Tristram Hunt has written a readable book on Engels. He has also been a Labour MP and has on occasion been noted for crossing picket lines.
He has a letter in the Times (24th October) on new research by the historian Emily Chung on Engels 1844 study of the working class in Manchester. The research is published in the Historical Journal on open access
If the research leads more people to be aware of Engels work on Manchester it will serve a purpose, even if its findings may be argued about. Indeed Prof Ralph Darlington and myself are doing just that in the Guardian (25th October)
Big Beer News: Heineken sales down 4.3% due to ‘macroeconomic volatility’
Global brewer Heineken has said that beer sales dropped 4.3% in the three months to September 2025. CEO Dolf van den Brink put this down to ‘macroeconomic volatility’ Sales in the Americas including the US were down due to ‘trade uncertainty’ otherwise known as Trump. However this was offset by sales increases in Africa, the Middle East and Vietnam. There is always a silver lining to a cloud for a global brewer.
The UK outperformed the European market with Murphy’s Stout and Inch’s Cider performing well, while sales of Cruzcampo, a Spanish lager brewed in Manchester, were up 50%.
However despite all this net revenue was up 3.6% as Heineken hiked prices to compensate for falling sales…
After defeat in Caerphilly Keir Starmer has welcomed Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to Downing St. The Guardian picture suggests that Starmer is attempting to borrow some of Zelenskyy’s beard. Whether this will work as a political strategy is open to question
Reform expected to win the Caerphilly by-election for the Senedd on 23rd October and so did the media (of course). Welsh investigative journalist Will Hayward noted on Twitter that Farage had been in the Constituency a number of times and was there on Thursday. A Reform victory party was planned. As the result became clear, Farage disappeared (though not I’m sure to do his Friday Constituency Surgery in Clacton).
Reform ran a racist campaign attacking Wales Nation of Sanctuary status (essentially accepting some Ukrainian refugees) and was called out by Stand Up to Racism campaigners and Plaid. Labour meanwhile attacked Plaid, underlining just how far off the electoral zeitgeist they are.
In the event it became clear that electors in Caerphilly wanted change but not the kind of change Farage is planning. There are some similarities to recent elections in France where a left coalition headed by Melenchon has successfully thwarted the possibility of a National Rally fascist Government.
However there are differences. Melenchon does head a coalition of the left from the Socialist and Communist Parties to the Greens. There is also a left-ish programme that promises actual change.
In Caerphilly keeping Farage out relied on people voting tactically for the best placed alternative. Plaid has a good policy on Gaza but is unlikely to be on the page of breaking with austerity. Hence there are limits here. Farage type change is not wanted but in stopping that no real change is on the agenda. That won’t be sustainable for long
New Statesman 24th October
A Survation opinion poll published a week ago showed a narrow Reform lead over Plaid Cymru (42 per cent to 38 per cent) and had the effect of mobilising an anti-Farage bloc. Waves of tactical support gave Plaid Cymru almost half the vote – far exceeding support for Welsh independence – and pushed turnout to 50.4 per cent, up from 44.3 per cent in the last devolved contest.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has had three hirsute managers in thee 2025/6 season. Nuno, Postecoglou and now Dyche.
The impact of managerial beard power on a game can be considerable. Follicles can send messages to players on the pitch, more subtle and impactful than verbal or written instructions.
On 23rd October Nottingham Forest beat Porto 2-0 in a Europa League game.
The combination of Dyche’s trademark finally chiselled beard and his gravel based voice modulated through the follicles brought success.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Managerial Beard Power in football is under rated. When its finally tuned and crafted it can win matches.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has backed Bill Bailey to be one of the new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing, after the news that Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman are to step down at the end of the current series.
Bill Bailey won Strictly in 2020 and the campaigners say that while he may not be 100% ideologically sound this is not a key issue for the programme.
There has never been a Strictly presenter with a beard, although professional dancers and Celebs have on occasion worn beards. Craig Revel Horwood wore a beard for the 2024 series but has now reverted to being a clean shaven revisionist.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Strictly presenters need Beard Power and Bill Bailey has the follicles for the job. It would also be a fitting tribute to Bruce Forsyth who was slightly hirsute.
Mole Day 2025. From Avogadro’s number to Robin Goodfellow
23rd October is Mole Day. The mole is scientific measurement in chemistry
The mole is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units (SI), representing a bridge between the atomic and macroscopic worlds. It allows chemists to count atoms and molecules by weighing them a task otherwise impossible due to their tiny size. By celebrating Mole Day, educators highlight the importance of Avogadro’s number (6.022 × 10²³) and its role in chemical equations, stoichiometry, and molecular calculations….
I studied chemistry to GCSE level back in the day but don’t remember the Mole. Possibly because the chemistry teacher, a Mr Davies, was a fervent Communist. He spent lessons lecturing us on the glories of the Russian Revolution, while we, the students, busied ourselves with setting off small chemical explosions in the classroom.
The mole of course appears in another guise, in Shakespeare and Marx as Robin Goodfellow the old mole of revolution. There is I think a link between the scientific and historical uses of the mole, in the sense that both look at ways of understanding and hence changing the world
In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets of regression, we do recognise our brave friend, Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer — the Revolution
Marx, Speech to the People’s Paper dinner, 14th April 1856
Times Editorial on the Green Party: The Have Yachts v The Have Nots
Its unusual for the Times to publish an Editorial on anything even vaguely on the left without rubbishing. Its Editorial on the Green Party (22nd October) is an exception.
It paints the new Green Party leader (and Beard of Autumn 2025 winner) Zack Polanski as a maverick, relatively new to radical politics. In doing so it unsurprisingly displays a lack of knowledge of radical history.
Parallels are never exact but the figure of GWM Reynolds comes to mind. Reynolds was a writer of successful popular novels, who declared himself a Chartist in 1848 and went on to found the Sunday newspaper Reynolds’s News. In the late Victorian period it was the biggest selling paper in Britain. It carried a mixture of sex scandals, crime stories, virulent attacks on the monarchy and aristocracy and radical and left politics. In short it was a radical populist paper in modern terms.
The Times of course regards Polanski’s policies as impractical at best, but notes a challenge to Farage on the left. The Greens now have more members than the Tories and without question therefore many more active members than the Tories. The appeal as the Times, unusually correctly notes, is particularly towards younger people who cannot afford to buy a home and are stuck in jobs where wages don’t keep pace with the cost of living.
Galatasary beat Bodo/Glimt 3-1 in a Champions League game on 22nd October.
It was shown live on TNT/Discovery. Warner Bros are the ultimate owners so I doubt football fan Starmer can do much, as much as he would like to, no doubt
