Monica Porter

2 months ago | thejc.com | Monica Porter |Adam LeBor

Adam LeBor describes wartime Budapest as “the Casablanca of central Europe”, in other words a hotbed of spies, Nazi agents and collaborators, as well as resistance cells and the courageous rescuers of Jews. In his new book, The Last Days of Budapest, he quotes newly revealed diaries and letters from a wide range of participants in that tragic episode of history, and shows what sets Hungary apart from other European nations during the Second World War.

Oct 23, 2024 | spectator.co.uk | Monica Porter

The 23 October is Hungary’s most important annual public holiday, as it marks the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. It is called Nemzeti ünnep, or National Day. Each year when the date comes around, I quietly salute it. The revolution, after all, was the world event that determined the course of my life. Its crushing by the Soviet Union was the reason my family fled Hungary and why I became, in time, a British citizen and British writer.

Sep 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Lisa Haseldine |Monica Porter |Caleb Quinley |Will Collins

In what will surely come as a relief to the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, his SPD party has won this weekend’s state elections in Brandenburg. Securing themselves another term in power, the party squeaked past the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with 30.7 percent of the vote. The AfD missed out by just 1.2 percentage points — less than 26,000 votes — with 29.5 percent of the vote, denying them the chance of a second victory at state level in three weeks.

Sep 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Monica Porter |Caleb Quinley |Jonathan Miller |Billy McMorris

I grew up in the America of the 1960s, an era renowned for its kaftan-wearing hippies, its ethos of free love and hallucinogens, and demos against the Vietnam War. This was something that caught the imagination of my two London-born, English sons, once they were old enough to have acquired some knowledge of recent social history.

Sep 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Monica Porter |Lisa Haseldine |Caleb Quinley |Billy McMorris

I grew up in the America of the 1960s, an era renowned for its kaftan-wearing hippies, its ethos of free love and hallucinogens, and demos against the Vietnam War. This was something that caught the imagination of my two London-born, English sons, once they were old enough to have acquired some knowledge of recent social history.