So far as I’m aware, The Russia Report has still not been published in full. It comprised the findings of an inquiry by a British Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee , set up in November 2017, into allegations of Russian involvement in British politics, including alleged Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The Report was completed in March 2019, and sent – substantially redacted – to the then prime minister Boris Johnson in October that year; but only published – even more heavily redacted – in July 2020. Critics of the government claimed that the delays and redactions were part of a cover-up by the government.

This looks likely. The report is supposed to have provided ‘substantial evidence that Russian interference in British politics is commonplace’. The details are kept hidden, but even without them some have surfaced into the public view; most notoriously the Alexander Litvinenko and Salisbury poisonings on British soil. And the huge Russian and possibly Kremlin-linked donations to the Conservative party are pretty well known about; together with the astonishing elevation of one of the donors, Evgeny Lebedev, to the British House of Lords by (again) Boris, in 2020. (Lebedev’s dad was a KGB officer.) We know that one of Putin’s targets, in his crusade to ‘Make Russia Great Again’, is the European Union.  Without descending into ‘conspiracy theory’ territory, there’s surely enough here to justify the suspicion that British politics has been manipulated (at least in part) by those clever chess-playing Ruskies. And to require The Russia Report’s being published now, six years later, in full.

Suspicions of Russia are not of course a novel theme in British political history. They featured in the years before the original Crimean War (1853-56), and may have contributed to that conflict. The best account of these is still John H. Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion (Harvard UP, 1950), which I read as an undergraduate. That – if I remember the book rightly – mainly places them in the ‘mad conspiracy theory’ category. Today’s Russophobes might be on rather firmer ground.

… at last; as a straightforward overnight ankle operation turned into a fortnight of other late-discovered maladies. But I seem to be OK now; back at my (Swedish) home with help from Kajsa and from the amazing social services that ‘Stockholm Stad’ provides for poor old crocks like me. I got none of the impression of crisis that one meets in the NHS these days; a hospital fully staffed with doctors and nurses with time to discuss the travails of the NHS with me, and in one case – an Iranian nurse – to introduce me to mediaeval Persian poetry. The food was not to my taste, with the result that I’ve lost weight; but Kajsa reckons that’s not such a bad thing.

I’ve had plenty of time, just lying there, to think of new ideas for blog posts, but I’ll have to wait for that. Tomorrow we go in to have my plaster taken off, and the foot – reinforced now with bits of steel – to be X-rayed.

I’ve not yet made up my mind about yesterday’s bombing raids on Iran. I’ll probably address that first, after my hospital visit.

PS. Awfully difficult to summon a nurse when you need one. Try shouting ‘sjuksköterska’ from a sickbed.

Obviously I’m ‘against’ Trump as a European, an ‘intellectual’, a liberal and a socialist. But it’s my identity as a historian that raises my hackles against him most.

Trump obviously values history (as he understands it) as a means of inculcating patriotism. I on the other hand – patriotic as believe I am, in my own way – hold strongly that this is to prostitute the discipline for what are usually misleading and could be nefarious ends. This piece by David Reynolds in today’s Guardian puts the case against Trump qua historian well: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/14/trump-obsessed-us-history-but-learned-wrong-lessons.

But is there any point in labouring this? Americans never seem to listen to us historians; as nor do most of us Brits. It’s ‘people’, more generally, who are at fault.

Anyway, I hope he enjoyed his little boy’s parade yesterday.

There’s a bit of a debate going on in Sweden just now – although not as widespread or rancid as in Britain or the USA – about immigration; with the usual suspects – the rising right-wing  Sverigedemokraterna party – leading the charge against it, but also a sizeable movement vocally defending immigration, using the slogan ‘without immigrants Sweden would collapse.’

Stuck here right now in a Stockholm hospital bed I can see the force of that argument. Nearly all the medical and nursing staff looking after me come originally from abroad. I have nurses, doctors and physios from Kenya, Eritrea, the Gambia (she was pleasantly surprised that I knew where that is), Uganda, Sudan, Botswana, Vietnam, Armenia, Greece and the Kurdish part of Turkey. There may be a few Finns and Danes too; but they melt in more. It’s a wonderfully cosmopolitan community, reminding me of my college days. How dull it would be if I was only being doctored and nursed by Swedes!

Still in hospital, I’m afraid. Had the op last Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?), but the damage to my ankle was greater than they had anticipated, so they had to work on it for several hours. Apparently it all turned out OK, but it has left me with some impressive scars and stitches, and unable to walk for at least six weeks. And having to take 40 pills and two injections a day. They’ll let me back home next week; and with help (at home) from Stockholm’s social services, which should ease the burden a bit on Kajsa. 

So far Sweden is comparing pretty well with the UK in this (public health) area; but relying in much the same way on foreign labour – in my case nurses from Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea and Armenia; a Kurdish doctor; cleaners from the Phillipines…: all terrific, and – as Kajsa points out – linking me up again with the Empire!  The hospital food is very poor – another similarity with Britain – but K is allowed to bring me in some tastier dishes from our local Thai and Indian takeaways. (Why have I never seen a Swedish takeaway, anywhere in the world?)

I have ideas for a couple of proper blog posts; but will need to work on my fitness first. The op (and the food, and possibly the pills) have rather taken it out of me. But a physiotherapist is coming along tomorrow, to teach me to walk – or, rather, hop – again.

I remember years ago – it must have been in the ’70s – Margaret Thatcher’s appointing a businessman to her cabinet, after making him a Lord, in the belief that men (only men) who had succeeded in the ‘real world’ of business were what the country needed at the top. His first name was David; I can’t for the moment remember his surname or lordly title.

‘Most of my ministers’, Thatcher is quoted as saying at the time, ‘come to me with problems; but David brings me solutions’ (or words to that effect). What those ‘solutions’ were I fear we’ll never know, for David Whatshisname soon vanished from my political ken, and I suspect from most other people’s too.

The belief however that his kind, if given hold of the reins, were just what the world of politics needed to make it more efficient, has been a widespread view on the political Right for many years. It’s easy to see why: if you’re the CEO of a company you don’t need to bother much with democracy, which almost by definition is likely to put obstacles in your way. That’s why business people are constantly railing against politicians. And – I guess – why ex-businessmen like David (and perhaps Elon, just the other day) who have been enticed into the web, quickly get out.

America’s current experiment of turning itself into a totally and now blatantly business-led nation – with a real estate speculator President obsessed with money and ‘deals’, and most of his cabinet’s having enriched themselves in ‘the market’ – could be seen as the apotheosis, or culmination, of Thatcher’s (and Lord David’s) philosophy. And perhaps of the US itself, in this its (very) late capitalist phase.

(PS: Searching around later I found this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/lord-young-of-graffham-obituaruy. But that doesn’t impress me much.)

Talk of impending civil wars – in the USA, Britain and elsewhere – is becoming disturbingly common just now. Here’s one of a number of serious academic discussions of the likelihood of one breaking out in present circumstances: https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west/. I haven’t the expertise to be able to comment meaningfully on this; except to add one other possible dividing line between the opposing ‘sides’, to the ones that Professor Betz lays out, if such a war were to occur.

This is the factor of education. In both Britain and the USA, demographic studies of voters’ opinions on major issues in recent politics show that highly educated people are far more likely to vote ‘progressive’ – ‘Remain’ in Britain, ‘Democrat’ in America – than are those with less formal schooling. The latter are the ones who make up the bulk of the ‘Brexit’ and ‘MAGA’ tribes, if not necessarily of their leaders (although Trump does appear pretty dumb). I wouldn’t want to make too much of this; in Brexit’s case other major factors obviously came into it too (I’ve written on this before: https://bernardjporter.com/2019/11/25/what-is-brexit-really-about/); nor do I mean to imply that Brexiters and Trumpists are the only stupid ones; or that they are necessarily and individually stupid at all. There are good arguments on all sides. Nonetheless, this educational divide may well be significant; and also, incidentally, one that suggests a compelling motive behind Trump’s onslaught on ‘Ivy League’ colleges in recent days. (He wants to replace them with ‘trade schools’, teaching practical and business skills. No doubt The Art of the Deal would be a set text.) ‘Anti-intellectualism’ has a strong pedigree in American thought. There’s even a book about it (by Richard Hofstadter).

The problem with all this, in a ‘civil war’ context, is that it could be difficult to muster them into two separate armies – of any kind, not necessarily military. They’re too scattered: not clearly divided geographically, as the American civil warriors were; or religiously, like the 17^th century English. Regarding the ‘uneducated’ side: well, it might just be possible to make an army of them, as the Capitol attack of 6 January 2021 seemed to show. But the ‘intelligentsia’…? Could the east and West coasts of America (where most of them are) unite against what was once called ‘Godfuckistan’ (in the middle)? Again: am I going to march against the mob (even if I had two sound ankles)? And what would we call ourselves, that would not sound too ‘élitist’? (The Right hates ‘élites’.)

Of course we’d have other ways of fighting. Clever university men, mustered together at Bletchley Park, may have been crucial to the winning of World War II. (They could have been even more effective if they’d allowed the girls in at the top.) Then there’s the power of the ‘permanent state’ – highly-educated civil servants and the like – which should be fighting on our side; together with some good propagandists (us authors). If the pen really is as mighty as the sword, then we might stand a chance. (If, that is, the pens could be taken away from the Daily Mail.)

Otherwise I dread the outcome of a civil war fought across one of the lines that I see as crucially dividing both Brits and Americans today. Our opponents – the ‘Philistines’, perhaps? – would have the numbers, the anger, the grievances and – yes – the stupidity, to prevail. That’s my fear. But then, you would expect an ex-academic like me to be on the élite side. It could be regarded as an occupational prejudice.

I’m going into hospital on Tuesday for a minor operation. It’s to replace a bone in my ankle – I think; either that, or to screw two existing bones together. (I never like to know the gory details.) Of course this is not an important enough event to write about here: too personal and trivial.

But I thought it might justify my reposting an entry from eight years ago, describing the events surrounding the original injury forty years ago, which has flared up again. (I can hardly walk.) That piece also said something about the USA, where I originally broke the ankle; and which may be of more general interest. Here it is: https://bernardjporter.com/2017/01/11/breaking-an-ankle-in-chicago/.

Tuesday’s surgery will be done in a Stockholm clinic, and involve an overnight stay. That might furnish me with an excuse to write a more worthwhile piece here about the Swedish national health system. So far I’ve found it works well. But then it hasn’t put me under the knife before.

You would expect me as an (ex-) academic – and who moreover has taught at two American universities – to be more concerned by Trump’s current attacks on higher education than on other aspects of his proto-fascist regime. The Harvard story is particularly shocking (Google it); but it’s good to see the university fighting back. (Others haven’t.)

Because for Trump everything is personal, I’ve wondered whether his failure to get into a decent university as a young man may lie at the bottom of this. (Did he try?) A more likely factor, however, is his contempt for intellectual enquiry generally, and for the over-educated snobs who try to make him feel inferior to them. He of course repeatedly insists that he’s brighter than any of them – ‘a very stable genius’, ‘no-one knows more about (whatever) than me’ – in a way that suggests that he’s not altogether secure in this belief; but attacking ‘intellectuals’ and their institutions is a way of getting his revenge against his more highly-educated critics. It also fits in with the philistinism that appears to be a common ingredient of many kinds of capitalism (see my Britain Before Brexit, 2021, chapter 6); and which devalues intellectual enquiry altogether.

When is the Trump nightmare going to end? When he steps down, or dies, I suppose. Has there ever been a more ridiculous head of any state, in the entire history of the world? Stupefyingly ignorant, as we all know by now, and fundamentally amoral; but beyond that totally self-obsessed, petty, and revengeful against anyone who has fallen out with him. Which is why other foreign leaders flatter his ego if they want anything from him, whilst laughing at him, as I imagine they must do, behind his back.

When he first burst upon the political scene I took him for a throwback to the venerable tradition of American isolationism: ‘America First’; which felt not such a bad thing to someone like me who had got fed up with the interventionist, imperial Power she had turned into after the last War. (See my Empire and Superempire, 2006.) No more interference in the affairs of other nations; no more wars and war-mongering; no aspiration to be the world’s policeman; no more sense of ‘shining city upon the hill’ superiority; – all marking the USA’s return to being just one nation among others – albeit a ‘great’ one – simply looking after herself. Her allies would need to make adjustments, especially after America’s military protection was taken away from them; but we could live with that, and perhaps with more dignity than we’d had before. If this was what Trump genuinely intended, and might achieve, then I for one – and despite all the man’s obvious awfulness – could go along with it.

But the longer he’s in power, and especially in this his second term, all that begins to seem less likely. For a start there’s his well-known volatility and unpredictability, meaning that he could change his mind and policies at a moment’s notice. Then there are his stated designs on Greenland, Canada, Panama and Gaza, which – although expressed in ‘national defensive’ terms – clearly have expansionist and imperialist implications. (As ‘defensive’ measures often have done, historically. A lot of Britain’s colonial territory-grabbing was defensive in its stated aims.) His much bruited ‘peace-making’ – worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, as he fondly imagines – may involve foreign intervention on a grand scale, and in any case looks more like capitulation to foreign force majeure. Obviously his ‘tariff war’ is a means of foreign interference, accompanied, as it often is, by non-commercial demands on the countries he’s making his ‘deals’ with. (Vance is perhaps more guilty of this than Trump. He of course could be Trump’s successor.) Then there’s the example of Trump’s ideologically-driven policies at home: his proto-Fascist executive orders, directly affecting only the US, of course, but powerfully encouraging right-wing movements around the world.

The word ‘ideologically’ there may be misleading. Trump is supposed to have no ideology; but he does have prejudices, and as a deeply unlettered man is clearly entrapped in the ideological implications of his upbringing. That upbringing, of course, was one of a real estate developer, inclining him to regard politics and government as a kind of game-board for territorial and financial ‘deals’: a super Monopoly game for the real world. More importantly, it exemplifies not only his own experience and prejudices, but also those of a large part of his country at the present moment in its political and social evolution; which is now starting to be called ‘late stage capitalism’. Or ‘last stage’, if you will.

Of course Trump has not achieved full Nazification yet, and it’s the responsibility of the Americans to stop him; but with the future prospect looming of large authoritarian countries on each side of us in Europe, and Europe itself not looking entirely impervious to Fascism’s charms, the future doesn’t look too bright.

(Apart from all that, I would go along with ‘Mickc’s first comment on my post of 14 May: https://bernardjporter.com/2025/05/14/what-if-he-succeeds/ – The third BTL contribution there).