Author Archives: bernardporter2013

You’ll have seen those ridiculous MAGA videos that have been aired on the internet recently. The first showed a post-war Gaza transformed into a piece of prime sea-front real estate, with a huge golden statue of Donald Trump bestriding it … Continue reading →

Just to say, to anyone reading this who may have been trying to contact me, or expecting a message from me (Ragnar Boman, for example), that my email (bernard.porter@kajsa.karoo.co.uk) is no longer working. Why I don’t know. It was working … Continue reading →

Sorry for the recent gap in this blog, but I’ve been in hospital (nothing serious), and on a visit to England with Kajsa to see my children and grandchildren. We elected to travel by train and boat to help save … Continue reading →

If ‘Tommy Robinson’s’ great demo in central London on Saturday was designed to alert people to the popularity of his cause, it worked with me. No matter that the ‘million’ protestors that he had asked for beforehand turned out to … Continue reading →

A ‘Christian nationalist’ – which is how Charlie Kirk is being described – is not the same as being a ‘Christian’. It’s a tribal affiliation, not a religious one. The intolerance and hatred – of other ‘nations’ – that stem … Continue reading →

I’m afraid I’ve finally lost patience with our (the UK’s) Labour government: the one I voted for. Its worst policy decision, in my view, was its re-classification of ‘Palestine Action’ as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, leading to the arrest of literally … Continue reading →

I’ve been off-blog for a few weeks now, for a number of reasons: misery, injury, and trying to write an autobiography, which is proving more difficult than I expected. I’ve covered my first forty-odd years; but reading it back it … Continue reading →

What can I add, as a historian, to all that is being said and written about POTUS 47 just now? He is entirely sui generis. There are no close precedents for him in the past, at least among US presidents, … Continue reading →

I wonder whether there are any serious historians out there who support Donald Trump? If it rests on his relationship with the subject itself, there can’t be many. His historical gaffes are becoming legendary: talking of the Revolutionary army capturing … Continue reading →

When I used to research and write about historical anti-terrorism (The Origins of the Vigilant State, Plots and Paranoia), the term ‘terrorism’ had a specific and quite limited meaning. It didn’t cover all violent political activities, even assassinations, if they … Continue reading →