Sunday National

The Empire Strikes Back: Being Prisoners of the Past in Britain Gerry Hassan Sunday National, May 3rd 2020 Next week sees another historical milestone with the commemoration of VE (Victory in Europe) Day on 8 May - the 75^th anniversary of the defeat of fascism and Nazism in Europe. Such totemic dates seem to come around more regularly and be marked in increasingly high-profile ways. Whether the 75^th anniversary of D-Day last year, marking the Battle of Britain, or numerous films about the Dunkirk debacle, the Second World War is always with us. And this without mentioning the Churchill industry

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What will art, culture and sport look like after the virus? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, April 26th 2020 The UK economy and life as we know it are undergoing the kind of fundamental shock the like of which we have never seen in living memory. The only comparisons of similar economic and human carnage in peacetime are of the depression of 1920-21 and Great Depression at the end of the 1920s. Literally we are living through what Naomi Klein called ‘the shock doctrine’ of ‘disaster capitalism’ at a vastly accelerated pace. All of this raises questions about what life will

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Inequality – including in Britain – kills and why we need to organise to defeat it Gerry Hassan Sunday National, April 19th 2020 As the scale of the coronavirus challenges rises by the day, another debate is emerging – about how society copes with the scale and inequity of income, wealth and power – and the overall issue of inequality. Just over a week ago Emily Maitlis opened ‘BBC Newsnight’ with a powerful polemic: ‘You do not survive the illness through fortitude and strength of character - whatever the Prime Minister's colleagues will tell us. And the disease is not

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The British constitution works only for the British establishment Gerry Hassan Sunday National, April 12th 2020 Boris Johnson has been incapacitated for most of this week which has brought up thorny questions of where political power lies in the UK, the role of the Prime Minister and the nature of the unwritten constitution. We have been repeatedly told that government is working smoothly without the Prime Minister, that cabinet government and collective ministerial responsibility are happening, and from acting-up Dominic Raab that all of this is made easier by the fact that they are all friends and allies working together.

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The Beatles, the Sixties and what happens to music after the virus? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, April 5th 2020 Next Thursday one of the landmark anniversaries of popular music and culture occurs: the 50^th anniversary of the public break-up of the Beatles when Paul McCartney broke the unexpected news. The dreams and hopes of a huge swathe of young people and generation who had grown up with the Beatles as the world around them dramatically changed would never be the same again. Leaving aside that the Beatles had to all intents already broken up before McCartney’s announcement, but not made

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A Very British Coup: And can this revolution be made to last? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 29th 2020 Coronavirus is affecting everyone. Across the world people are becoming ill and some are dying, with many self-isolating if they are symptomatic - or as a precaution to keep safe, reduce risk and remain well. And as in the UK, many millions of people are now required to stay at home. Britain and the world are changing. On Thursday at 8.00pm across the UK people emerged from their front doors and showed their appreciation of the NHS and carers. More than

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There is an Alternative: Another World is Possible Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 22nd 2020 The world is in flux, filled with uncertainty, confusion, panic and fear where many, if not all, of the assumptions that have defined politics are now open for challenge. Many things are still unclear but one certainty is that the dominant global economic model of recent decades is now being openly questioned. The Financial Times Sebastian Payne talked this week about ‘the ideology of last week’ –meaning the assumptions of the past four decades politically. There are still numerous voices clinging to the wreckage of

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The World Turned Upside Down: Goodbye to Thatcherism Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 15th 2020 The Tory budget marked a dramatic change in tone, content and politics from what we have become used to. The language of active government, investment and public spending saw UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak make commitments to an extra £30 billion in public spending. This raises questions about Boris Johnson’s government, the Tories, UK politics, and whether this change is superficial, tactical, or something more long lasting? And what, if any, are the consequences for Scotland and independence? It is now widely accepted that ten years

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Fantasyland Britain and its Zombie Economics are now in the firing line Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 8th 2020 Britain and the world are facing an unprecedented crisis: a worldwide epidemic with major consequences for public health, sustainability of societies and way of life. This is a defining point. It calls for government, state and public agency action – for solidarity and recognising that health and well-being are social and interconnected. As the writer Otto English wrote we have had ‘three years of ‘we don’t need experts, we survived the war, Project Fear’’ which have been shown even more to

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The State of the Union: Can Unionists reinvent their argument on the UK? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, March 1st 2020 In recent years the case for the union has been on the defensive - nervous and unsure of its own arguments and the future. It may have won the 2014 referendum, but there has been a rising sense of foreboding in pro-union opinion that the future is being made in the here and now by independence supporters. Such sentiment was one of the reasons behind the gathering last weekend called ‘Our Past, Present and Future’ organised by These Islands, the

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