Author Archives: bernardporter2013

In 19th-century Britain – and probably around the world – ‘democracy’ was opposed and resisted mainly on the grounds that it would enfranchise the unlettered and stupid, who were unfitted to make the sorts of intelligent decisions on which stable … Continue reading →

Context is important. All serious historians know this. It’s what makes us chary of making judgments of people’s actions in the past; actions which could in fact be largely attributable to the Zeitgeists within which they acted. That won’t entirely … Continue reading →

Don’t you miss Gordon? I do. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/17/europe-far-right-appeasement-france-populist-progressive

I don’t remember ever subscribing to The Daily Telegraph web version, but its front-page headlines come up on my computer every day. What strikes me is how many of these have to do with money: how to make more of … Continue reading →

Now for something serious, historical and (probably) boring. This is going over old ground for me. History (like life) is complicated. I feel that it’s been one of my missions over the past fifty-odd years – if that doesn’t sound … Continue reading →

‘…your Mum and Dad. They may not mean to, but they do.’ (That’s Philip Larkin, of course.) – I was going to use that quote in a post here, to hook a bit of autobiography on to. In particular I … Continue reading →

Back from the UK after a month there, and travelling through northern Europe on the way back to Sweden, the differences between the two (or several) places appear stark. Of course this might be because the part of England I … Continue reading →

Is it wrong to want to make political capital out of the horrendous human tragedy that was the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire)? Maybe. And yet there’s no doubt that politics had much to do with it, … Continue reading →

Apparently Estonia has surplus prison accommodation which it’s offering to the British government (for rent, I presume) to help ease the latter’s critical shortage: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/prison-overcrowding-labour-mahmood-estonia-b2607985.html. I understand that Britain has turned the offer down, preferring instead to build more prisons … Continue reading →

A long post, I’m afraid; and on a sensitive and even dangerous topic. I seem to remember warning in an earlier post that the ‘Israel lobby’s’ scurrilous hounding of Jeremy Corbyn as a supposed ‘anti-semite’, might rebound on them, and … Continue reading →