The Guardian

England’s Dreaming or Not: A View from North of the Border Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, April 23rd 2010 England is the biggest part of the United Kingdom - a nation, and a set of identities and places that provides much of the meaning, power and purpose of the whole UK. ‘England’ is sometimes seen as synonymous with ‘Britain’, much to the chagrin of Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish and pedants everywhere. ‘Britain’ is regularly used as a term when, in reality, people are talking about ‘England’. It can be argued that England pays a penalty for its place and role

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Caledonian Dreaming and the Slow Separation of the United Kingdom Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, April 9th 2010 As David Cameron and Gordon Brown campaign in Scotland today one could for a brief moment think this is just another part of Britain which the big parties pass through and fight over for the next few weeks. Scotland is just not another part of the UK. It is increasingly another country, and is getting more so, with implications for it and the rest of the UK. Scotland does not have that many marginal seats; Labour won 40 out of 59 seats

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Putting Politics Back into the Equality Debate: The Limits of ‘The Spirit Level’ Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, February 3rd 2010 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett are right to talk about inequality (Guardian, January 30^th) and do so at length in ‘The Spirit Level’, a debate which seems to have captured something about the anxieties and fears we have about modern Britain and life. Yet, despite its popularity and the claims of its authors, ‘The Spirit Level’ does not offer a new egalitarian credo, and instead leaves crucial areas unexplored. Wilkinson and Pickett pose that inequality hurts and harms all

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The Strange Case of the Missing Scottish Independence Bill Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, January 26th 2010 The SNP are driven by one over-riding factor, the restoration of Scottish statehood and independence. More than left versus right, this is what matters in the party. It is woven into its DNA, and provides the soul of the nationalist movement. The SNP government has undertaken a ‘national conversation’ and published a White Paper on independence, ‘Your Scotland, Your Choice’. All of this was meant to lead to the publication of the referendum bill yesterday – on Burn’s Night - and then if

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Scotland’s Real Debate: The Wider Campaign for Genuine Self-Government Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, November 30th 2009 Today sees the publication of the Scottish Government’s independence White Paper. Last week Jim Murphy, Scottish Secretary of State, launched the UK Government’s White Paper on the Calman Commission proposing more powers to the Scottish Parliament. These are two competing visions of Scotland. Alex Salmond has declared in the run up to his paper’s publication that ‘only independence gives Scotland the freedom to achieve its full potential as an equal member of the international community’. Jim Murphy launching his White Paper in the

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A Very Quiet Kind of Revolution: The Shape of the UK after the Election Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, November 20th 2009 It has probably escaped the attention of all but the most assiduous Guardian reader, but this week marked an explosion of activity on constitutional reform which is going to continue for the next few weeks. The Queen’s Speech saw the UK Government announce it would ‘take forward’ proposals to give the Scottish Parliament more powers, drawn from the recent final report of the Calman Commission, which comprised Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives. A White Paper will be published

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The Continued Struggle for Scotland’s Soul: Politics after Glasgow North East Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, November 13th 2009 The Glasgow North East campaign never really got started in the way some by-elections catch fire or one candidate creates a bandwagon. And yet, this result will send ripples through the political classes. It is revealing that Labour held on with relative ease – achieving a 1.89% swing to Labour from the SNP - in one of the most battered and deprived constituencies in Scotland and the UK, while the Scottish Nationalists failed to make any headway despite the popularity

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