Scottish Nationalists

Scotland’s Quiet Revolution: How we changed and what it may mean Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, May 3rd 2015 What in the future will people say about the state of our nation today? They will say they saw a Scotland on the cusp of historic change, shifting from an older, predictable order to something new and potentially different. A SNP wave looks certain to wash over Scotland next Thursday, toppling most Labour and Lib Dem strongholds. Cameron has given up on the Scottish Tories - in the pursuit of undermining Scottish Labour and winning back soft English UKIP voters. Ed Miliband

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Can Scottish Labour clear up the mess it has got itself into? Gerry Hassan Compass, April 30th 2015 Something amazing is happening in the UK general election in Scotland. Its campaign and mood is so different from the rest of the UK. Voters are animated and engaged: one survey predicting 85% certain to vote, 20% more than the highest figures in England. The old certainties have gone. Whereas once Scotland returned a block of 40-50 MPs to Westminster, and nothing of any real significance happened here, now the entire world has been turned upside down. Instead of a Scottish Labour

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‘Peak SNP’ and how Scotland and the UK are changing Gerry Hassan New Statesman, April 28th 2015 Scotland is everywhere in the news only a few months after the indyref. Scotland and its politics are being widely discussed and portrayed not just north of the border, but by UK media and politicians, as well as getting significant international coverage. Scotland feels different. It is as if something fundamental has shifted in how voters see politics, the consequences of their votes, and themselves. For years a sizeable segment of voters have thought at Westminster elections that the most important issue was

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It’s a Family Affair: the Strange Relationship of Labour and SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, April 26th 2015 The forthcoming general election in Scotland, and to an extent in the UK, is being decided by the battle between Labour and the SNP. There is history and bad blood here which almost amounts to a bitter family feud. Insults such as ‘tartan Tories’ and ‘red Tories’ are exchanged – both phrases pre-exist their current Labour and SNP use, but are now synonymous with the enmity between the two. The past is a distant country in this. The SNP electoral breakthrough

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Scotland isn’t Mad, but Animated and Engaged Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, April 12th 2015 The election has definitely taken off this week. There were the two Scottish leader debates. The Tories getting personal with Ed Miliband. Labour daring to talk about tax. Scotland is in a different place. Some once thoughtful pro-union commentators have scratched their heads and come to the conclusion – ‘Scotland has gone mad’ and talked of ‘the madness of Scottish politics’. It is never good to start citing ‘madness’ and nearly always reflects back on who said it. The fact that pro-union commentators think this

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Time for a Future Scotland of Head and Heart: A Challenge to Independence and the Union Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, March 22nd 2015 Scotland for many at the moment feels an exciting place. But for others there is a sense of dismay and confusion. The latter is particularly evident in pro-union opinion. This week, ‘The Times’ commentator Magnus Linklater agreed with William McIlvanney’s recent revision of L.P. Hartley’s ‘the past is a foreign country’, referencing Scotland - ‘when you get to my age the present is a foreign country’. Linklater agreed. He noted falling oil prices, the economic balance

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The tartan tsunami and how It will change Scotland and the UK for good Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 20th 2015 The UK general election campaign is upon us – struggling to make sense of the state of the country and how its institutions and politics are seen. Underneath all the political rhetoric and exchange we are about to witness is tangible anxiety and unsureness about who ‘we’ are and the very existence, or not, of a ‘we’ in terms of connection, culture and collective memories - which can be found equally on both left and right. Scotland has

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A Watershed Moment for Scottish Labour, Scotland and the UK Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, March 8th 2015 Scottish Labour’s predicament and condition is centre stage in British politics. It has become one of the major factors which will determine the fate of the next UK election and government. Jim Murphy’s leadership, with its constant announcements and hyper-activity,  whilst not having created the fundamental problems the party faces, seems to offer no real solution so far. Underneath all this Scottish Labour does not understand the position it finds itself in and how to get out of it. Fundamentally the party does

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Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and the Age of Anti-Austerity Politics Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, February 15th 2015 It has been a week filled with economic news and controversies. There was the imploding crisis of HSBC’s secret Swiss bank accounts and tax avoidance; the on-going Greek-German Governments European stand-off which threatens the future of the entire euro zone; while Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, is getting people ready for a year of flat or even falling prices. At the same time after years of public spending constraints and cuts, across large parts of Europe there is a

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The Myth of ‘Glasgow Man’ Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, February 1^st 2015 ‘Glasgow man’ is expected to be a critical factor in the forthcoming general election contest in Scotland. He, or it, is central to Jim Murphy’s attempt to save Scottish Labour and win back 200,000 Labour supporters who voted Yes in the referendum. It is also pivotal to the SNP’s attempt to breakthrough in traditional Labour seats. Glasgow man is shorthand for a certain political demographic - the equivalent of ‘Basildon man’ who supposedly won it for Thatcher, and of ‘Mondeo man’ who contributed to Blair’s three election

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