‘Foreigners Like You Have No Right to Interfere’
- January 16, 2019
- by
- Matt
Just after the referendum in 2016, I got a message on this site from an anonymous fascist, which I wish I’d kept. The gist of it was that the people like me had lost, and that people like the writer were now going to take their country back.
The tone was quietly triumphant and determined, and...
What I’m Reading: Blog Piece
- January 15, 2019
- by
- Matt
When I’m writing non-fiction, my reading tends be dominated by the subject in hand. I try to read obsessively on whatever project i’m writing about so that I’m completely filled up by it. When I’m in between books, as I am now, I try to read more freely, either catching up on books I’ve been...
Brexit: Clowntime is Over
- January 14, 2019
- by
- Matt
‘In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do,’ wrote Charles Mackay in his classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1852). ‘ We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds...
Our Man in Budapest
- January 12, 2019
- by
- Matt
As a general rule, whenever politicians tell you that they want to protect your culture or your civilisation with walls and fences, it’s a good idea to pat your wallet and check that it’s still there.
One minute you’re staring into their eyes and nodding approvingly as they tell you that your heritage and your identity...
Ceasefire: Goddard’s ‘Westminster mob’ are a threat to our common future
- January 11, 2019
- by
- Matt
Few people who pay any attention to British politics will be unaware of the small but vocal group of far-right demonstrators who have been gathering outside Westminster for the last month. Led by Tommy Robinson fanboy James Goddard and inspired by the ‘gilets jaunes’ movement in France, these protesters have heckled and abused MPs, journalists...
El Cid Meets Donald Trump: Fascism Returns to Spain
- January 10, 2019
- by
- Matt
Until recently Spain was something of an anomaly in the ‘new’ populist/far-right European politics. Despite – or perhaps because of – the recent memory of the Civil War and the decades of dictatorship, it had no explicitly far-right party of any influence.
Even the Partido Popular (PP), which swept up much of the post-Franco right, was...
Recent Comments