Richard Gott 1938-2025. Journalist who commissioned Tony Benn & E P Thompson to write for The Guardian (& his view on whether the paper can get any worse)
Richard Gott the political activist, Guardian journalist and author has died aged 87.
There will of course be obituaries and given Gott was several generations before myself on the left I’m posting here an ephemeral note.
Gott’s career at the Guardian saw him the role of Features Editor. He resigned in 1994 after failing to report receiving Russian hospitality to the then Editor Peter Preston. As the Guardian appreciation notes Gott was on the side of revolutionaries not regimes.
Even so the Guardian piece recalls very different times to those the paper exists in 2025. Gott invited the socialist historian and peace campaigner E P Thompson to write for the paper. A line in Tony Benn’s Diary 13th June 1983 notes that he did the same for Tony Benn after he lost his Bristol seat at the Election earlier that month. Benn was paid £175 a column.
Different times but Gott’s role in them deserves to be remembered
Tariq Ali’s appreciation
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/farewell-to-richard-gott-1938-2025
Lady Chatterley’s Lover judged ‘not obscene’, November 2nd 1960.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover judged not obscene. November 2nd 1960
It was on November 2nd 1960 that a jury acquitted Penguin books of a charge of obscenity for publishing DH Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
The trial was a deliberate test of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act which had provided a new defence for ‘pornographic’ books of literary merit.
The sponsor of the Act was a young Labour backbencher and later Home Secretary Roy Jenkins.
The Tory Attorney General who gave the nod for prosecution with the thought that he hoped a successful prosecution occurred was Reginald Manningham Buller, father of the later head of MI5, Eliza
Legal victory secure, Penguin quickly put the book on sale at 3s 6d [17p] paperback. It sold several million copies in the years to come.
For those who have not read the book a central theme is the relationship between an upper class landed woman- Lady Chatterley and a gamekeeper, Mellors.
The book contains frank descriptions of sexuality. While the Crown told the jury that the book contained around 30 profanities with the aid of a Kindle, a digital search of the text reveals 21 mentions of the F Word and 6 of the C Word. James Kelman, shall we say, it is not.
The trial is held to be a moment in British social history when the stifling Victorian values of the British bourgeoisie started to crack.
The poet Philip Larkin famously noted that ‘sexual intercourse’ began in the period between the Lady Chatterley Trial and the Beatles first LP.
The most well-known moment of the Trial was when the prosecuting QC Mervyn Griffith Jones asked the jury whether Lawrence’s book was one that they could allow their wives or servants to read.
This was at a time when to be qualified to serve on a jury someone had to be a property owner.
The details of the Trial are well documented, as are the expert witnesses called by the Defence who included the new left literary academic Raymond Williams. The Prosecution called no counter witnesses to comment on the books lack of worth. They could find none.
65 years on it is the underlying class differences that stand out.
The Prosecuting QC Griffith Jones was an Eton and Cambridge man, who had been a junior counsel at Nuremburg post 1945.
The defending QC Gerald Gardiner was a founder member of CND, a legal reformer who went on to be a radical Labour Lord Chancellor in Harold Wilson’s Labour Governments from 1964-70.
The difference in outlook behind the Chatterley trial could not be clearer.
The Old Etonian Tory against the peace campaigner and radical Labour man.
Like many of Lawrence’s books however the context and backdrop of the book was not sex but the mining industry of his native Nottinghamshire.
The book talks about the ownership of mines, about trade unions organising against the owners and of strikes and socialism.
None of this seemed to worry those who prosecuted Lady Chatterley, at least officially.
But arguably then as now the mixture of sex and class was something which the British ruling class was not comfortable with if it reached a wide audience.
Despite the fact that it was illegal to sell Lady Chatterley in the UK before November 2nd 1960- and book sellers had been prosecuted and jailed under the pre-1959 law- all the Tories involved in bringing the case had somehow got and read a copy of this banned book.
Times have moved on since 1960 and Lawrence’s book, though still very much worth a read, seems tame.
But the class battle that underwrote it continues.
Farage & the case of ‘Huntington’
Nigel Farage posted on Sunday morning on the terrible knife attack that took place on an LNER train between Peterborough and Huntingdon on Saturday evening. The content was a predictable dog whistle and it received many responses on that basis.
Notably however Farage did not seem quite sure where the event had taken place.
Now of course we can make typos but one might think super patriot Farage would be aware of a place like Huntingdon which was the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell and has a museum covering his activities. Cromwell is a controversial figure (particularly in Ireland and Scotland) but he also played a key part in creating the system of Parliamentary Democracy we still have and which Farage claims to be a great supporter of
https://www.cromwellmuseum.org/
The attack last night in Huntington was horrific. My thoughts are with all the victims and their families. We need to know who committed these awful attacks as soon as possible.
Andrew Windsor, the Royal Art Collection & 1649
Andrew Windsor, The Royal Art Collection and 1649
An interesting footnote to the ejection of Andrew Windsor from Royal Lodge in Windsor is that the current items from the Royal Art Collection hanging in the mansion will not go with him to Sandringham. They will be returned to the Royal Collection Trust.
The Royal Collection is one of the biggest in the world. However aside from items on public display its not disclosed where specific items are held, a level of secrecy often associated with the Royals, even though the collection is meant to be held in Trust for the public.
There is a history to the Royal Collection. When King Charles 1st was despatched on 30th January 1649 Oliver Cromwell sold off or destroyed nearly all Royal artefacts then existing. Hence the Royal Collection dates specifically from the Restoration in 1660
Ambridge Socialist. Andrew Windsor gets a free mansion. George turned down for abattoir job
The Ambridge Socialist
2nd November
Andrew Windsor gets a rent free mansion & a stipend. George turned down for abattoir job
George remains barred from the Bull and Tracy has made it clear that Lilian’s decision has the backing of pub staff, but not it seems that of Kenton. Meanwhile Justin has demanded that George was removed from helping with some tree felling that Emma was doing.
Freddie, as an ex-prisoner himself, has a more sympathetic take on the possibilities of rehabilitation. This does not however extend to employment at the Abattoir it seems.
Halloween at Lower Loxley
It all seemed quite chaotic but was clearly just a cover for meaningful discussions between Esme and Pip
Eddie’s Turkeys
It’s a while to Christmas yet but Eddie’s turkey selling operation is already scaling up. One of the best traditional seasonal stories
In Other News
The Bull’s pub trophy has a bit missing
The rogue heifer of Ambridge continues to cause issues. Is it a metaphor for Nigel Farage?.
Miranda has assured Lilian that her offer for Home Farm is because it’s a good investment and there are of course no ulterior motives.
Lynda is not planning a Christmas show this year after the debacle of the Flower and Produce Show. Joy looks set to step in, perhaps with something a bit more socially conscious
Nathan Gill, Reform & the Ukraine. Make it make sense
Nathan Gill, Reform & the Ukraine. Both Washington & Moscow?
The Guardian has published an investigation into the former leader of Reform in Wales Nathan Gill. Gill is due to be sentenced in November after he admitted taking bribes from a Russian agent to raise issues in the European Parliament (Gill was a UKIP MEP)
The issues raised were essentially to support the then pro-Russian Government in Kyiv, long before Russia’s invasion.
The Guardian piece notes Gill’s background as a Mormon preacher in Anglesey, the owner of a business that failed after the 2008 crash and then an MEP.
Why he took the bribes remains unclear. The sums involved were not huge, £10K was mentioned, taking into account that Gill at this point had an MEP salary, expenses and pension.
It remains unclear why Gill did what he did then. Of course there is a link to Farage who made numerous appearances on Russia Today and is a self-confessed fan of Putin’s political leadership style (if not his actual politics). Farage more recently has been in the Court of Trump.
Farage has denied any knowledge of what Gill was up to and given the numerous financial dealings of the Reform leader it seems unlikely he would be interested in taking small scale bribes for sentiments he might well have uttered free.
Farage did however clearly know both Gill and at least in passing the Russian agents Gill worked with.
One might simply note, make it make sense. In the murky world of Farage and his various political outfits, the issues with Nathan Gill might suggest that this is the tip of a still hidden iceberg of doubtful activities. That sounds of course like a conspiracy theory where cock-up is often relevant. The Gill affair may simply point to an absence of political governance in Farage’s political vehicles of which Reform is the latest. A characteristic it might be suggested of political parties of the far right which have little institutional basis in society
Trump hosts Great Gatsby Halloween Party. ‘They were careless people, they smashed things up’
Trump held a Great Gatsby themed Halloween party at Mar a Lago on 31st October.
It seems unlikely that Trump has read F Scott Fitzgerald’s book which describes the US capitalist class in the 1920s and does so critically
“They were careless people — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
F Scott Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby
Thanks to the Trump inspired shut down of politics on Capitol Hill food stamps (in effect food banks) for 42m American ends on 1st November, behaviour which F Scott Fitzgerald understood well.
Time is on our side….
Like all polls this YouGov research from 28th October 2025 should be approached critically.
It does suggest that in the under 50s what might argued as broadly progressive politics has the majority.
In that respect support for far right Respect suggests an anomaly but only if we note the age range covered of 18-49. This covers both younger people and those in early middle age. That is too broad to get a clear view of where political sentiment lies, for example, in the under 30s.
File under interesting but not essential
Time is on side is a Rolling Stones song (1964) and perhaps they had a point as they are now in their 80s
Big Beer sales: you do need a weatherman
I sometimes have a discussion with the owner of indy beer bar I frequent about if the weather impacts on customer footfall. Their view is that if the beer offering and ambience is good enough people will come in all weathers.
Recent results from Global Big Beer companies suggest a corrective to this point.
ABInBev brewers of Stella and much else blame a 7.9% drop in sales in Brazil on ‘unseasonable weather’.
Meanwhile Carlsberg blamed a three per cent decline on a ‘heavy monsoon’
Clearly when it comes to Big Beer you do need a weatherman
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