Alex Salmond

We need to talk about sexism in Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 26th 2020 Last week one story gripped part of Scotland. This was not COVID-19 or the independence majority in two polls. Rather it was the fallout from the Kirsty Wark programme on the Alex Salmond trial. There is no need to or repeat those discussions – although they did bequeath a new word ‘Warkumentary’ which isn’t meant to be a compliment – the substance of which I explored last week. But what has been illuminating amongst all the opinions and passions unleashed has been that, for a

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The aftermath of the Alex Salmond trial and Kirsty Wark's take on Scotland Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 19th 2020 Alex Salmond is one of the towering figures of post-war Scottish politics - a politician who dramatically changed the country and his party’s fortunes, taking it into office in 2007, winning majority government in 2011, and taking Scotland close to independence in the 2014 referendum. He has always been a divisive figure: loved by some, hated by others. This division has become increasingly bitter in the aftermath of the trial in March of this year in which he was charged

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The SNP, Salmond and Sturgeon and the limits of court politics Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 5th 2020 The UK is in turbulence. The UK Government has failed us on matters of life and death. Scotland has felt very different, even if on some of the fundamentals of COVID19 it has not been actually that different. At the same time the SNP has soared in the polls, Nicola Sturgeon’s ratings have outshone everyone else and independence has moved into the majority. To some this looks like our future - a slow disentanglement from the UK state. Yet across the world,

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Gordon Jackson, Trump and the Politics of an Aging Society Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 1st 2020 1. This weekend it was revealed that Gordon Jackson QC, Alex Salmond’s defence counsel, was filmed on the Edinburgh-Glasgow train talking in an indiscreet and unprofessional manner when his client’s trial was ongoing. Jackson did not paint his client in an edifying light, stating that he was ‘a sex pest’ who was ‘a nasty person to work for’, ‘a nightmare’ and ‘bully’ as well as ‘inappropriate, [an] arsehole, [and] stupid’. Even worse than this, Jackson – a longstanding figure in the Scottish legal

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We finally have to talk about the Dark Side of Scottish Men Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, March 11th 2020 Men in public life was always going to become a major subject of conversation in the first part of 2020 with the trial of Harvey Weinstein in New York, and that of former First Minister Alex Salmond in Edinburgh which began this week. Until recent decades Scotland has been a male-dominated society to the extent that it was often never talked about or even recognised as such. Men defined politics, business, the professions, institutional life and our culture – including

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Men Behaving Badly: Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew and Trump Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 19th 2019 Boris Johnson in the past week has seen his Tory fortunes soar. This was in a week when Johnson belatedly went and spoke to the people affected by the Yorkshire floods and faced their anger. In the same period, he struggled to answer why he might be ‘relatable’; avoided giving a straight reply to that well-known killer question, ‘how many children do you have?’, and with wider consequences for our politics professed to not know the number of Russian oligarchs who fund the Tory

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Independence is about more than an indyref. It is about changing minds and Scotland Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, January 25th 2019 Independence has to be about more than tactics and processes – which has dominated too many conversations since 2014. Independence is about more than an indyref - and in particular, timing, the question asked and how it comes about. This is politics as process and taking the substance for granted. And it is a trap too many independence supporters have fallen into post-2014. The last four plus years have been a strange time in Scottish politics. The democratic spirit

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Salmond, Sturgeon and the End of an Era for the SNP Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 16th 2019 Britain stands at an abyss. Three years of endless Brexit deliberations have resulted in the UK facing crisis, doubt and anxiety about what the future holds. Politics has become a high wire act of competing intransigencies and denials of reality – with the only certainty that there is no easy way out of this mess or simple resolution. This is a crisis of mainstream politics, democracy and Britain’s political parties. The Tories continue their thirty-year civil war on Europe, while Corbyn’s Labour

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Speaking for Scotland: The Salmond Case, Independence and the Silences of Modern Life Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 5th 2018 The Salmond controversy has garnered huge press coverage. Beyond the actual cases itself, this says a lot about the state of Scotland. I am not making any assumptions about the guilt or innocence of Alex Salmond or the veracity of the accusations. This case is not just about Salmond or the allegations, but casts a wider light on some aspects of Scottish life, with certain parts of society not coming up smelling of roses. A caveat. ‘This is what we

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Why the Alex Salmond controversy matters beyond politics Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 29th 2018 There has only been one story in the last few days in Scotland; that of Alex Salmond. The substantive allegations and Alex Salmond’s response and denial of any wrong-doing have been amply catalogued. The whole controversy covers many issues - alleged wrong doing, how to deal with such sensitive subjects, the role of the media and wider politics, and how justice is done and seen to be done, including how we treat those accused as well as their accusers. Given there has been so much

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