Scottish politics

Argentina’s Dilemmas have Lessons for Scotland Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 30th 2011 For most of the last two weeks I have been located in Buenos Aires and its surrounding areas. This would seem at first glance to be as far from Scotland as you could imagine, excluding the ghosts of Ally’s Tartan Army of 1978. I was there for the Copa America football tournament, which saw the favourites Argentina and Brazil knocked out, and Uruguay’s free-flowing football triumph. Argentina in many respects felt very different. In the world of football, there was the celebratory nature of opposing fans,

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The ‘Forward March’ of Scottish Nationalism and the End of Britain As We Know It Gerry Hassan Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, Summer 2011 Introduction Scotland has been changed dramatically and fundamentally. The SNP landslide victory has resulted in a completely different political map of Scotland. This is a wider set of changes than just a northern, near-foreign politics of little real interest to the Westminster village. For a start there is the demise of the Labour hegemony north of the border. This is part of a deeper crisis of the British political class and state, British identity

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The Strange Death of Labour Scotland Gerry Hassan Chartist, July/August 2011 Things have changed dramatically in Scotland. Our political map has altered completely. The Nationalist landslide has carried nearly all before it, winning in areas it never thought possible. Labour have been pushed back to a few isolated pockets, overwhelmed even in its former West of Scotland heartland. It is possible to note the limits of the SNP’s appeal at the moment of their greatest triumph (45.4% on FPTP vote), just as it was salutary to do with New Labour in 97 and Thatcher in 87. This is

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How do we bring change to our public sector? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 25th 2011 One of the growth areas in the last few years in Scottish public life has been the establishment of various Commissions drawing together ‘expert’ opinion. We have had a broadcasting commission, Calman on the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and before that one on tuition fees. Next week sees the publication of the Campbell Christie Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services. Given the plethora of Commissions it is worth noting that the Scottish Government does not have a central resource of

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What is going on in the BBC’s Little Britain? Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, May 25th 2011 Britain has been undergoing dramatic change in these last few weeks. The Scottish Parliament elections, and the arrival of the first ever majority SNP Government following its landslide victory, has been a story of international reach and consequences covered the world over. Strange then that our British media have struggled to address these circumstances other than by caricature or silence. The BBC in particular has not had a good post-election time. The ‘Today’ programme has had Alex Salmond on a couple of times,

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Scotland’s Future Story of Hope: How we Defeat the Forces of Pessimism Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, April 28th 2011 Imagine this. If you were studying Scotland from a far off world, say Venus or Mars, what kind of impression would you get? If you were looking and listening to our TV and radio you would find a very peculiar place. It would be one that lived on or off one street: Byres Road, Glasgow; it would be nearly entirely male, with very few women; and the men would be often boorish, angry and shouting perhaps because of this; and

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What’s the Story of Scotland’s Future? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 28th 2011 Like many people I have been watching and reflecting on the Scottish Parliament elections, and finding them in equal parts fascinating and frustrating. In one way, these are elections of some theatre and drama, the Labour-SNP contest, the background of the cuts, what happens to the Tories and Lib Dems. And yet they are not really an example of an imaginative, emboldened, or even in parts honest politics. Post-war Scotland: From ‘We Have a Dream’ to ‘We are Doomed’ There is so much unsaid and unstated.

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What is Happening to Scottish Politics, its Future and Why It Matters? Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, April 19th 2011 Something interesting is happening in Scottish politics. The forthcoming elections were meant to see the return of Scottish Labour and normal service resumed. Instead, the SNP is pulling ahead, Labour is slipping back, confused and fighting an inept campaign, while in a sign of the times Murdoch’s ‘Scottish Sun’ has – unlike last time – just come out for the SNP, with a front page endorsement of Alex Salmond, ‘Play It Again, Salm’ (1). This later story has got the

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How the London Political Classes See Scotland and the Future of Scottish Politics Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 30th 2011 There is now a discernable political trend of London based centre-left policy wonks and commentators attempting to demystify or understand the dynamics of Scottish politics and falling flat on their faces. Recent examples have ranged from Matthew Taylor’s offensive ramblings comparing Scotland and Japan after the earthquake and nuclear crisis, to the more thoughtful contributions of Nick Pearce, head of IPPR, and now Sunder Katwala, head of the Fabians. From a different direction, Neal Lawson, chair

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Scotland and the Japanese Earthquake: The World According to Matthew Taylor Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 18th 2011 We know that there is a tradition of criticising Scotland from afar or in the briefest of visits north bringing your prejudices with you unchallenged. This used to be the terrain of the centre-right, of Thatcherites such as Nigel Lawson in the 1980s and The Spectator, but now what remains of the British centre-left has begun to join in. Recently Nick Pearce of the IPPR had a whistle wind Scottish tour checking out Scottish Labour’s preparation for returning to power, which led

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