Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
Jo Swinson, Govan and Social Justice
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 4th 2019
The Liberal Democrats have a spring in their step. After years of taking a kicking and coming to terms with the near-complete wipeout of 2015, they have stormed back into the reckoning winning second place in the European elections. They feel that with Labour and Tories in trouble, the wind is blowing in their favour, and that they can offer a pan-British voice for Remain.
There is the hope of a fresh start with a leadership contest. This pitches Scottish MP Jo Swinson against Sir Ed Davey. Davey was a Cabinet minister in that coalition with responsibility for energy, while Swinson was junior equalities minister outside the Cabinet. Also rather germane it that Swinson managed to secure some successes which outlived the Lib Dem period in office on maternity and paternity rights.
The record and actions of the coalition hang heavily over the Lib Dems. Voters remember their broken promises, in particular, the volte face on student tuition fees, which saw the party’s MPs, Swinson and Davey included, support the introduction of £9,000 fees. Ultimately it was the Tories who gained most from the Lib Dems period in office, with David Cameron using them as a human shield. Read the rest of this entry »
Is there any hope for Scottish Labour? And does it matter to the rest of us?
Gerry Hassan
Sunday National, June 2nd 2019
Scottish Labour once carried all before it. They were admired by some, feared by others. They couldn’t be ignored, were taken seriously and mattered.
Today the party is not only struggling to be taken seriously by anyone, but has to fight for attention, battling to avoid the ignominy of being seen as irrelevant by most voters.
Many will say ‘hell mend them, they deserve their fate’ but the collapse of this once powerful party has consequences well beyond it. It begs the question – what wider impact does this have and is its shrunken condition terminal?
It is salutary to remind ourselves of what a state Labour are in. The party won a mere 9.3% of the vote in the Euro elections in Scotland. It lost its two MEPs, including the respected David Martin, the longest serving British MEP. Read the rest of this entry »
The Story of Rose Reilly: A Scottish Football Pioneer
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, May 29th 2019
Scottish football is on the way up – at the international level, in quality, achievements and in its recognition by others. Our national team has just beaten the mighty Brazil for the first time ever, and if that were not enough, has qualified after a long fallow period for the World Cup finals taking place this summer in France.
This is not some parallel universe or fantasy Scotland, but actually what is happening now in women’s football which is currently undergoing a renaissance, and belatedly beginning to get the recognition it has long deserved.
It has been a long and difficult journey to get to this. Previously the Scottish women’s game was marginalised, patronised, dismissed, and even, the subject of banning for much of the 20th century, which denied at least two generations of talented women the opportunity to play football at a senior level in this country. Read the rest of this entry »
How do we tell the stories of the past from generation to generation?
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, May 22nd 2019
A number of events happened in the last week that brought home t the passing of time and what really matters in life – and how we understand it (or not).
First and foremost, I took my Auntie Betty, now aged 85, to the former fishing village of Auchmithie near Arbroath. Betty was the lifelong best friend of my mother, and not my natural auntie, but family in the best sense. She provides a major connection to my parents, gives me an adult perspective on my childhood -and indeed my entire life.
I always got on with Betty. She personifies spirit, humour, energy, political insight, and most importantly, a curiosity and zest for life. In a recent discussion after the SNP conference and the debate on the SNP Growth Commission, I asked Betty what she thought of the latter and she replied (having watched it in its entirety) that ‘knowledge wasn’t a pre-requisite to take part in that debate’. Betty, I should add is no slouch in such matters, having gained an Open University Economics degree in mid-life, subsequently lecturing in economics at Abertay University. Read the rest of this entry »
The Death of Tory England and the Decline of The Spectator
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, May 15th 2019
For eighteen years I have subscribed to and enjoyed reading The Spectator magazine. But under Fraser Nelson’s editorship from 2009 the magazine has slowly and irrevocably gone downhill and into the gutter. Gone are the days when it was a civilised, gentle, iconoclastic read where an article could surprise and entertain from unusual angles. Good pieces still occasionally appear, but in the midst of a very different content. One that is often nasty, condemning, quick to judge people, and with a sense of profound lack of curiosity about the world – and opinions beyond the Spectator bunker.
This decline is fed by the emerging dominance of an ignoramus commentariat who seem content to blow out numerous opinions with no recourse to facts that get in away of a good polemic. This is the magazine that regularly provides platforms for Rod Liddle, Toby Young, Douglas Murray, James Delingpole and, to prove dim-witted male Brits don’t have a monopoly on bigotry, Lionel Shriver.
My weekly Spectator read has increasingly involved navigating ill-informed ranting, hatred, and bile from these and others to find the isolated oases of wit and light. Thus, The Spectator still carries erudite political analysis from James Forsyth, its Political Editor, while Isabel Hardman and Alex Massie excel online; Charles Moore, Thatcher biographer, provides what The Spectator used to – an insight into poshness and privilege – while the book reviews contain numerous gems (although increasingly Rod Liddle pops up). Read the rest of this entry »
