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2 months ago | 
prospectmagazine.co.uk | Rafael Behr |Charlotte Bailey |Neal Ascherson |Sam Freedman
Politics Labour vs Reform: the fight for our future Faragism and Starmerism are fronts in a global struggle between insurgent nationalism and cautious defenders of the old political order. For British democracy to triumph, the prime minister must find his voice
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
lrb.co.uk | Julian Jackson |Neal Ascherson
The old man told my French nephew that he had something special to show him. Something he had thought best to keep in a drawer since 1943. In that village, families at Christmas decorate their crib with santons – figurines of the Holy Family, the three kings, the shepherds, an angel. But the old man was holding out an extra santon. It was a tiny statuette of Marshal Pétain. He is leaning on a stick, wearing his immaculate marshal’s uniform with the Verdun medal.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
thenational.scot | Neal Ascherson
A popular Scottish government, committed to ending the Union, should learn to behave 'as if' Scotland were already independent I WAS tidying old papers when I came to a faded “1979” folder. Remember what a bad year that was, for those who believed in a self-governing Scotland? In March, a referendum for a “Scottish Assembly”, its terms skewed to ensure failure. Then a General Election, which slaughtered the SNP down to a mere two MPs and brought Mrs Thatcher to power. End of a dream?
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
lrb.co.uk | Patrick Cockburn |Neal Ascherson
On the last page of his book about his father, Patrick Cockburn writes that Claud ‘disbelieved strongly in the axiom about “telling truth to power”, knowing that the rulers of the earth have no wish to hear any such thing.
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Sep 18, 2024 | 
thenational.scot | Neal Ascherson
This essay from Neal Ascherson is from the book 10 Years of a Changed Scotland, published by The National to mark 10 years since the 2014 referendum. Copies are available to pre-order here for just £7 excluding postage. When I look back 10 years, to that campaigning summer of 2014, I am reminded of a poem. In “Before I Die”, almost his last work, Erich Fried imagined explaining his life to a puzzled youngster: “To speak just once more about joy, / So that they ask: / “What was that?
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May 27, 2024 | 
msn.com | Neal Ascherson
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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May 27, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Neal Ascherson
As a historian, Jonathan Dimbleby has written several good books about the second world war. But this is the most interesting. It is not about “turning points”, those diamonds of interpretation that authors love to dig up, sharpen and mount on an alluring book jackets. Instead, Endgame 1944 is about what happened after a turning point, about the gigantic consequences as the inevitable slouched out of the future into the present.
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May 15, 2024 | 
lrb.co.uk | Sathnam Sanghera |Neal Ascherson
When I remember the British Empire, two scenes – two stage sets, really – come to mind. One is a courtroom in Uganda, when it was still a British protectorate. Joseph Kiwanuka, a battered but irrepressible editor, was being tried yet again for ‘criminal libel’ – the favourite charge used by the colonial authorities to deal with seditious newspapers. As the hearing concluded, the judge walked across to the prosecuting counsel (they were both white men). ‘How much would you like me to give him?
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May 4, 2024 | 
msn.com | Neal Ascherson
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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May 4, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Neal Ascherson
Like an arthritic old tree in autumn, the Scottish National party is shedding its voters. It does this almost seasonally, a shrivel followed years later by another spring. And yet the SNP’s soul and cause, independence, isn’t shedding its supporters. Backing for that stays roughly where it’s been for a decade, at just under half (occasionally just over half) the poll samples. How does that make sense? Scotland can seem an imperturbable land.
