Kmflett's Blog

From New to Newer Labour on Wealth Taxes (1993-2025)

When still Shadow Chancellor in August 2023 Rachel Reeves stated that a future Labour Government would not introduce a wealth tax or indeed do anything of substance about taxing wealth. It rightly attracted criticism. There was and is nothing even mildly social democratic about the proposed inactivity. However as the November 2025 Budget has underlined this is one area where she has been absolutely consistent

It is however not new point.

Gordon Brown, the Shadow Chancellor, was on television saying that Labour is not a high-tax, high-spend party and certainly does not intend to penalise the rich. The most ridiculous statement ever..

Tony Benn noted in his diary 17^th August 1993

In her response to Rachel Reeves Budget on 26^th November 2025 the current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch argued that the Chancellor was raising taxes to pay for welfare. The context is that the last Tory Governments also raised taxes but not to pay for welfare

CAMPAIGN FOR REAL SANTAS

Organised by the Beard Liberation Front

26th November

Contact Keith Flett @keithbeard.bksy.social

Ho Ho Ho: Campaign For REAL SANTAS 2025 Launches

The Campaign for Real Santas, which promotes Santas with genuine organic beards, has launched its 2025 initiative to promote real Santas with genuine beards by warning people to be aware of absurd false bearded Santas as the busiest pre-Christmas shopping weekends get underway.

The Campaigners say that with unemployment and under-employment amongst mature men over 50, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to use an assistant Santa who does not have a real beard.

At the same time the Campaign is also keen to encourage more female Santas with organic knitted beards.

Campaigners are urging parents and children to demand that Santas vigorously tug their beards as a definitive test as to whether they are in the presence of a real Santa or not.

CFRS organiser Keith Flett said, we are launching the campaign early again this year but the reason is hopefully obvious to most. Christmas decorations and lights are up in main High Streets and Christmas tat is everywhere. Our task of exposing false bearded Santas is more important than ever.

THREE STEPS TO SPOT A GENUINE SANTA

1 Ask the Santa to tug their beard. If it comes away, then the Santa is FAKE

2 If the beard remains intact ask the Santa to tug their beard again. If the Santa swears then they are genuine. If they simply repeat a ‘ho ho ho’ mantra they are FAKE

3 The Campaign for Real Santas says that genuine Santas must have just the right mix of bonhomie and grumpiness and a real organic beard.

Notes

The Organic Santa of 2025 will be named on December 18th. In the last 5 years Michael Rosen and Brian Blessed have been key contenders for the annual honour

The Campaign for Real Santas is organised by the Beard Liberation Front

Jack Shepherd (1940-2025) actor & playwright. Not just Wycliffe but also Bill Brand

The actor and playwright Jack Shepherd has died aged 85.

His Guardian obituary is here. It gives a fuller account of his work but not either of his politics or the political moment that led him into acting roles in the later 1960s and 1970s

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/nov/26/jack-shepherd-obituary?CMP=share_btn_url

The post here has a rather more specific purpose.

Shepherd will be remembered I suspect for playing a Detective Superintendent in the HTV series Wycliffe (1993-1998)

However he played in and wrote a number of plays on the political left. He had a role in Trevor Griffiths 1970 play Occupations about Gramsci and factory occupations in Italy in 1920 and in 1976 played the left-wing Labour MP Bill Brand in the ITV series of the same name written again by Trevor Griffiths (d 2024).

The series can be found on You Tube although I’m far from sure of how legit that it is. However it reveals a Labour Party and labour movement of 50 years ago, facing many of the same questions present in 2025 but rather different in composition and appearance. For those not around at the time (i.e large numbers) it is well worth a google.

Shepherd also wrote a play about the Chartists, Holding Fire produced at the Globe in 2007 and In Lambeth a play imagining a conversation between William Blake and Tom Paine produced at the Donmar Warehouse in 1989.

I doubt his Wiki entry is comprehensive but it gives a flavour

 Jack Shepherd (actor) – Wikipedia

The Wiki entry for Bill Brand is functional but then you can check out the series for yourself

Bill Brand (TV series) – Wikipedia

Farage: trouble ahead, trouble behind. BBC *does* hold the front page

There are two issues facing Nigel Farage that just won’t go away.

Firstly there is the question of racist and anti-Semitic remarks when he was at Dulwich College in the 1970s. The BBC has a report on this on its front news page (25^th November)

Nigel Farage’s racism denials are dishonest, says ex-classmate – BBC News

Perusing social media I find (of course) those who say it doesn’t matter. Some of the allegations were previously in a Michael Crick biography (but not all). The core support for Reform will applaud Farage for the comments even though he says he didn’t make them. But support for Reform goes wider than a ‘core’ and amongst this group will be those who are uncomfortable about being associated with racism. Anyone who has campaigned against racism on the doorsteps down the years will be familiar with this. People who may have sympathy with Farage but are not in his fan club.

Then there is the issue about links with Russia. Starmer pressed in the Commons on this on 25^th November. Farage as often was not there. Starmer of course was raising the issue of which side Farage is actually on over Ukraine. You don’t need to support Starmer’s position on this to see that the jailing of Nathan Gill makes this awkward for Farage.

Farage in an interview with ITV and at a meeting in Llandudno on Monday evening reacted to a range of issues that in particular the Guardian has reported.

On reports that Farage used racist and anti-Semitic language to fellow students when he was at Dulwich College he has claimed that it was 49 years ago so he can’t remember BUT he can remember that whatever he may have said was not ‘intended’ to hurt people. Some of those on the receiving end of the comments have a different view. Farage is not apologising

When it comes to former UKIP MEP and Reform leader in Wales Nathan Gill, jailed for ten and half years for taking Russian bribes Farage says no one else was taking bribes. But he declined to investigate claiming this is a matter for MI5. He also claimed Gill was a minor figure in Reform in Wales. In reality he was briefly the leader in 2021 and stepped down because he failed to win a seat in the Senedd election held that year. Did he remain a Reform member? Farage is not saying.

Never apologise, never explain is the name of the game. So far

2025 Reith Lectures. Rutger Bregman situates the current crisis in the context of Gramsci’s Time of Monsters but BBC deletes reference to Trump

The historian Rutger Bregman is giving the 2025 Reith lectures and the first is now available on BBC Sounds

The Reith Lectures – Rutger Bregman – Moral Revolution – 1. A Time of Monsters – BBC Sounds

Bregman opens by referencing Gramsci’s well known phrase ‘the old is dying but the new cannot be borne, now is the time of Monsters’.  As he notes Gramsci wrote the words from a fascist prison cell. Bregman, who describes himself as an old fashioned social democrat underlines that fascists ideas are again in the rise, mentioning US Tech giants. He also argues that Trump is the most openly corrupt President in American history but the BBC deleted this line not wishing to tell any more truths about Trump it seems

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/25/rutger-bregman-accuses-bbc-of-censoring-his-reith-lecture-on-trump?CMP=share_btn_url

While Bregman so far has got away with just one line being cut in 1981 when the late socialist historian E P Thompson was commissioned to give the Dimbleby lecture on nuclear weapons the BBC banned it altogether.

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

Beard Liberation Front

25th November

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

Shortlist announced 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.

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)

Nigel Farage in an interview with ITV and at a meeting in Llandudno on Monday evening has reacted to a range of issues that in particular the Guardian has reported.

On reports that Farage used racist and anti-Semitic language to fellow students when he was at Dulwich College he has claimed that it was 49 years ago so he cant remember BUT he can remember that whatever he may have said was not ‘intended’ to hurt people. Some of those on the receiving end of the comments have a different view. Farage is not apologising

When it comes to former UKIP MEP and Reform leader in Wales Nathan Gill, jailed for ten and half years for taking Russian bribes Farage says no one else was taking bribes. But he declined to investigate claiming this is a matter for MI5. He also claimed Gill was a minor figure in Reform in Wales. In reality he was briefly the leader in 2021 and stepped down because he failed to win a seat in the Senedd election held that year. Did he remain a Reform member? Farage is not saying.

Never apologise, never explain is the name of the game

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87lx0981nro

BBC Board Member Robbie Gibb: ‘Completely Impartial’

Robbie Gibb a senior figure at the BBC has long run a dual role as a Tory activist and influencer and a BBC journalist.

Appearing before MPs on 24^th November he underlined his impartiality. The statement has an echo of the historic ‘joke’ that if you had to ask who the Teamsters (union) were, you were likely asking the wrong question. Likewise someone who protests their impartiality invites the view that perhaps they are not.

Some Really Useful Knowledge on Robbie Gibbe

Thatcherite Tory, former GB News advisor and closely associated with the pro-Israeli Government Jewish Chronicle, Robbie Gibb remains firmly in place. The Guardian has reported on Gibbs role in recent events

https://www.theguardian.com/media/ng-interactive/2025/nov/10/make-no-mistake-this-was-a-coup-the-extraordinary-downfall-of-the-bbcs-top-bosses?CMP=share_btn_url

Robbie Gibb – Wikipedia

Alan Rusbridger on Robbie Gibb

An inside job? Robbie Gibb’s campaign to rewire the BBC | The Observer

In July 2025, Gibb’s impartiality was again questioned in an open letter from over 400 media figures to the BBC, which stated: “we are concerned that an individual with close ties to the Jewish Chronicle … has a say in the BBC’s editorial decisions in any capacity, including the decision not to broadcast Gaza: Medics Under Fire“.^[25]