Scottish politics

The al-Megrahi Release: Britain, Libya, Scotland and Doing Business Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, February 12th 2011 The al-Megrahi release may come to be seen as one of the defining moments of the early years of the Scottish Parliament. It was certainly a defining point for the SNP Government – a rare occasion where the world stopped and took notice of Scotland. There is the central role of the British Government whose actions have been examined in the report of Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary published this week – which found that it did ‘all it could’ to secure al-Megrahi’s release. There

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Whatever happened to Scotland’s Salon Society? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, February 5th 2011 One of the early hopes of the Scottish Parliament and the era of ‘new politics’ was that Scotland would awaken to a new age of engagement which would produce a more informed, inclusive politics. A lot of this was wish-fulfilment; certainly much of the talk of ‘new politics’ and an emboldened civil society was just that. Yet at the same time this feeling tapped a sense that Scotland could sustain a kind of salon society – a modern day harking back to the Enlightenment vision of Edinburgh.

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Time for Next Step on SNP’s Journey Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, January 14th 2011 Scotland has experienced an interesting experiment. Four years of the first ever SNP administration, the first ever Scottish Government committed to independence. Now is surely an appropriate time to assess how much this has changed the SNP and Scotland and what the prospects for future change are? This has been a decent administration, one that in many areas has had or attempted to articulate the right instincts on a range of economic, social and cultural matters. It has felt like Scotland’s Government, our national and international

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