Category Archives: Uncategorized

Back to the UK. I find travelling very tiring. (I can’t wait for them to invent that instantaneous transporter they had in Star Trek.) So, no time and little energy to blog. And nothing new to say about the tragedies … Continue reading →

Through the eyes of a modern liberal Marxist, almost everything that is happening in the world today – the reaction against globalism, harnessed to various brands of nationalism and racism – can be interpreted as a symptom of a late … Continue reading →

As a historian, and fully aware of past British xenophobia – indeed, I’ve written about it – I can’t recall any other British government since the 17th century which had a policy of getting rid, in one way or another, of … Continue reading →

Of course living in a foreign country broadens the mind. That’s why the organisation known as ‘Democrats Abroad’ (http://www.democratsabroad.org/) is making such huge efforts to register the American expatriate vote for the forthcoming presidential election. Its assumption is that US … Continue reading →

The Tories aren’t as stupid as they’re made out. In fact, part of their cleverness has always lain in pretending that they are dumber than they really are. That’s how they escaped the guillotine (or hangman’s noose) in French revolutionary times … Continue reading →

I’ve just watched an entire Trump speech on my i-phone (Manheim, Pennsylvania, October 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY89pjXa-EU). Yes, pity me. It lasted over an hour but could have been boiled down to a minute: ‘Make America great again’, ‘Crooked Hillary’, and ‘Me, … Continue reading →

The last time that people in Britain – some of them, at any rate – got seriously exercised about ‘inequality’, as opposed to simple ‘poverty’, was a hundred years ago. The key work then – the rough equivalent of Richard … Continue reading →

On our Swedish island for the weekend. Beautiful autumn weather, a blazing log stove, and plenty of wine. It seems a world away from Donald Trump; but of course you can’t avoid him even here, and if he is elected … Continue reading →

Liam Fox’s encomium to global free trade, delivered recently in Manchester, the original home of the idea  (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/30/globalisation-poverty-corruption-free-trade-liam-fox), gives me an excuse to re-post this blog of mine from April this year, on the early Victorian version of the ideology, which Fox appears … Continue reading →

Four or five years ago I had an unusually painful experience with one of my publishers, and decided to write about it for the THES. They eventually published the article, but only after it had been ‘lawyered’ almost to death. So, … Continue reading →