Welsh Labour for a co-operation agreement in government covering 46 areas including free school meals for primary children, free childcare, and tackling the second homes crisis. Adam Price, Plaid leader, said that this renewed “trust in a new democracy with

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The world comes to Glasgow: Time to Think and Act Big Gerry Hassan Sunday National, 31 October 2021 Glasgow can do big things. It has revelled in being an international host city – from the most memorable European Cup finals to European City of Culture 1990 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The city’s sense of swagger, ambition and constant reinvention has sustained it through good times and bad, and aided it through difficult periods such as post-war deindustrialisation and the Thatcher era. But alongside that, the city has been constantly battered by external forces and had huge change imposed on

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A Celebration of Democracy – and Goodbye to Yesterday’s Men Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 12th 2021 The Scottish elections attracted major media coverage - not just here, but across the UK and internationally. They have been portrayed as historic, and a potential turning point that could decide the fate of the independence question, and ultimately, determine the future of the UK. They were a major moment of democratic engagement. The five previous Scottish elections I discussed last week all had fairly unimpressive turnouts - 58.4% in 1999, 49.7% in 2003, 54.0% in 2007, 50.5% in 2011, and 55.8% in

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Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Lessons for Politics and Public Life Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 24th 2021 Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon’s political relationship has defined Scotland over the past two decades. They oversaw the rise of the SNP and its transformation into a party of power. They achieved and nearly won an indyref - followed by the slow, painful unravelling of their relationship in public; the turbulence of the past three years, and the bitter end of their partnership. We have seen nothing like it in Scottish or UK politics in living memory. No previous political

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Scottish Labour is the problem, not the leader. And the solution is a genuine Scottish Labour Party Gerry Hassan Sunday National, January 17th 2020 The Scottish Labour Party has contributed so much over the past 20 years; not in terms of substantive politics in government or opposition but in the realm of scandal, drama and soap opera. Richard Leonard’s resignation is the latest episode in this long running saga which has increasingly been playing to diminishing audiences and reviews. He has been the ninth Labour leader in two decades; the sixth leader in opposition, and the fifth since the 2014

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The Legacy of Donald Dewar and Scotland’s Stories: Past, Present and Future Gerry Hassan Sunday National, October 11th 2020 Twenty years ago today Donald Dewar tragically died at the age of 63. His loss was an incalculable one to the fledgling Scottish Parliament and to Scottish Labour: the first institution eventually finding its feet, while the second lost its way. Dewar was Scotland’s first ever First Minister who presided over the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. He reasserted Labour’s devolution commitment when others doubted it and, in the months following the 1997 Labour election victory as Scottish Secretary of State,

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Donald Dewar and the Lost Story of Devolution Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, October 8th 2020 A significant and poignant moment in Scotland’s recent history comes up this weekend on Sunday, with the 20^th anniversary of the tragic death of the first ever First Minister Donald Dewar at the age of 63. Donald Dewar was a profoundly decent person, imbued with an older sense of public mission and morality, who often seemed out of kilter with the times - drawing from a deep reservoir of how the middle and professional classes used to behave. His death robbed the Scottish Parliament of

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Labour troubles, the Independence Question and the future of Britain Gerry Hassan Sunday National, September 27th 2020 Labour conference met this week but in the new online world of Zoom the only cut through was Keir Starmer’s keynote address along with his TV response to Boris Johnson’s COVID-19 broadcast. It is now nine months since the Tories won a landslide election victory. But the world has been turned upside down since last December. Boris Johnson was sold as a great communicator and campaigner, but as UK Prime Minister has proven inept, unfocused, untrustworthy and amateurish. Labour matters in UK politics.

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What comes after Richard Leonard for Scottish Labour? Time for an Independent Labour Party Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 9th 2020 Scottish Labour once seemed to have an ironclad grip on Scottish politics, winning election after election, and seeing off opponents whether it was Tories, SNP or the occasional Lib Dem. For two political generations - from 1959 to 2007 - Labour won every single nationwide election for Westminster in seats, and from 1964 in votes; and in the first two Scottish Parliament elections to 2007. It became defined as the party of power, the insider class and hence,

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Scotland’s future as an independent nation is being created in the here and now Gerry Hassan Sunday National, June 28th 2020 Independence is back in the news and making the news. Truth is it never went away, but last week’s 54:46 poll in this paper set a surge of energy through the Scottish political scene. The British state and government, and Boris Johnson’s serial incompetence and inability to tell the truth in a national crisis of life and death proportions, is making the case for independence. Johnson represents all that most Scots are repulsed by - a posh entitlement

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