Monthly Archives: February 2019

From all I read (via Facebook) in the British media, it’s Jeremy Corbyn who appears to be ‘the problem’; and behind that, his socialism. Which, truth to tell, is no more ‘extreme’ than was the policy of the Labour Party under … Continue reading →

(For music lovers.) We went to a concert this afternoon in the wonderful Musikaliska concert hall in Stockholm, attracted there (for my part) by a performance of William Walton’s Violin Concerto, which I knew from recordings but had never heard … Continue reading →

I’ve been out of the UK for two months now – in body, if not in mind. How could I mentally distance myself from all that’s happening there politically just now, even if I wanted to? It’s all the doing … Continue reading →

‘Sledging’ – close fielders throwing insults at batsmen in order to put them off – is one of the most unpleasant things to have entered cricket in recent years. Last week the English captain Joe Root responded to a homophobic … Continue reading →

OK, I’m coming out of my political depression now; and wondering whether something positive could be made of this terrible thing that’s happening to the Labour Party. If Philip Cassell, commenting on my last blog, is right, it could just … Continue reading →

I thought I couldn’t get more depressed about British politics, but this latest breakaway from the Labour Party has plunged me into an even deeper pit of despair. That’s despite the fact that very early on, when Corbyn was surprisingly … Continue reading →

Isolated as I am in my Nordic fastness, with only the snow and kindly and rational Swedes around me, all the news I receive from Britain is from Facebook, the Guardian online, and emails from like-minded friends. Nearly all of it … Continue reading →

I’ve sounded off about the ‘cruel’ Home Office before: https://bernardjporter.com/2018/05/31/our-unhomely-office/. Windrush, the ‘hostile environment’ policy, those huge posters telling undocumented immigrants to scat – ‘or else’; people being deported summarily and quite illegally; the terrible conditions in the refugee holding camps; … Continue reading →

Doubtless John McDonnell will get a lot of stick from ‘patriots’ for expressing the opinion in a TV interview that Winston Churchill was a ‘villain’: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47233605. He made it clear that he was referring specifically to his conduct as Home … Continue reading →

A book proposal I sent to a publisher nearly a year ago, but which then dropped out of sight as the publisher (the excellent IB Tauris) was being taken over by the (equally excellent) Bloomsbury Group, has suddenly re-emerged, with … Continue reading →