Author Archives: bernardporter2013

‘Who do you think you are?’ is the title of a TV programme going into celebrities’ genealogies. (Sweden has an identical series, as I’m sure have other countries.) I’ve always objected to the title, which implies that ‘who one is’ … Continue reading →

Amoral capitalist con-artists are a fairly common feature in literature – off-hand I can think of Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1875), and HG Wells’s Tono-Bungay (1909) – and of course in historical reality: lots in the early … Continue reading →

Demonstrations and marches – and I’ve been on a few in my time, beginning with Aldermaston (well, the Trafalgar Square bit) – can be terrific. There’s a great spirit of what I suppose you could call ‘solidarity’ there, mixing and … Continue reading →

My immediate reaction: Trump hasn’t changed at all, isn’t going to tack even a little from his position during the campaign. He’s genuine. It was a pretty good speech, I thought, for his audience. I kept imagining it spoken in 1930s … Continue reading →

Well, the day has come. I’ll be watching the inauguration on the telly with a couple of friends and fortified, hopefully to blessed oblivion, by a bottle or two (or three) of cheap French wine. Who could have foreseen it? … Continue reading →

The best principled case for Brexit was always going to be the ‘internationalist’ one, painting the European Union as a protectionist cabal and a ‘white men’s club’, by contrast with the truly free trading, non-exclusive and friendly-to-everyone nation that Britain … Continue reading →

Yesterday a friend reminded me of a story I’ve been telling for years, but not yet on this blog, I think; about an incident at O’Hare Airport in Chicago some time ago, when I came off a plane, only to trip over … Continue reading →

For those frustrated and even frightened by the West’s current unseemly rush back to the supposed comforts of nationalism and tribalism, and for those who, like me, don’t wish to restrict ourselves to single identities, national or otherwise, Prime Minister … Continue reading →

Talking of conspiracy theories: it was good to see another bucketful of icy water being poured over the heads of the Bard deniers in the Observer today. I’ve always believed – to misquote Theresa May – that ‘Shakespeare means Shakespeare’. … Continue reading →

This alleged Russian conspiracy behind Trump is fascinating. I can see where Trump is coming from in denying it, or at least in insisting that it made no difference to the result of the election. If his victory was influenced … Continue reading →