Author Archives: bernardporter2013

‘’Twas ever thus’ (see https://bernardjporter.com/2022/04/01/twas-ever-thus/) is only one of the false conclusions that people claim to infer from ‘history’. Another is ‘They’re all the same’ – and always have been, it’s implied. Usually applied to politicians, and to describe their … Continue reading →

Swedes are far more alive than Brits are to the possibility of Russia’s attack on Ukraine spreading: to the Baltic States initially, and then – via Gotland – to Sweden itself. They – ‘we’ when I’m there – are obviously … Continue reading →

No. I’m sorry; but ’twasnt. As a historian, I think I can confidently say that nothing approaching the present degree of governmental corruption, duplicity and incompetence has been seen in British politics over the last century or more. Of course … Continue reading →

One of the BBC’s chief selling points is that it is, or endeavours to be, ‘impartial’.  In yesterday’s Guardian, however, its chairman (Richard Sharp) was quoted as saying that this wasn’t a selling point at all; that people didn’t really … Continue reading →

One of the effects of Brexit, and more recently of Boris Johnson’s elevation to the Premiership of the UK, appears to have been a sharp decline in the reputation of Britain abroad. Of course this is hard to prove or … Continue reading →

The P&O management’s monstrous decision to summarily sack 800 of its employees, in order simply – and expressly – to replace them by cheaper foreign labour, has caused huge distress here in Hull. Hull is of course – or perhaps … Continue reading →

I offered my UK house to a refugee family a couple of weeks ago, and should have someone coming around to vet both the house and me shortly. Obviously I had Ukrainians in mind at the time, but they can … Continue reading →

Well done President Emmanuel Macron for calling out Johnson’s empty boasts. ‘We’ve sanctioned more Russian oligarchs than any other nation’, Boris claims; ‘welcomed more Ukrainian refugees’; ‘led the world in supporting Ukrainian resistance’; and ‘acted faster than anyone in support … Continue reading →

Brexiters like to think that anti-Brexiters dismiss them as ‘stupid’. Many anti-Brexiters undoubtedly do regard them in this way. But it’s a very unwise thing to express it openly. No-one likes being called stupid. It stokes the Brexiters’ suspicion that … Continue reading →

A few years ago a woman I met at a party in Stockholm, having been told that I was an ‘imperial historian’, asked me: ‘why did you British want an empire?’ It seemed odd to her, as a Swede (although … Continue reading →