Kmflett's Blog

Farage & the 12 day rule

When Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s spin doctor he was said to have a 12 day rule about stories on people or issues. If they story was still running after 12 days things did not look good.

Campbell later denied he had said this. After all when you’ve authored a dodgy dossier it pays to be a little forgetful about your past (notwithstanding his Diaries).

Stories about what Nigel Farage is alleged to have said in his Dulwich College school days first appeared on 18^th November. The 12 day limit has long since been passed.

After that came the question of what Farage knew, if anything, about his colleague Nathan Gill’s Russian bribes.

Then more recently a former Reform Councillor who monitored Farage’s election expenses at Clacton in 2024 has sent a dossier to the Essex police with the claim that legal spending limits were exceeded and a number of items not declared.

Josh Glancy commented in the Sunday Times (7^th December) about the Dulwich allegations:

Farage’s response to these stories about his school behaviour has been an unconvincing mess a revealed a side to him that could yet cost him electorally

On 10th December Kemi Badenoch urged Farage to say sorry on Talk TV, a Murdoch owned media outlet. Badenoch is not a great one for apologies herself but the point here is that on Day 22 the story remains in the news and Farage has been unable or unwilling to draw a line under it

In an interview with Talk TV, Badenoch said:

A lot of people are coming out saying [Farage] did say those things. He should just apologise. If he just said: ‘You know, I was a kid, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong. People shouldn’t speak like that,’ this would all have gone away.

And that’s the problem. It’s not that he’s racist, that he doesn’t care. And actually, I think as a serious politician, if you want to run the country, you should care about how the words you say impact people …

Interesting is it’s not one or two people. They’ve got like 20. They’ve got 20 people. So it’s a lot of people.

Whether [Farage] remembers or not, he didn’t deny it. He said, well, actually, he wasn’t trying to hurt people. Nigel’s a big boy. He should just stand up, put on his big boy pants, and just say: ‘Do you know what? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’ The fact that he doesn’t want to do that is a bit strange to me. That’s what I would have done.

Now 26 people who were at Dulwich College with Farage have written an open letter (Guardian 17th Dec) demanding that he apologises

Lord Salisbury, the last British Prime Minister to wear a beard

Beard Liberation Front

9^th December

contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett: @keithbeard.bsky.social

Voting open for Parliamentary Beard of the Year. 106 Hirsute MPs shaved down to 8 contenders

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it faced an unprecedented challenge in drawing up its annual shortlist for the Parliamentary Beard of the Year.

However the vote for the Parliamentary Beard of 2025 is now open. There are two close shave rounds. The top two in each round go to a Beard Off final vote. Votes can be cast across social media platforms, Blue Sky, Facebook and Twitter

The General Election on July 4^th 2024 saw the departure of a large number of existing MPs- mostly clean shaven Tories- and the arrival of an equally large number of Labour and LibDem MPs. Based on a liberal view of facial hair it is thought that that there are currently 106 MPs in the House of Commons with beards

The existing Parliamentary Beard of the Year holder Robin Swann remains a contender but the campaigners say they have been open to nominations for the 2025 shortlist.

The shortlist is NOT about the politics of the MPs on the list. It’s about whether their activities during the year have provided a positive image of the hirsute during the year. Obviously this can be disputed- how positive or otherwise- so the shortlist will go to a vote with the winner announced in mid-December.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, there is no question that the Parliamentary Beard of the Year shortlist has been a challenge with so many new MPs albeit now eighteen months in. We are reasonably confident however that we have chosen MPs whose beards have made a positive impact in 2025

The shortlist

Chris Webb (Labour)

Jeremy Corbyn (Independent)

Colum Eastwood (SDLP)

Andy McDonald (Labour)

Nick Timothy (Tory)

Shockat Adam (Independent)

Robin Swann (UUP)

Chris Law (SNP)

The next General Election doesnt have to be called until 2029 so polls now showing where the vote might go are speculative, however soundly based they might be.

The above is from Ben Walker at Britain Elects and it does show a significant drift of 2024 Labour voters to the Greens. The impact of Your Party is yet to be measured as it were.

One area where the Greens were already well placed after the 2024 Election was north-east London. That is seats in Hackney, Haringey, Waltham Forest and some neighbouring area. Boundary changes mean that Parliamentary seats now do not always mirror local Council boundaries.

According to recent figures by Britain Elects the Greens would win both Hackney North and South and come second in Hampstead and Highgate, Muswell Hill and Friern Barnet Tottenham and Walthamstow, in all cases with a vote of 30% give or take a few percentage points.

In one sense its no great surprise. Both Hackney and Haringey voted to Remain in the EU (one of the few areas that did) and going back backed the Alternative Vote in the Referendum held during the LibDem-Tory Coalition.

In most seats there are challengers further to the left than the Greens who have historically got more than 5% of the poll at General Elections on occasion. In short, particularly with the likely appearance of local Your Party initiatives (which exist in both Hackney and Haringey) matters might not end up being as clear cut as the above suggests.

Or to put it another way the left as ever has work to do, as does Labour in addressing the drift not to its right but to its left (at least based on national party politics)

The picture is of the bar, refurbished in Reform colours, that formed part of the 2024 General Election campaign for Nigel Farage in Clacton.

One of those responsible for monitoring campaign expenditure Richard Everett has now reported issues of undeclared spending during the campaign which would have taken it over the legal limit.

One item not included in the expenditure declaration was the bar (picture Daily Telegraph). It appears equipped to serve gin and tonics, one of a number of drinks favoured by Farage.

As soon as this pub closes….

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/08/nigel-farage-reform-uk-election-spending-clacton-expenses?CMP=share_btn_url

The Song Remains The Same? Nigel Farage’s biographer on comparisons between his school days and 2025

Michael Crick published a biography of Farage in 2022. He told the Sunday Times (7^th December)

So much of his character is the same as you can see at Dulwich.. the boy who is desperate for attention, who loves debating, who loves division. The English nationalism, the interest- almost an obsession-with immigration, the admiration for Enoch Powell, the free-market Thatcherism: all that began at Dulwich

Junction of Fortis Green Rd & Muswell Hill Broadway for those interested. Opposite Sainsburys, in front of Everyman Cinema

Farage falls out with everyone in the end, another example here.

8th December

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has backed renewed strike action by PCS members at the British Library.

The strike over a below RPI pay offer, reflecting the disregard the library has for the workers who keep it open and running, will run from 8-12 December 2025.

The historians say that its about time the local MP intervened to make sure that work pays for the library workers. The MPs name? Keir Starmer.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, I’ve been a reader at the British Library since 1984 and as a group of socialist historians we not only research past struggles we also support current ones- they are the history of the future! As ever we hope PCS members at the British Library this week make that future now.

Christmas Beers (Part One) A brief recent social history

Back in the day (before 2000 shall we say)Christmas Beers existed but were not a major feature of the festive season. A quick Google in 2025 will now provide innumerable answers focused on Christmas beer cases and so on. If you are someone- like me- who get emails from breweries you will currently be getting quite a few each day.

More seriously there are people who know and write about beers who can suggest some seriously good Christmas beers. Phil Mellows has produced a list in the I Paper and Pete Brown in the Sunday Times. Most of these are something to order for delivery (not the best time of year for that!) but looking at both those lists there is one (Orkney) on the Wetherspoons Christmas ales list and one (Greene King/Morland) that can be found in supermarkets.

As the Fletts originally come from Orkney I sought out the Clootie Dumpling, recommended by Pete Brown to accompany figgy pudding. That wasn’t available but it was a drinkable seasonal cask beer. Spiced but balanced in the sense that it could be consumed as a pint rather than sipped. Indeed CAMRA classify it as a session bitter that goes with cheese. It is definitely highly seasonal brewed in December/January and since Orkney Brewery dates back to 1988 it is another excellent but quite recently invented festive drinking tradition

Depending on where you live or work or travel to regional and local breweries may well be producing a seasonal winter ale if not specifically a Christmas one. CAMRA’s Pigs Ear Beer Festival in Hackney last week had lots. Often dark beers, sometimes barrel aged and frequently quite strong. That is a third of a pint…

The Spoons 12 Ales of Christmas has been running for some years and if you want to find a festive beer on cask it’s the most reliable place to do so. The nature of those beers is changing. Perhaps even five years ago I would rarely drink them. They were beers with Christmas type names (most still are btw) but otherwise had absolutely nothing seasonal about them. They were bland, mid to lower strength beers aimed at the Christmas drinker market.

That market still exists (many bar and pub owners would wish it also existed in January) but the beers are changing. For example Hook Norton’s Twelve Days is a 5.5% porter. Clearly a beer with some tradition, well, first brewed in 1991, so we can see how the market is evolving.

Greene King’s Rocking Rudolph is really the only one from the old style Christmas list still on it. Most of the beers are either darker with some element of spice or, another interesting development, IPAs brewed with modern hop varieties.

What however of the new wave of craft and indy brewers that have in the main previously eschewed Christmas beers but not seasonal ones. I’ll have a look at that in a further update. It is work in drinking progress