Kmflett's Blog

Reform’s donations are primarily from a Thai based businessman Christopher Harborne who gave £9m in August 2025.

It does bring to mind the German photomontager John Heartfield’s image of Hitler facing a mass audience while his hand reaches behind his back to receive a bundle of notes from a very large businessman figure..

World Book Day: turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class

I’d choose E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (1963 still in print on its 63rd anniversary) as my book for World Book Day. I’m conscious of the fact that the day is aimed at younger people and encouraging reading and Thompson’s book is a weighty tome, which might put some off.

That said it is full of characters who might spark interest and indeed passages that can be read aloud.

In fact Thompson compiled a good deal of the detail in the book and arguably some of the approaches to it while teaching WEA night classes in Yorkshire in the 1950s. His engagement with working-class students underlines the point he made in the 1968 postscript that the book is far from being a dry academic tome.

E P Thompson on what people ate in the 1790s

The southern rural labourer refused to abandon his diet of bread and cheese, even when near the point of starvation, and for nearly fifty years a regular dietary class war took place, with potatoes encroaching on bread in the south, and with oatmeal and potatoes encroaching in the north

Making of the English Working Class, Standards and Experiences

Thompson also noted that so low had labourers wages become that some were noted as ‘turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers..’ (section on William Cobbett)

Private Eye

Matthew Goodwin who lost the Gorton and Denton Election for Reform by several thousand votes to the Green Party has written in the Spectator about his canvassing experiences.

I have extracted here a small taste of what Goodwin had to endure on the doorstep

Looking back, there were subtle hints the vote mightn’t go my way. ‘GB News!’ shouted one middle-aged cat lady on her doorstep before I’d said a word. ‘Reform UK!’ she screamed louder. ‘You’re a total wanker!’ She slammed the door in my face.

The Allister Heath (Editor Sunday Telegraph) random headline generator is virtually indistinguishable from the real one…

James Watt has posted on LinkedIn his perspective on the sale of Brewdog to Tilray with 38 bars shut and 484 job losses, so far.

Watt admits that at the start back in 2007 he didn’t really know what he was doing, but that said along with Martin Dickie, some great beers were brewed. Neither however had any experience of managing a growing business or a growing workforce. Professional help could have been sought but if it was, it came far too late.

Watt notes

With the benefit of hindsight there are also so many other things I would have done differently. At times we expanded too fast and diversified too broadly. During certain periods I did not control spend well enough across the business and furthermore I feel that I did not respond to certain crises that we faced (and we faced many) in a way that was authentic and true to who I am. Those decisions sit with me.

Hindsight is indeed a great thing but many, particularly those without jobs now, might ask why it took Watt quite so long to work this out…

Donald Trump, never one to think before committing something to Truth Social or opening his mouth has complained that Keir Starmer has not been as enthusiastic about his adventure in Iran as the President wants

Opinion polls can of course be inaccurate but when one finds that only 28% back Trump even allowing for a wide margin of error, its clear that there is not popular support in the UK.

The past weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living so perhaps Starmer, who opposed the Iraq War in 2003, had a thought that he did not in twenty years time want to be remembered as the person who backed a US President’s warmongering in 2026, as Blair certainly is.

Of course Starmer is backing Trump with US planes using British bases just as Harold Wilson backed Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam in the 1960s. Its not the backing that is the issue its the failure as the White House sees it to be gung ho about it.

Allister Heath is the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph and while this is the product of a random headline generator produced by the New World, its only marginally different from the kind of actual headlines that Heath posts on a regular basis

The Scottish S*n has reported that the CEO of Tilray, Irwin D Simon who has bought Brewdog UK in a cut price deal (FT 3rd March) has said that while 484 Brewdog workers were sacked on the spot on 2nd March its good news for the 733 workers that remain.

They may think differently particularly as Employment Law protect their employment on day one of the transfer to Tilray but not afterwards

There is some good news however. New York based Simon has a dog and he also dislikes being surrounded by yes men. In which case now is the time to recognise Unite the Union as the representative of the remaining Brewdog employees

A Day in the Life of Irwin Simon, Tilray’s CEO and Chairman – Business Insider

After Brewdog the declining value of Big Craft Beer

In the summer of 2015 in the old Beavertown Brewery in Tottenham Hale an event to launch the United Craft Brewers was launched.

Four brewery owners were present

James Watt, Brewdog

Logan Plant, Beavertown

Jason Cuppaidge Camden Town

Richard Burhouse, Magic Rock

Underlining Karl Marx’s point that capitalists are a band of warring brothers the unity did not last very long.

Camden Town sold out to ABInBev at the end of 2015 for a reported £85m

In 2018 Heineken brought a 49% stake in Beavertown for £40m (they now own it 100%)

In 2026 Brewdog sold to US based Tilray for £33m

I’m not sure if Magic Rock beers are still a going concern but if they are they’re being produced at the Black Sheep brewery in Masham by whoever currently owns it.

As an historian I’m wary of comparisons. You can never be really sure that you are comparing like with like.

So the money paid for Camden and Beavertown can be seen arguably as during the peak (what was known as) craft beer period.

The £33m paid for Brewdog (cut price, Financial Times 3^rd March 2026) was a fire sale because it was essentially insolvent. Even so Brewdog is a far bigger concern than either Camden or Beavertown were in 2015 and 2018.

The in principle answer to this decline in value can be found not in a study of James Watt but in a book he has certainly never read, Marx’s Capital. Capitalism operates as a system of boom and bust.  Companies, grow, profits are made but to continue doing so becomes increasingly problematic. Profits (the rate of profit specifically) gets less and eventually some companies fail. The failure creates a space in the market for new companies to appear.

Brewdog is currently the biggest UK craft brewer with most of the top 5 brands. This is mostly in supermarket sales but 800 or so Wetherspoons pubs still currently sell Punk IPA plus cans of Hazy Jane and Elvis Juice. While readers of this post may not be keen (like myself) a glance at the Wetherspoons fan page on FB (a fascinating record of our times btw-seriously) reveals that lots of Spoons drinkers are.

Even so I suspect that the sale of Brewdog and particularly the latest bit of reputational damage- firing 484 workers on the spot via a video call- will mean that the medium term prospects for Brewdog are not great. ABInBev and Heineken will be happy. Capitalism is working just as described by Marx. However there could also be space in the market for what are now called Indy Brewers. Just don’t hire James Watt as an advisor.