Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
The Twilight of the Westminster Model: Scotland, Europe and Referendums
Gerry Hassan
Open Democracy, September 9th 2010
The SNP minority government under Alex Salmond has finally accepted political arithmetic and retreated on its promise to hold an independence referendum before the May 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.
At the same time there is to be an AV referendum on the same day as devolved elections – something the Electoral Commission has already made a previous ruling against (1) – on a policy no one supports, as well as a future Welsh devolution referendum.
Now Daniel Hannan, Tory MP and freethinker has announced a new campaign – called the EU Referendum Campaign (2) – campaigning for a vote on ‘In’ or ‘Out’ of the European Union. It is not clear whether this is just a campaign calling for a vote in principle or, as is more likely, a vote for pulling out the European Union altogether. Read the rest of this entry »
If A Spaceman Came Travelling to Scotland ….
Gerry Hassan
September 8th 2010
I went to an enterprising and illuminating event run by the Scottish Parliament Futures Forum, the Royal Society of the Arts and Barnardos Scotland called ‘Open Thinking’.
Here are the opening thoughts I explored ….
Imagine for a second – that a Martian landed here today amongst us. How would they understand the Scotland and the world they find:
A footballing mad nation – not very good at football – which doesn’t really take it all very seriously – and isn’t very interested at changing things;
A centre-left nation – or a nation that imagines it is a centre-left nation – and yet is scared by poverty and disadvantage – and seems to be happy to put up with a large number of its population – permanently excluded. What kind of centre-left nation is this? Read the rest of this entry »
What Does the Public Think of Tony Blair?
Gerry Hassan
September 6th 2010
Amidst all the hullabaloo about Tony Blair’s autobiography and the frenetic activity around promoting it, protesting at book launches, and people moving it around book shops – and placing it in crime or sci-fi – it is interesting to note the complex pattern of public attitudes towards Tony Blair.
A YouGov poll last week asked whether voters thought Tony Blair had been a good or bad Prime Minister: it found 47% thought he had been ‘a good PM’ and 46% ‘a bad PM’; this wasn’t that different from a May 2007 poll when he was preparing to retire which found a 49:46 split. The only major movement was a hardening of the staunch anti-Blair position: the percentage calling him ‘a very poor PM’ increased from 18% to 25% over the period.
Blair’s ‘good PM’ rating is 80% amongst Labour voters, 49% with Lib Dem voters and 37% amongst Conservative voters; 43% of 18-24 year olds view him a ‘good PM’, and a mere 37% of 60 years olds and plus. Scotland gave Blair a 42% good rating and 50% poor rating. Read the rest of this entry »
The First Tony Blair Book and the Failure of New Labour
Gerry Hassan
Open Democracy, September 5th 2010
This week has been a total Blair-fest. The launch of Tony Blair’s memoirs, the carefully crafted and controlled TV interviews, and the even more planned book signing with resulting protests. It has all had a certain cinematic, star quality to it; like outtakes from Piers Brosnan in ‘The Ghost’.
An interesting aspect of ‘Tony Blair: A Journey’ is how little Blair wrote as a politician, and how temporary and superficial it all was. So where Gordon Brown has written or edited thirteen books (most of them not very good one can say – with the exception of James Maxton: A Biography), ‘A Journey’ is only Blair’s second book.
The first Blair book was ‘New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country’ published in the sunny uplands of New Labourland 1996 pre-landslide. It is a fascinating tome. It is light, breezy and chatty – in a nearly totally unself-conscious way. It is also deeply superficial and of the moment – not aspiring to be historic – while hoping that it is part of history in the making. Read the rest of this entry »
The Coming Scottish Revolution and Tony Blair’s Memoirs
Gerry Hassan
Open Democracy, September 2nd 2010
Scottish politics have been in a sense of disbelief since the UK general election. The Con-Lib Dem coalition government is being slowly assessed by the main two parties north of the border, SNP and Labour.
We have an SNP administration under Alex Salmond – which has proven itself a decent, competent, relatively popular administration – which now seems to have run out of money and ideas. And a Scottish Labour Party under the uncharismatic Iain Gray which seems even more bereft of ideas, but which thinks it can win next year’s Scottish Parliament elections by posing as the more effective defender of Scottish interests against the coalition.
Scotland feels like a nation and political community waiting for something dramatic to happen. None of the parties north of the border really seem to be active agents in the climate of public spending cuts and coming age of austerity. Read the rest of this entry »
