Scottish Review

Letter from America: Civil society matters more than who wins elections in the UK, US and elsewhere Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 6th 2019 Britain from afar looks very unhappy and divided. This much is obvious from the USA - not exactly a benign, peaceful, harmonious world itself. But in its media coverage, and the people I have spoken to in the past week, there is a universal understanding that things are not going well in the USA or the UK. Everybody I have spoken to in America has heard of Brexit, knows that Boris Johnson is UK Prime Minister

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Letter from America: Let’s Stop Looking to America for the Future Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 30th 2019 ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. Never take your democracy for granted. You don’t realise what it’s worth until it’s too late.’ Mikola Statkevich, former Belarusian Presidential candidate, 2015 America likes to think of itself as the shining light on the hill, as the exemplar in the whole world of life, liberty and happiness. Yet the America of today is increasingly turning it back on such a version of itself. This is a dysfunctional, divided, unhappy society, increasingly not at ease

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Scotland needs fundamental change. A nationalist project is not enough Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 16th 2019 Five years after the indyref and three years after the Brexit vote Scottish politics feels like it is in a holding pattern, full of pent up pressures, but stuck in a vortex of powerful forces beyond its control. The SNP, who just met at their annual conference in Aberdeen, are by far the leading party. Yet their dominance can be overstated, it being aided by the fragmentation of multi-party politics, divided opposition and the negatives of Labour and Tories. The most recent

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Politics and People Power is changing Scotland and beyond Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 9th 2019 Demos and marches are part of the ritual of politics - from today’s pro- and anti-Brexit gatherings, to the direct action and interventions of Extinction Rebellion, and the spate of pro-Scottish independence rallies criss-crossing the nation. They are often dismissed by those in power and the mainstream media as pointless and having little to no effect. But that is too easy, glib and cynical. Instead, while many marches have a limited impact, only preaching to the converted and not reaching out to persuade beyond

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David Cameron: Britain’s worst post-war Prime Minister so far Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 25th 2019 David Cameron has been on our airwaves and TV screens a lot in the past week punting his autobiography ‘For the Record’. We last saw and heard from ‘call me Dave’ a while ago as he has been away in his shed writing his memoirs and waiting for an appropriate moment in the political storms when they could be published. It was only three and a half years ago that Cameron was UK Prime Minister, resigning the morning after the Brexit vote, and it

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'Downton Abbey' Britain: Living with the Ghosts of an Imagined Past Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 18th 2019 ‘Downton Abbey': The Movie opened last weekend in the UK. It came at the end of a tumultuous week with the UK Parliament suspended, the UK government found to have acted unlawfully, and the Prime Minister accused of having misled the Queen. This isn’t how Britain is meant to behave, and certainly not as portrayed in the cinematic version offered in ‘Downton Abbey’ and other period dramas. The popularity of such productions says something about the state of modern day Britain, and

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The death of British conservatism as we have known it Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 11th 2019 British conservatism has been one of the most successful political philosophies and political parties the world has ever known. As we speak it is engaged in the latter stages of its thirty year civil war on Europe, which has convulsed the party, bringing it to a state of near self-destruction, abandoning its traditional tenets and debasing constitutional norms that for most of its history have been its raison d’etre. Whatever happens on Brexit in the next few months and years, much will have

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Britain is in a mess: Is a different democracy possible? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 4th 2019 Nearly everyone now agrees that British politics isn’t working - and that our political system, politicians and Parliament are in a mess and broken. Even more than this, our economic system and social contract have long ago become frayed, discredited and stopped working for the interests of the vast majority of people. This is the context in which the country is convulsed by Brexit. Everywhere people are talking, thinking and worrying about it. Out on a Saturday night in a local Indian restaurant

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Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘obsession’ with staying in office and life after Sturgeon Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 28th 2019 In the past week Nicola Sturgeon made a couple of important statements about politics and power in Scotland. Speaking with the political comedian Matt Forde at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Sturgeon was revealing in a way she seldom is, and not perhaps in the way she intended to be. Firstly, Sturgeon said she was ‘obsessed’ with keeping the SNP in office and not ending up in an ‘existential crisis’ like Scottish Labour. Secondly, she said that the decline of Labour in Scotland and

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Politics - mainstream and radical - is badly failing us at the moment Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 21st 2019 Politics has never mattered more than it does now – from climate change and the future of the planet, to arguments around Brexit, Scottish independence and Trump, not to mention, the gathering global economic storm clouds. Political party membership in the UK has rebounded after decades of decline. In the last six years, party membership has increased more than two-fold - from 0.8% of the electorate in 2013 to 1.7% in 2019, showing a renewed desire for political engagement. This

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