20th September
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has ruled out the Reform UK event being held at the Birmingham NEC on 20th September as a contender for the Beard Friendly Conference of the Year accolade.
The campaigners say that a basic issue is that Reform UK is not a party but a business and that the Birmingham gathering is not a conference but an event where speakers address an audience.
BLF observers have studied the livestream of the event, attended by several thousand people, and noted a smattering of beards in the audience. In general it looks like a Tory conference of twenty or thirty years ago, very undiverse, but somewhat better attended than Tory conferences in the present day.
The number of beards present may not be that different to the Liberal Democrats in Brighton last weekend, where facial hair has continued a long decline. However the reality is the Reform UK is just not a friendly occasion and has the capacity to bring the hirsute into disrepute.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, at least at this stage the number of upper lip moustaches on display is quite limited.
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