Sunday Times

The Battle for Scotland and How It Can Change Britain Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, April 11th 2010 The Scottish election has begun - a contest taking place in a different land, terrain and politics from the rest of the UK. This is a nation with two Parliaments and two Governments (one Labour, one SNP) where a Westminster election comes at another point in the Holyrood election cycle: three years into a relatively popular SNP Government. Westminster issues for England such as health and education are debated in the UK media as if devolution never happened, and Scotland along with Wales

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Beginning a Conversation about Change and Glasgow: A Discussion with Carol Craig Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, March 21st 2010 Glasgow is a place of complexity, many identities, of both dreams and problems. This is the city of ‘Glasgow: Scotland with Style’, the supposed new, vibrant city, and then there is the urban wasteland of gangland ‘No Mean City’. Then there is the Glasgow of fiction, film and prose, from James Kelman to Edwin Morgan. Carol Craig’s new book on the city, ‘The Tears that Made the Clyde: Well-being in Glasgow’ is an attempt to address some of these contradictions. In

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The Strange Story of Labour Scotland Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, March 14th 2010 The Scottish Labour Party has always been a strange beast, misunderstood by many, but with a romantic, sentimental sense of itself. It is a party which has won every Westminster election since 1959 – thirteen in a row – which makes this part of Scottish politics even more uncompetitive than the SPL! What is interesting is how the party has done this and been changed in the process. For all its myths, Scottish Labour has achieved this success without being that popular. The party has never won

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The Missed Opportunity of ‘Broonland’ Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, February 28th 2010 Christopher Harvie, Broonland: The Last Days of Gordon Brown, Verso £8.99 Chris Harvie is a rare bird in the field sport of Scottish politics, a cultural and historical polymath and bon viveur who in part seems to belong from another era, one of Victorian romance, grand visions and eclectic ideas. Harvie has spent most of his academic life in Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany and upon retiring came back to Scotland. Standing for the SNP in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, he found himself, as No. 5 on the list

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The Making of the Modern SNP: What is it and where is it going? Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, October 4th 2009 The SNP celebrates its 75^th anniversary this year in good heart and mind. The party now finds itself two and a half successful years into office, having won the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. It has been setting the political landscape of Scotland since, wrong-footing opponents and preparing to make progress towards holding an independence referendum. The forthcoming week sees the publication of the first ever study of the contemporary SNP, ‘The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power’, addressing who

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A Scottish Story of Spirit and Grace Gerry Hassan Sunday Times, December 7th 2008 Gil Heron’s death at the age of 86 marks the demise of not just a trailblazer who was the first prominent black player in Scottish game. It represents the passing of someone who not only gave the world his footballing skills, but the gift of his son, Gil Scott Heron, musician, author and campaigner, who was one of the forefather’s of modern hip hop and rap. (more…)

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