British Society

The Dangers of the Right-Wing Revolutionaries in the UK and US Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 13th 2013 The world as we know it stands on the brink of extinction. It could literally come to an end next Thursday on October 17^th. This is not some Nostradamus style prediction but the stand-off between Democrats and Republicans in the US over whether to raise the debt ceiling. There have already been two weeks of the US shutdown with numerous levels of government inactive. There have been no food inspections or publically funded medical drug trials, while 800,000 government employees remain furloughed.

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The UK is not skint – it is a playground for the rich and privileged Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, September 21st 2013 It has been Scotland’s week in the news with British and world media flocking north to cover the story of one year to the referendum. Such coverage paints a particular Scottish story by necessity and tends to leave the wider picture of what has changed and what needs to change at a British level. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a strange land; not technically a nation but a state. It is a unique

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What happens after the demise of ‘the Holy Trinity’ of Britishness? Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 17th 2013 It has been a week of momentous events. The unfolding Egyptian tragedy, the restarting of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, and in our corner of the world, the first Scotland v. England match in over a decade. It feels inappropriate and insensitive to mention a mere football match in the company of such historic events. Yet, I think with that caveat the game mattered because it offered a glimpse of future possible arrangements. Two neighbours and friends with a rich, shared history, but who

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Britain – no longer the land of the future, but one living in the past Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 27th 2013 Once upon a time many years ago, like many other Scots, I believed in Britain. Britain seemed the future: it had appeal, appeared modern, progressive and full of promise. That now seems a world away from the Britain of today: one which looks to have given up on the future and instead appears content to live permanently in a fictitious past. This is the fantasyland Britain we see before us this week - of a society, culture and

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Britain has become an Unequal and Unfair Society Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, July 13th 2013 Britain has been mired by scandal this week: MPs proposed pay rise, BBC Executive payouts, and the controversy of G4S and Serco engaging in corporate abuse of power. Yet through all this people tell themselves that one of the central characteristics of being a civilised country is progressive taxation and the degree to which we successfully redistribute resources from those who have the most to those who have the least. This week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released figures which showed what many have

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On Living in an Old Country: The Power of the Past after Thatcher Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 15th 2013 The last week has effectively been an elegy on Britain’s recent past and present rolled into one. This is not just about Thatcher, but the numerous references to the Churchill and Attlee funerals and how we marked these past titans. Is this who we really were, we ask with curiosity? Are we still that same people who dreamed dreams, stood alone against the Nazis, and built a welfare state, we ask, with a hint of anxiety? Britain seems increasingly a

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Four Nations and a Funeral: The Demise of the British Welfare State Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, March 30th 2013 The British welfare state is meant to be one of the ties that bind us together; along with the NHS and the BBC representing our common strands of citizenship. Each has been remarkably eroded in recent years but on Monday April 1^st huge changes will occur in the first two - the welfare state and NHS in England – which will have massive consequences for hundreds of thousands of people up and down this country already hard pressed and vulnerable, and

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The Beginning of the End of ‘the Global Kingdom’ Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, March 9th 2013 This week something momentous happened for the future of the Britain, its economy and politics, for Europe, and our relationship with the continent. The European Union proposed and agreed a curb on bankers bonuses, over-riding the predictable opposition of the UK Government and George Osborne. The EU proposals supported by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and 26 out of 27 EU members, will put a ceiling on banker bonuses of one year’s salary, or two years if approved by a large majority

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How the World of Eton Sees Scotland and Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 20th 2012 The name of Eton resonates down through English tradition and privilege: from the Dave ‘n’ Boris show to the wider return of the old Etonians across public life. It has produced nineteen British Prime Ministers and a host of Scottish and British iconoclasts and radicals from Tam Dalyell and Neal Ascherson to John Maynard Keynes and George Orwell. Eton was an august setting for debating Scottish independence in the week of the Scottish and UK Government’s agreement. On the same day the

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How the Beatles Changed Britain and the World Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 6th 2012 It was fifty years ago yesterday that a popular revolution began in humble settings which had a seismic global impact that still affect the world today. This is the UK release on the Parlophone record label of the first ever single by the Beatles, ‘Love Me Do’. The Beatles changed so much: the image of Britain, music, culture, fashion, attitudes to class. They made Britain feel a better place and more dynamic, ‘swinging’ and ‘cool’ to people across the world. It is impossible to

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