Kmflett's Blog

With a By-Election due in the Central London Constituency of Holborn and St Pancras Green Party leader Zack Polanski has put himself forward as a potential Green Party candidate, subject to selection by the local Party.

A significant question is whether Polanski has the Beard Power to win the seat.

From 1979 until 2015 the Constituency was represented by one of the best known post-1945 Parliamentary beard wearers Frank Dobson.

Dobbo as he was known sported a fully organic socialist beard.

Zack Polanski’s beard by contrast can be classified as modern Hackney. It is a fashionable style but it is not organic.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, The voters of Holborn and St Pancras have had to suffer over ten years of clean shaven revisionism from Keir Starmer and it will be interesting to see how the Constituency’s long standing preference for beard power plays out in 2026.

In a recent Tory reshuffle Andrew Griffith was appointed Tory Shadow Chancellor. Griffith has some financial experience in Government including being partly responsible for writing Liz Truss’s September 2022 Mini-Budget which crashed the economy.

Griffiths links with the Truss era were dismissed by the Tory media. However as the Tory conference starts in Birmingham it is reported that Griffiths is still on the same tour of destruction he was on in 2022.

More than £47bn  of cuts in spending are planned

Griffith’s tour of destruction now includes according to the Guardian:

The plans would also save £8bn by cutting 132,000 civil service jobs, another £1.6bn by scrapping almost all of Labour’s clean energy scheme and more than £7bn by cutting international aid.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/03/conservatives-extend-cuts-andrew-griffith-leaked-comments?CMP=share_btn_url

Hard right Brussels think tank shuts as Hungarian funding stops

It’s a niche issue  but in terms of the global networks of hard and far right ideas not an unimportant one.

The MCC think tank in Brussels has effectively closed after its head Frank Furedi quit noting that Hungarian Government funding had stopped.

UK media reports are limited  but there is a link to the Guardian story below.

For those with long memories Furedi started life in the late 1960s on the far left as a member of the International Socialist (now the SWP). He split in the early 1970s and became, as Frank Richards, the leading theoretician of the Revolutionary Communist Party and its glossy magazine Living Marxism.

The politics of the RCP were as much contrarian as left and over time they have reappeared as the right-wing Spiked On-Line.

Furedi who is a Sociology Professor at Kent has become a right-wing ideologue and the Brussels MCC was an offshoot of its Hungarian counterpart funded by hard right Hungarian leader Orban. Despite JD Vance personally backing  him Orban lost the Hungarian election earlier this year and was replaced by Peter Magyar.

While Magyar is far from a figure of the left he is focused on clearing out the corrupt practices of the Orban era which includes the MCC.

It’s a reverse for efforts to propagate hard right ideas in Europe. It will be interesting to see if the US, which has a similar project under Trump, steps in.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/31/viktor-orbans-thinktank-mcc-brussels-crisis-frank-furedi-quits?CMP=share_btn_url

When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

If I’d been out ’til quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m 64?

You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride

Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me

When I’m 64?

Every summer, we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save (we shall scrimp and save)
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m 64?
Hoo!

The Beatles, When I’m 64

Alex Burghart, the MP for Brentwood since 2017 has been appointed Deputy Leader of the Tory Party.

He has an impressive CV and appears to be a decent research historian, a reminder that the core of the historical profession has been Tory men.

Even so he has risen entirely without trace.

There are two key text covering the Tory Governments from 2019 and in particular the Sunak period. One is by Simon Hart who was Sunak’s Chief Whip. The second, just published is by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton, the latest in a series that Seldon has done on recent Prime Ministers.

Burghart does not warrant a single mention in either book.

Burghart appears to live in North London which is not usually an approved location for Tory MPs…

Alex Burghart – Wikipedia

Keir Starmer Holborn & St Pancras MP 2015-2026. Where it started

The leaflet is via Ken Muller on FB.

Starmer became the Labour candidate for Holborn and St Pancras in December 2014 and was elected as an MP in May 2015 at the General Election of that year. Following the leadership election where Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader (Starmer backed Andy Burnham) he took up a Shadow Ministerial role in September 2015. He resigned in the failed attempt to oust Corbyn as leader but resumed a Shadow role where he stayed until Labour lost the 2019 Election. By early 2020 he had become Labour leader himself and in 2024 he became Prime Minister.

At one level its an impressive trajectory but it underlines that Starmer has never been just a back bench MP focused on his Constituency. Its perhaps no surprise then that he has decided to resign rather than take up that role. The timing of his resignation has something of the Morgan McSweeney about it. Perhaps their paths will cross again.

Meanwhile in the short period between when he became a candidate and when he was elected Starmer spoke at a Camden Palestine Solidarity meeting in March 2015. The platform line up consisted of well known principled left-wingers of whom perhaps Starmer was thought to be one

Perhaps his biggest U-Turn as PM was to allow Britain to be complicit with what Israel has done and is still doing in Gaza. Even allowing for Britain’s recognition of Palestine in 2025 it reflected a politician who arguably had not strayed from his Constituency roots but never really had them or wanted them.

Commons TV

Beard Liberation Front

1^st  September

Campaigners to consult on whether Keir Starmer should grow a beard of political defeat

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it will consult its supporters on whether to call on Keir Starmer to grow a beard of political defeat after he announced he was stepping down as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras.

The trend was started  by US Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore when he won the popular vote in the 2000 Presidential Election but lost in the Electoral College to George W Bush

The campaigners say that a beard of political defeat allows time for reflection and clarity on future direction.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, unlike some we seek a united network without creating unnecessary factions.  For that reason we will carry out a consultative exercise over the next few days to judge the views of BLF supporters on whether to call on Keir Starmer to a grow a beard of political defeat

Chequers

There is not much that can be said in support of Margaret Thatcher except that she ensured that a great deal of her paperwork be made available free on-line at the Thatcher Foundation site. Of course she had her place in history in mind but the archive remains an important historical resource.

While Kemi Badenoch spent the August Bank Holiday re-arranging the deckchairs on the Shadow Cabinet, Margaret Thatcher had quite another view.

She nearly always, when PM, spent the August BH at Chequers. Of course Badenoch cant do that as she is not the PM but the principle is that on the Bank Holiday Thatcher had the day off and had lunch with friends

Monday 30 August 1982

1130

Mark arrived

1230

Dr. and Mrs. Henderson to lunch + Mr. and Mrs. Gow

2130

Left Chequers for London