All things eventually decline; is the phenomenon of far right populism a symptom of this?

After my Swedish grandmother died in 1996, my family and I sorted through some of her belongings.  We found a few German-language books among her personal effects.  Hidden in their dusty pages was a hastily printed Deutsche Mark; I was struck by how crude and jagged the text was.  It was my grandmother’s souvenir from […]

Perhaps it was inevitable that Reverend Warnock would win the Georgia runoff.  Reverend Warnock was by far the superior candidate.  Warnock did not discuss the relative merits of being a vampire or a werewolf on the campaign trail.  He had no stench of hypocrisy.  He did not have the backing of Donald Trump. Whoever persuaded […]

I used to work in political communications; I was a volunteer. I wrote articles, campaigns, press releases, even an MP’s Maiden Speech. I took a step back from that in recent years, but nevertheless, I am still keenly interested in it. I have stood for the Labour Party as a candidate; by and large, I […]

Before I begin this piece, I will add a disclaimer. I am a white person in my late 40’s. I have grown up in a white neighbourhood. There were people from a broad variety of backgrounds in my school, but these tended to be the exception rather than the rule. Although I lived in big […]

I went to bed on the evening of March 3rd with the radio tuned to the BBC World Service. I’m a light sleeper at best, so from time to time, I heard snippets of the Super Tuesday results. Biden won Virginia, Sanders won Vermont: these were not shocks to me. I drifted off. Around 4 […]

I remember when I first realised that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign was in deep trouble. I was visiting my former home town, New York, and it was just after the first debate. Like many in my circle, I thought Hillary had wiped the floor with Trump. She knew her facts, she seemed poised and coherent. […]

At first glance, the Democrats are in a terrible state. The Iowa Caucus was a failure of both technology and organisation: the Republicans can and will use this example to suggest the Democrats couldn’t run a bath, let alone the country. Trump escaped punishment thanks to a compliant Senate, which decided that it was better […]

The dark clouds obscured the twilight. Rain was falling steadily, large drops bounced off the hood of my olive green jacket. I accidentally cut my finger: it didn’t hurt, but it was one of those irritating lacerations that wouldn’t stop bleeding. I covered it with my thumb as I grasped my stack of leaflets tightly. […]

Author’s note: recent comments by Donald Trump’s spokesperson about other politicians being “half-breeds” reminded me of how the “Death Eaters” in the Harry Potter series focused on the necessity of having “pure blood”; apparently J.K. Rowling thought the same:   Ironically, Trump’s mother was born in Scotland, hence he’s also a “half-breed”. The following story […]