Author Archives: bernardporter2013

Could what we’re experiencing today in Britain – the economic and social problems, ludicrous governments, right-wing extremism, culture wars, riots and general anomie – be a sign or symptom, or even an effect, of what ex-US Secretary of State Dean … Continue reading →

My first great literary (if you can call it that) enthusiasm was Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future. He was the comic-strip space hero of the Eagle’s front page in the early 1950s; in retrospect rather less science-fictiony than we … Continue reading →

Thank God (or whomever) for last night. No neo-Fascist riots in Britain, although they had been widely predicted. Instead, huge friendly pro-immigrant crowds, with music and dancing, but no reported violence, and the few neo-Nazis who did show up having … Continue reading →

Universities in Britain – especially the newer ones – are often ridiculed for offering degree courses in so-called ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects, in order to attract a wider range of punters. As an ex-university teacher of a more ‘traditional’ and – … Continue reading →

It looks as if I returned from England just in time. According to Elon Musk, ‘civil war is inevitable’ there now, after the riots of the last weekend. Wouldn’t that be great for Musk’s newly-acquired social media site ‘X’ (formerly … Continue reading →

Immigration is a problem just now in England mainly because people think it is. Which is not to say that there aren’t genuinely problematic aspects to it – housing the refugees, for example; accommodating them safely in the meantime; adjudicating … Continue reading →

This is the first time I’ve seen all my books stacked together – with a couple of duplicates, but minus a few later editions. I brought them back with me to Stockholm last month. It occurs to me that having … Continue reading →

The horrible knife-murders of those very young children at a dance class in Stockport the other day, and the violent riots that followed them there and elsewhere, the latter exploited if not directly incited by the far Right, are deeply … Continue reading →

One of the profoundest sorrows of my life as an observer of politics is the way Jews, once the most visible and extreme victims of Fascism, have now taken on many of the attributes and actions of Fascism themselves. I … Continue reading →

I regard Harold Wilson as one of the greatest of our peace-time prime ministers: monstrously vilified at the time from the political Right – paranoiacs in MI5 even had him marked as a Soviet spy – but a good and … Continue reading →