Tag Archives: History

Jim Scouse: how a mysterious housemaster embodied good diplomacy

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Alex Grant

The International Centre, Sevenoaks School, in autumn 1990 (above) and autumn 1991 (below). In both photos Jim Scouse (in glasses) is in the front row, just to the right of the Winter family, and yours truly is in the middle … Continue reading →

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The forgotten casualties of this election? The LGBT+ MPs who won’t be coming back

Posted on July 3, 2024 by Alex Grant

Who knows what will happen at tomorrow’s election. Labour is, as always, wary of predictions of a huge landslide. Many Tory candidates seeking re-election are clinging to the hope that their incumbency, and a swing to Labour and Lib Dems … Continue reading →

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Baby Boomers are reaching the end of their lifespans. Watch out, Gen Xers: we’re next

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Alex Grant

This blog took a sabbatical in 2023 (during which I was fully occupied writing my new book about the 1960s spy John Vassall), but normal service now resumes, with my thoughts on all those we have lost in the last … Continue reading →

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Now the mourning rituals are over, it’s time for what the monarchy does best: inventing new traditions

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Alex Grant

For once, politicians started the hagiography and the media followed, not the other way around. Queen Elizabeth II was “one of the greatest leaders the world has even known”, said Liz Truss, as she led tributes to the late sovereign in the Commons. John … Continue reading →

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Why the new London Bridge station doesn’t deserve to win the Stirling Prize

Posted on July 28, 2019 by Alex Grant

News that the redeveloped London Bridge station has been shortlisted for the 2019 Stirling Prize will be treated with bemusement by many of its commuters. The reconstruction began in 2013 and was all but finished in 2017. It was officially … Continue reading →

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People Get Ready: can Labour ever get to implement its economic vision?

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Alex Grant

Away from the noise of Brexit, Labour – and the British Left in general – is buzzing with new economic ideas more loudly than it has for decades. Moving the privatised utilities to a new form of mutual nationalisation is … Continue reading →

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Don’t believe what Donald Trump says about Sweden. Immigration works well there

Posted on July 21, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the third and final part of a series of posts about modern Sweden (parts one and two can be read here and here), I look at immigration, and the crime problems that many neo-cons claim it has caused. The … Continue reading →

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Sweden, a land where consumer has never been king

Posted on July 15, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the second part of a three-part series of posts about modern Sweden (the first part can be read here), I look at Sweden’s weather, its inhabitants’ supposed shyness, and how Swedish consumers fare when it comes to buying alcohol … Continue reading →

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Sweden: how a ‘dull country’ is still worth living in

Posted on July 14, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the first of a three-part series about modern Sweden, I look at what twentieth and twenty-first century writers have to say, and how the reality of life in Sweden compares to the euphoria or opprobrium that it often provokes. “I … Continue reading →

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A word of advice to the National Trust’s new Director-General: urbanise

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Alex Grant

It’s been an eventful six years for the National Trust’s Director-General Helen Ghosh, who’s announced she’ll be stepping down in April 2018. She’s been constantly bombarded with criticism from right-wing newspapers ever since her appointment  in 2012.  When she suggested … Continue reading →

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