Kmflett's Blog

Starmer from Iraq 2003 to Venezuela 2026: The UN and International Law fade away

In 2003 Keir Starmer was a human rights lawyer. He wrote in the Guardian on Blair’s decision to back war with Iraq without clear backing from the UN. He made clear that Sections 42 and 51 of the UN Charter were relevant.

He didn’t think it was clear that the requirements of either had been met and as a matter of record he opposed the war.

When it comes to Trump’s kidnap of the Venezuelan President and his wife, and the US incursion into that country its difficult to find a lawyer that doesn’t think a war crime has been committed.

Starmer has underlined that he is a ‘lifelong advocate of international law’ but so far has failed to indicate that Trump has broken it. LibDem leader Ed Davey has rightly suggested that no quarter should be given to either Putin or Trump in this respect, although Liberal internationalism comes and goes. It was a feature of some Liberal politics in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and certainly on the Iraq War.

Labour, the Blair period aside, has perhaps had a slightly better record. On Suez in 1956 the right-wing Labour leader Gaitskell used the slogan Law not War, something Starmer might think of mentioning to Trump.

Of course the whole status of the UN and international law has been downgraded by Israel in Gaza and there is a difference between being a human rights lawyer and leader of the Labour Party but the importance of the UN and international law remains at least as a principle. On this from Starmer so far, silence.

It may well be that international law is not of much use for those it was never really meant for in the first place, Palestinians and those living in what Trump sees as the US’s ‘backyard’. Resistance from below is the way forward here, something one senses Starmer will never be found to be backing at least in 2026.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/mar/17/foreignpolicy.iraq1

Friedrich Engels may seem like an unlikely authority on Dry January. He was a veteran tippler of Pilsner beer, wine and various spirits.

Early in January his correspondence with Marx often contains complaints that he had overdone it somewhat over the Christmas period.

However he did recognise that within the working class movement there were those who drank either in moderation or not at all.

In his book on the Condition of the Working Class in England (1843/4) he noted the street sellers to be found in Manchester on a Saturday. They included purveyors of

Two cooling effervescent drinks, the former made of water, sugar and some
ginger, the latter of water, sugar and nettles. They are much liked by the workers,
especially the teetotallers.

As studies of the temperance movement in Britain have noted (see Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians) the drinks Engels mentions above did ferment which meant they were to some degree alcoholic, although probably weaker than beer

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Twelve Days of Christmas: Lords of Misrule, bans on football & rebellion

The Lords of Misrule that appear at various times in the traditional calendar but certainly in the twelve days of Christmas after 25th December.

There is an interesting discussion in correspondence between the US historian Natalie Zemon Davis and the late EP Thompson in 1971/2 published in Past and Present (May 2017).

Thompson was interested in charivari or rough music as forms of revolt and protest but certainly didn’t think that all forms of it were of a progressive nature.

The discussion refers back to an article Davis wrote in Past and Present 50 (1971) the Reasons for Misrule.

Here she argues that the Lords of Misrule elected on 26th December were categorised by age and gender, that is they were young men.

She writes in a footnote about English examples:

The Lords of Misrule seem to be an example of youth officers..not the Lords of Misrule elected at the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn or at Court but the ‘wildheads of the parish’ (described in 1585 by Philipp Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses) who elect a captain of mischief called ‘my Lord of Misrule’ and who go about with hobby horses and pipers and drummers..’

Was this subversive of the existing order, a real rebellion or a licensed way of ‘letting off steam’ at a time of year when little rural work could be done?

One piece of evidence that weighs in favour of rebellion is that on the first Christmas that Parliament succeeded in officially banning festivities,1647, in Canterbury part of the response was to engage in a mass game of street football (which was definitely banned)

It’s work still in progress. There are issues about gender and whether there were examples of Ladies of Misrule but also about understanding how rebellious they were. It may have suited some to overplay or downplay the matter much as they would do now

The Ambridge Socialist

4^th January

George Grundy: Ruling Class Ambridge in the frame

George Grundy is alive after being struck by a bottle on New Year’s Eve. Who Dun It we discuss below.

However whoever specifically did it Ruling Class Ambridge must take the responsibility of collective guilt (which is part of the message of the stand-alone Truth and Lies.) Let’s consider the record

Barred from the village’s only pub, The Bull

Refused employment at the often short staffed Bull by co-owner Lilian Bellamy

Refused employment at the Abattoir

Shouted at and abused by some residents i.e. Reform Mick

None of this can excuse George’s misogyny and general abusive behaviour but he did recognise he had a problem and sought help from Dr Malik. This will come via the NHS in due course except George needed it now. Of course if he was part of ruling class Ambridge it would have been paid for privately

Truth and Lies

The programme divided social media opinion  both as to what it was meant to be and what purpose it served. It was designed to be in the tradition of J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, but it was of course fiction within the Archers story.

Whether the nuggets of new information revealed- Sgt Burns liaison in Weatherfield and Clive’s link with Bert Horrobin to carry out surveillance on Tracey and Chelsea- carry through to the Archers storyline we shall see. Nor of course were the police interviews anything like actual ones (the Editor has experience here- of representing people, not being interviewed..)

The BBC will blame the Grundys

Notwithstanding the above in the BBC reports in the days and weeks to come it will not be ruling class Ambridge in the frame(Truth and Lies probably went as far on that as the BBC will go- looking at the careers of Aldridge and Bellamy) but the Grundys. A campaign to defend the Grundys will be needed, unconditionally but perhaps also critically.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has posted on social media a criticism of Keir Starmer’s view of Trump’s war crimes in Venezuela

Standing up for international law means condemning leaders when they break it, whether that’s Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump.

Starmer has mentioned international law in the abstract but failed to condemn Trump, indeed noting he will work with the US.

The Liberal Party (from 1859) had for a time some supporters who opposed war in favour of negotiation and diplomacy. World War One did for that but Davey’s words echo the older tradition.

It is not of course a socialist tradition where the words ‘Neither Washington or Moscow’ are followed by ‘but international socialism’

Franchise cricket can be the saviour of England’s future Ashes campaigns

The Boxing Day Test in Melbourne the centre piece of Cricket Australia’s cricketing summer was truncated to two days. As a result £7.45m was lost. Cricket Australia has been losing money in recent years and reserves now stand at £11m.

The Times (30^th December 2025) quotes Todd Greeberg the CEO of Cricket Australia has saying its cost base is ‘unsustainable’.

One answer may be to franchise the Big Bash League which has been wholly owned by Cricket Australia since its inception in 2011. The Times again reports that the amount of money raised by franchising The Hundred has seen interest in Australia.

First Class cricket in Australia has just six sides with a focus on providing competitive players for the Test side.

As with The Hundred franchising the BBL would mean private owners with no loyalty to getting the best possible Australian Test team, starting of course with a window in the schedule cleared of other cricket.

None of this of course will improve the England Test team but it could make the Australian one worse. Whether this is in the best and wider interests of cricket however seems very unlikely

International Law: all that is solid melts into air

E P Thompson, the late socialist historian, was in a minority on the left in defending the importance of the rule of law. He did not of course think that the law was neutral or that it produced, in general, verdicts that supported working people. His point was that the law had to have an appearance of neutrality and allow for the possibility that the rich and powerful might occasionally lose cases.

This is a useful context for the US’s war crimes in Venezuela kidnapping the President & his partner and taking military action. Trump is a man of peace only in the George Orwell 1984 sense.

What will happen next is unknown to Trump and most others. Russia has been one of the few so far to condemn what has taken place. However Putin will surely ponder if he could not similarly kidnap Zelensky, probably with Trump’s blessing.

The US is of course not a signatory to the International Court of Justice, indeed Trump has sanctioned it because it has taken action (so far largely ineffective) on Israel. Israel also does not recognise the ICJ, although it notes it existence enough to complain about its rulings

Perry Anderson’s The Standard of Civilisation (New Left Review Sept Oct 2023) is a very useful piece on the realities of international law. After the First World War came the League of Nations and after the Second, the United Nations. However behind this lay an ideological perspective that whatever European countries and the US do is in accordance with international law and what others do is not. Palestine in this context has no chance and Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe doctrine may place the southern American countries in an equally difficult place. Israel facing ICJ orders is exceptional. Anderson notes that Gramsci saw hegemony as the ‘successful representation of a particular interest as a universal value’

The post-1945 rules based international order may have had some positives for some, but it didn’t stop Iraq or Libya or Afghanistan. It was in short a very partial measure in the interests of some but certainly not others

The power that will shift things lies with protests in workplaces, colleges and on the streets.  Protest can work more quickly and effectively than the Courts, important though their role can be.

In the meantime while I’m hardly Zelensky’s No.1 fan he would do well to make as sure as he can that neither Putin or Trump know where he is. And let’s hope that a wave of protest on Venezuela finally does for Trump, the senile Satan as some US critics brand him

Stopping by the first farmer’s market of 2026 in Roath, Central Cardiff on Saturday morning I was confronted by the above sign.

Fortunately it referred to the actual weather as opposed to the political weather and no snatch squads were present.

On the first days of January 2026 the London Mayor tweeted that as temperatures in the Capital were set to drop below freezing overnight night shelters for rough sleepers were being opened.

The Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted:

Severe Weather Emergency Protocol activated in London The temperature is due to drop below freezing tonight, and emergency accommodation is open across the capital for those sleeping rough. If you are sleeping rough or know someone who is, you can connect to support via

@StreetLink_

https://thestreetlink.org.uk

The Mayor’s move was both welcome and a commentary on London’s housing crisis.

In his essay Comers and Goers the late historian Raph Samuel surveyed the seasonal migration of labour into and out of cities in the late Victorian period.

He noted that many came to winter in London, where, depending on the weather, night shelters, straw yards as they were called by those who used them, funded by private charity, opened up each November. The shelters were free and without obligation. People could stay for up to a month and they were heated both with a huge open fire and generally. The largest was at Playhouse Yard Cripplegate. The alternative was the Poor Law funded Casual Ward where a stay was limited to two nights and had to be paid for by a days forced labour.

Samuel lists many other places where people slept rough in London including railway arches and around the main hotels where heat was to be found, but the picture remains disturbingly similar 150 years on. Progress but more is needed….

On the 38 bus from Islington to Hackney at New Year (A People’s not Farage’s London)

The 38 bus has a place in left history. David Widgery left an MS on it and Sheila Rowbotham notes journeys in her memoirs.

It runs from Victoria Station through Central London to Islington, central Hackney and ends at Clapton Pond- the Lea Bridge Roundabout. However, for those who may not have noticed, TFL have plans to curtail the route at Holborn in 2026. Details are on the TFL website https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/bus-routes-19-38 Comments are open until 23rd January 2026. While TFL doesn’t have a great record of listening to individual comments if local Councils, Councillors, residents associations etc get involved then changes are not always a fait accompli

I catch it from time to time often on Friday evening from Angel Islington to central Hackney (destination the Cock Tavern E8 obviously).

I was on board again on New Year’s Eve 31^st December 2025 travelling from Angel Islington to Hackney. The journey continues to be disrupted by apparently never ending road works in central Hackney.

Off to meet friends for a New Year drink (or several as it turned out) at the Cock in Hackney I had a heavy bag and so stayed downstairs. It was a working day but much quieter than usual. Many are off work and/or out of London at this time of year. The talk was confined to two key points. People wishing others a Happy New Year and people thanking the driver as they got off.  Very much a People’s London rather than the Dionysian view in Farage’s New Year missive.

I had been on board a couple of weeks earlier on Tuesday 16th December, for (of course) Christmas drinks with friends Hazel, Ian and James

What were they were talking about on the upper deck?

It was a very seasonal discussion about what the difference between a cold and the flu was and whether it was possible to go to work if you had the latter (no seemed to be the answer)

A 38 Journey a few months ago found the following discussion

Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new party

Hotels in New York are crap

Good places to eat in Dalston

Holidays in Europe.

What they were not talking about

Small boats

Farage

Asylum seekers

I might add that despite media stories about the North London Elite, both Hackney and Islington remain majority working class areas. But for balance in London bus travellers particularly at commuting time (5pm) can be more middle class than might be the case in some other places. Bus travel in London (card only) remains low cost though that’s no help if you have no money