Scottish Nationalists

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

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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

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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

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What has happened to Scottish Labour and how can it shape its future? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 23rd 2012 Scottish politics were once seemingly filled with certainty - we were Labour, socialist, collectivist, and didn’t like those nasty Tories. Reality was actually always different but there was a Labour vision of Scotland which many of us grew up with, knew its positive aspects, and which made us feel ennobled and liberated. That vision lifted hundreds of thousands of Scots out of poverty, widened opportunities and brightened countless lives via education, health, housing and numerous other public services. This

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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

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The Limits of Modernisation: Blair, Cameron and Salmond Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 12th 2012 ‘Modernisation’ is one of the defining words of our time, along with ‘legacy’ and ‘journey’. It is a word used by Tony Blair, David Cameron and Alex Salmond. It is an in-word for those who feel they shape and define the age, change and the world. It has had an interesting trajectory; it was once bright, shiny, confident, swaggering with confidence, impatient with opposition, and believing the future was theirs for shaping. It became associated with Tony Blair and New Labour; modernisation was about

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The Story the Media Should Have Told You About Glasgow Gerry Hassan May 7th 2012 The story of the recent Scottish elections was clear and unambiguous: voters are returning home to Labour and the SNP honeymoon is over. All of this is magnified in the Glasgow result: Labour holding or as most of the media interpreted it ‘gaining’ back the city it had briefly lost. All of this ‘analysis’ was done with no breakdown of the Scottish local election party share of the vote; no doubt we will have to wait until David Denver’s research several months down the

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The Glasgow Effect (and the Strange State of Scottish Democracy) Gerry Hassan May 5th 2012 This is a seismic weekend for politics and democracy. There is the French Presidential election and the Greek parliamentary election; therefore we need to put the UK and Scottish local elections in a bit of humble context. Saying that these were fascinating and complicated elections: Labour’s decent polling, the kicking of the Lib Dems and the narrow triumph of Boris over Ken. In Scotland the first mainstream media reaction has been to emphasise Labour’s performance, question the Nationalist momentum, and talk up the battle

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Alex Salmond, Rupert Murdoch and the Pitfalls of Crony Capitalism Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, April 26th 2012 Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, has emerged as a significant player in the Leveson inquiry. This is a result of the release of 163 pages of emails from News Corporation which have publicised the extent of their contacts with the Scottish Government. The charge is that the Scottish Government were prepared to go into bat for the Murdoch empire as a quid pro quo for ‘The Sun’ supporting the SNP in last year’s elections. This is contested and denied by Rupert

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The Price of Scottish Independence: Scotland and the UK according to the Free Marketeers Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, April 13th 2012 It is a sign of the times, and of its importance as an issue, that the global player which is ‘The Economist’ has Scottish independence as its cover and main feature this week, declaring, ‘It’ll cost you: The price of Scottish independence’. Their cover, leader, main UK article and a secondary piece, tell something about ‘The Economist’s’ view of Scottish independence, the UK and the world, each of which I will examine. ‘The Economist’ takes a dim view

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