Author Archives: bernardporter2013

For those of you who know that I live in Sweden much of the time, and who may have been alarmed by yesterday’s report – from the President of the United States, no less – that we’ve just had an … Continue reading →

If one referendum is ‘democratic’, why should a second one be ‘undemocratic’? That’s what the Brexiteers are arguing; most recently the awful Iain Duncan Smith in response to Tony Blair’s call for a rethink of last year’s EU vote: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38996179. I can … Continue reading →

Alice Wheeldon was a pacifist and suffragette in World War I Britain. She irked the government of the time by sheltering draft-dodgers and helping them to escape abroad. In order to neutralise her she was ‘fitted up’ by police spies on a … Continue reading →

Watching Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience on U-Tube reminds me that we shouldn’t take the Victorians too seriously – because they didn’t take themselves all that seriously. Patience mocks everyone, including the mockers themselves; not only aesthetes, its best-known targets, but … Continue reading →

Apparently retirees are now better off than working people in Britain: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/13/pensioners-now-20-a-week-better-off-than-working-households. I’m not surprised. Most of us have good occupational pensions, unlike the next generation. (I would have, if half of it were not going to my ex-wife.) We’ve … Continue reading →

Having been a skeptical student of ‘conspiracy theories’ for many years – arising out of my work on Britain’s secret services – I thought I could distinguish ‘true’ from ‘false’ news fairly easily. But it really is becoming more difficult … Continue reading →

I voted – twice – for Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party, and am still loyal to his ideals and policies. I also think he’s done a good job in many ways, bearing in mind the hostility of … Continue reading →

The National Health Service is our greatest national achievement. It could also be our greatest national asset, if it weren’t currently being starved of funds. Horror stories – patients lying in corridors, delayed operations, elderly patients taking up beds because … Continue reading →

Of course the other way of getting traction from a ‘Reichstag Fire’ (see last post) is to pretend that it happened, but that the lying liberal press are covering it up: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-terror-attacks-are-not-being-reported-media_uk_5898db13e4b076856216ef0e?c8ublprf9ubpxecdi; and: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38890090. Remember the ‘Bowling Green Massacre’? On … Continue reading →

What President Trump could do with now, while his travel ban is suspended by the courts, is a Reichstag fire, and an immigrant close at hand to pin it on. He’s almost said as much: ‘if anything happens now it’s … Continue reading →