Posts Tagged ‘British politics’
The Scotland that Opposed Thatcher
Gerry Hassan
The Scotsman, January 7th 2012
History calls for reflection; leaders’ standings rise and fall and then rise again, and a sense of perspective eventually emerges which tells a fuller picture.
Harold Wilson’s stock rose in the 1980s as Labour lost election after election, while some observers tried to make the case for Ted Heath’s apparently doomed premiership; in time some will even attempt to make the case for Tony Blair.
This political stock taking moment has now come for Margaret Thatcher, aided by the release of the film ‘The Iron Lady’ with Meryl Streep in the title role, along with the recent controversy over whether or not she should be honoured with a state funeral (which would make her the first former PM since Winston Churchill; Gladstone, Palmerston and the Duke of Wellington previously having this honour).
One place in the world so far immune to the Thatcher reappraisal is unsurprisingly Scotland. Thatcher may have won three successive elections, changed Britain and reshaped our politics, but she never won a popular vote in Scotland, and rather than being a vote magnet here, she drove away popular support. Read the rest of this entry »
The Search for an Alternative to Trad Labour: The Cul-de-sacs of Marxism Today and Tommy Sheridan
Gerry Hassan
Open Democracy, December 16th 2011
Andrew Pearmain, The Politics of New Labour: A Gramscian Analysis, Lawrence and Wishart £15.99.
Alan McCombes, Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story, Birlinn £9.99.
Stories which explain British politics and in particular Labour politics capture a phenomenally narrow strip of the political landscape.
The classic accounts and influential books on British Labour have been of this kind. Life in the distant provinces of Scotland, Wales and the North of England exists either in a small walk on part or mostly to provide cannon fodder for the Westminster world.
This can be seen in mainstream accounts such as Andrew Rawnsley’s kiss and tell potboilers ‘Servants of the People’ (2000) and ‘The End of the Party’ (2010), two books about court politics devoid of ideology beyond power worship. It is also the narrative of traditional left critiques such as Ralph Miliband’s ‘Parliamentary Socialism’ (1961) and David Coates ‘The Labour Party and the Struggle for Socialism’ (1975). And it is also true of more recent new left or post-new left accounts explaining New Labour such as Alan Finlayson’s ‘Making Sense of New Labour’ (2003), one of the most persuasive and convincing critiques of the Blair-Brown years.
All of these take place in a British politics without communities, places, spaces and geographies beyond a square mile or so around the Westminster world. It is as if the British state was a disembodied entity floating in a vacuum without a set of terrains, communicative space and state. Read the rest of this entry »
Which England Will Dare to Speak in Britain and Europe?
Gerry Hassan
The Scotsman, November 19th 2011
The European crisis has already told us many things; that the eurozone in its current form is not sustainable; that German leadership of the continent is going to become more pronounced; and that Greece, Italy and maybe one or two others are going to have decades of European-inflicted austerity.
Another factor is Britain’s continued role as the awkward, distant partner in Europe; a country which sees the European project as something it was hoodwinked into by its political classes and establishment. And not allowed a European vote for nearly forty years.
What we don’t explore beyond glib definitions is what kind of Britain and British identity are we articulating? Is it, as some claim, still the ‘mother of Parliaments’, the time-honoured defender of liberty, free speech and minorities? Or is it a City dominated deregulation utopia, a bastion of Anglo-Saxon hunter-gatherer capitalism only held back by the Euro-sclerosis of Brussels bureaucrats?
Recently the opinion pollster YouGov has undertaken a UK survey on peoples’ different national identities and perceptions on Britain and the European Union. They found a direct relationship between national identity and Euroscepticism. If you choose an ‘English’ identity as 63% of respondents do you are more likely to have a Euro-sceptic opinion, whereas if you identify as ‘British’ (19%), ‘Scottish’ (8%) or ‘Welsh’ (5%) you are more likely to be pro-European. Read the rest of this entry »
Fear and Loathing and the Power of Class in Modern Britain
Gerry Hassan
The Scotsman, October 8th 2011
Britain has changed dramatically since 1945. In most accounts of post-war Britain from populisers such as Andrew Marr – the confident tale told is of the forward march of the classless society.
There were the 1950s and ‘you’ve never had it so good’ affluence, the 1960s protest and music, the 1980s individualism and consumerism, and then the noughties and the property and credit card booms.
This is the BBC-Ladybird Book guide to modern Britain heard in phrases such as ‘we are all becoming classless’ and ‘everyone now is middle class’ which were cited by politicians in the boom.
The difficult times of recession, anger at bankers and global pessimism, has undermined this view. Despite this, mainstream politics operates on the assumption that the great British post-war project, of consumption, rising living standards for most, and one jolly long party can be kick-started. Out there in the real world, there is a palpable sense of foreboding and feeling this is delusional, and that the days of endless economic growth, rising incomes and prosperity may be gone for good. Read the rest of this entry »
Why a Left Revival Won’t Happen and What Do We Do About It?
Gerry Hassan
The Scotsman, August 20th 2011
The state of Scotland, the UK and the global economy rightly demands that we engage in radical, far-reaching thinking.
To some this is the ideal opportunity for a revival of the left and challenging the conventional group think of the last few decades.
Most of us recognise that Scotland and the wider world are not happy places. The scale of inequality, exclusion and relative poverty in our own homeland, let alone the globe should shock. The recent figures of the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) showing that 52% of Scots have a household income of under £20,000 are a reminder of the limited lives of many.
The old story of the remorseless march of progress and the belief that tomorrow would turn out not just more wealthy, but fairer, more enlightened and benign, has turned out a mirage. Economists and politicians still talk about economic growth as a panacea, but it is no longer related to most of the population; over the last 30 years in the UK and US the top 1% have taken a disproportionate share of growth, while the middle and poor have fallen behind. Read the rest of this entry »
