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Showing posts from November, 2020

Travel Journal 1955-1965: Stories from a Maltese Sailor in the British Merchant Navy

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Niamh Dann- Guest Writer My Grandad, Saviour Borg, was a Maltese Merchant Sailor working in the British Navy between 1955 and 1965. My memories of him are filled with stories from countries all around the world. He would talk about them to anyone who would listen. My younger self, however, was mainly disinterested by these stories.  After his death in 2016, he gave to my brother a travel journal; one that he’d written in the last years of his life. Having read it completely only during quarantine, I was amazed and bewildered by the fascinating experiences my Grandad had travelling the world. His journal gets straight to the point on time, places and people. He talks little about his feelings and never goes into great detail. It is instead a short revival of what he called ‘the good old days’ of his life.  What I doubt Saviour would have realised is the historical importance of his travel journal and what it means for the history of politically categorised ‘non-white foreign’ participat

Against the Grain: The ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of Talking About Politics

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Jonny Griffiths and Morgan Wellington It wouldn’t be an outrageous claim to say that over the past several years mainstream political debate has been tilting steadily towards the right, and aspects of far-right ideology and far-right talking points have become more commonplace and have at times been the driving force of ‘the discourse’. In some ways this is understandable, the Conservative Party has been in power for around a decade, while in The States Trump has generated endless controversy, so it makes sense that left wing politics has taken a primarily oppositional role particularly within the scope of parliamentary politics. However, it appears that this trend has become somewhat pervasive in ways which are arguably concerning for the general public and the terms of their political engagement.  With the political agenda in the UK having been set by the right for this extended period, general political discussion has shifted to accommodate this, and we are at a point now where mode