History
The Rise of the Nazis – BBC 2
There has been a three part documentary on BBC Two recently about how the Nazis came to power in 1930's Germany. Whatever your political persuasion, it is worth watching as it shows just how quickly Germany changed from a liberal democracy to full on fascist. Now, I know much has changed since then and a fascist movement, you would think, would struggle to gain enough traction for power in the modern world. However, there are striking ...
Donald Trump and the Redneck Dream
Every time I think about writing something regarding Donald Trump, I decide to wait a little longer as I am probably only a week or so away from him doing or saying something even more outrageous than ever as he goes about the business of making Hitler look like a Liberal. Being from the United Kingdom, what I do find hard to understand is whether there is a genuine threat that he will become the next President of the United States. My ...
Remembrance Hijacked by the Right-Wing Media
When I saw the right-wing media using the remembrance Sunday service to once again, try to discredit Jeremy Corbyn, I wondered whether it could be a turning point in the minds of the British public. Yet again we saw the poppy fascists leap all over Corbyn, supposedly because of an alleged half-hearted bow. This, despite the fact that when the cameras had all gone home and other MP's had dispersed to a VIP lunch, he was spotted applauding and ...
The Tale of Guy Fawkes
When I was a kid, bonfire night or Guy Fawkes night was an invite to Withey's house to watch my Dad or Terry Withey making a nonsense of the theory that you never return to an apparently dud firework. All we really knew about Guy himself was that he plotted to blow-up parliament and was apparently a bit of a traitor, rather than 17th-century proof that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Of course, with the advent Google ...
Remembering the Russians – West We Forget
When I was at school, modern history was one the few things that really interested me really. I was respectably good at English, art and geography, mediocre at religious education, biology and home economics (though I made a mean fruit salad) and unspeakably bad at mathematics, technical drawing, chemistry and physics. In fact I was so bad at maths and the sciences, if I had put the results of all three together, I would have still been ...