Monthly Archives: October 2019

The nearest historical precedent I can think of for our upcoming election on 12 November is the ‘Khaki’ election of 1900. That was fought between a worn-out but jingoistic Conservative party and a divided Liberal party, with the burning domestic … Continue reading →

Don’t listen to them. It’s all going swimmingly for Boris. Remember that his ultimate object – whatever he may say – is a Rightist, neo-liberal revolution in Britain, with minimal state interference and protections, which is why he wants to … Continue reading →

(Sent off just now.) Dear Diana, As a multi-racial Commonwealth man at the time – a British imperial historian, indeed – I believe I may have voted against Common Market membership in 1975. But circumstances are very different today, both … Continue reading →

Was this the plan all along? To bore people – most of whom knew little and cared even less about the EU – into backing Boris’s ‘deal’, simply so as not to have to hear about it any more?  I … Continue reading →

We’re not allowed to say ‘stupid’ any more, of course, because it’s ‘élitist’. But isn’t that what most of the arguments for Brexit are? And shouldn’t we be allowed to call them out as that, rather than hiding behind other, … Continue reading →

Constantly infuriated, as any professional historian must be, by the distortions of history uttered by the Brexiteers, I’ve been thinking that I as a serious historian ought to write something that will put the record straight – or straighter, at … Continue reading →

Musing on possible historical precedents for our present political situation (in Britain)  – as any historian must, even those of us who don’t give much credence to ‘historical parallels’: we are what we are, after all, not what we were … Continue reading →

Two interesting things in the British press today. Firstly Rory Stewart’s resignation from the Tory Party: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/04/rory-stewart-resigns-from-conservative-party. Stewart has impressed me for some time as one of the more thoughtful and reasonable sorts of Conservative, in the mould of those … Continue reading →

The truly dreadful right-wing journalist Toby Young, about whom I’ve written before (https://bernardjporter.com/2018/01/03/toby-young-journalist/), has just withdrawn a tweet in which he accused the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond of ‘anti-semitism’, after Hammond threatened to sue him for libel. (See … Continue reading →