Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

15th October

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has been voted Beard of Autumn 2025, shaving Gary Neville for the honour

The BLF is often asked what criteria are used to determine the shortlist.

The two key ones are:

Someone who has worn a beard (not necessarily permanently) in the quarter

Someone whose beard has presented a positive profile of the hirsute in the public eye.

However the numbers of potential candidates for the shortlist are often far greater than the capacity of eight names.

Here the Reverse Hegseth Test is useful

Hegseth the self styled US War Secretary recently summoned a meeting of top US military types. He made it clear that the military are not ‘Woke’. It might be thought that the main criteria should be professionalism and capacity but Hegseth was keen to underline that there should be no Beardos.

Also those who were concerned about climate changed or appeared or dressed in a manner Hegseth does not approve of are out.

For the BLF Awards the reverse Hegseth Test applies. Beards are essential and socially progressive views are important. As ever how people wish to dress and appear is entirely up to them.

The cartoon at the top of the post comes from the New Statesman

Beard of Autumn shortlist

Lenny Henry, actor

Gary Neville, football pundit

Gary Oldman, actor

Robbie Savage, Manager Forest Green Rovers

Chris Woakes, cricketer

Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth

Zack Polanski, Green Party leader

Jimmy Kimmel, US TV anchor

E P Thompson’s Time Work Discipline in the 24/7 age & plans to extend pub hours

EP Thompson’s essay on Time-Work Discipline was published in Past and Present 38/1 December 1967. It speaks to very modern concerns about working time, leisure time and work-life balance.

In particular the contexts of a 24/7 society, zero hours contracts and plans to extend pub opening hours.

Thompson looked at how time moved from being measured by the seasons and the length of daylight in the agricultural calendar to the clock governed world of the factory with its clocking off time.

An interesting side-line is the role of the pub clock.

One book to follow up in some detail both Thompson’s ideas and his approach to time is Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift’s 2009 volume Shaping the Day. In one chapter in the book they look at changing ideas about the measurement of time in Bristol- primarily because that City has maintained good records of municipal and commercial affairs over a lengthy period.

One place where those with little or no access to what the time was (many people before the C19th) could find out the time in most cases was the pub clock. Glennie and Thrift quoting Jonathan Barry estimate that early C18th Bristol had between 600 and 700 pubs that is one for every 56 inhabitants.

Not every pub had a clock but most did to allow them to enforce licensing hours and to give drinkers a way of checking how much drinking time they had and perhaps more particularly to be sure that licensing magistrates were aware that they were doing so.

Jonathan Barry suggests that in the eighteenth century official pub closing times tended to be related more closely to hours of daylight meaning 9pm in winter and 10pm in summer. Whether the clock or the fading of the light was more significant here is not clear.

For Thompson plebeian culture, pre-industrial working patterns, did not have a ‘predictive’ sense of time. That is people did not plan out their day or week, with so many hours work, so many hours leisure and so on. Rather time was seized as of the moment. If there was little or no work to do, then an extended amount of time might be spent in a pub for example.

The role of the pub clock not only provided order to drinking time and hours, it also reflected the change to a measured and disciplined pattern of working time.

Nowadays of course most people have watches or check the time on their mobiles but the ringing of last orders and of time in a pub is still one of the more distinctive ways that time is marked in any day.

Monday 20^th October 5.30pm Dilan Tulsiani ‘Traditions of Dissent: The British Section of the League Against Imperialism and British interwar anticolonialism’.

Recording

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/lUMaAyVwvkG1xyUnwgP1QKgrOhTMyZOxbT7V1DVocn43wQJIU3MeGpbx8MpYwx_I.1aLubkQ72AWVRekV

Report Keith Flett

Fascinating & important new research on the League Against Imperialism 1927-1937, key LAI records were destroyed by the Nazis in 1933. The Met Police searched bins after LAI meetings for ‘evidence’, solidarity was built with the UK Palestine Mandate.

Dilan Tulsiani summary

The paper will be a reassessment of the importance of British anti-colonialism in the interwar period and its subsequent legacy throughout the twentieth century. The British Section of the League Against Imperialism was a uniquely impressive organisation that openly defied the Labour Party in the interwar period. My paper resituates the importance of its multi-racial coalition in non-violently campaigning against British imperialism at the heart of the British Empire. It also wishes to shine a light on how political radicalism was dealt with by mainstream bodies on the British Left. Finally, the paper will address some of the legacies of the British Section in transitioning anti-colonial ideology to anti-racist ideology in Britain.

Starmer has been in India meeting Modi to discuss trade deals. The outcome seems to have been mainly more discussions. Change can be frustratingly slow even in a 24 hour news cycle

The real event was what Farage would call a Proper F*cking Lunch. It didn’t really qualify because there were no multiple wine bottles, port & G&Ts which are key to a PFL. Even so the menu looks great…

The full Keir Starmer and Narendra Modi lunch menu was as follows, : Mulligatawny Soup (silken red lentils simmered in a spiced broth with a bright squeeze of lemon, inspired by Tamil Nadu kitchens) … Amiri Khaman (hand-crumbled gram-flour cakes, tempered with spices and crowned with vermicelli and Solapur pomegranate jewels) … Rajgira Subz Shikampuri (seasonal vegetables bound in amaranth, pan-griddled to a delicate crust with a cool hung-curd centre) … Paneer Kundan Kaliyan (soft cottage cheese steeped in a rose-petal scented Awadhi gravy enriched with saffron and whole spices) … Bharleli Vangi (baby brinjals generously filled with spiced peanut-coconut masala and slow-braised in a traditional Maharashtrian sauce) … Aloo Puneri (Maharashtrian-style potatoes tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves, Sindhudurg cashews, and coconut) … Dhungari Panchmela Dal (a Rajasthani quintet of lentils, gently smoked over live coal for an earthy layered aroma) … Gucchi Pulao (fragrant basmati rice with Himalayan morels, saffron threads and whole spices, finished with golden ghee) … Assorted Indian Breads … Amrakhand (velvet-smooth hung yoghurt blended with Ratnagiri Alphonso mango and perfumed with cardamom) … Kalimirch Jalebi (hand-piped golden spirals crisped in ghee, steeped in saffron-black pepper syrup for gentle warmth) … and fruit.

The speech took place on 18th September 2025. The Guardian has the story. Who paid for Farage to be there is as often not known, neither is his connection to the College.

It does however fit a pattern of self styled patriot Farage attacking Britain from a platform in another country

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/09/nigel-farage-says-uk-teachers-are-poisoning-our-kids-and-predicts-strikes-as-pm?CMP=share_btn_url

E P Thompson in his collection Writing By Candlelight saw Times letter writers at representative of provincial and often reactionary views. Thompson was determinedly provincial himself (from Halifax to Leamington Spa to Worcester) so perhaps this explains his interest and insight.

In recent times the Times letters page has sometimes been of more mixed views. Following Robert Jenrick’s speech to the Tory Conference in Manchester where he attacked ‘activist’ judges and defended a view he had earlier expressed that on a visit to Handsworth he had apparently not seen a white face.

Suffice to say the letter writers are not impressed.

Kemi Badenoch’s speech to the Tory Conference on 8th October made headlines because of a pledge to abolish Stamp Duty in the unlikely event the Tories ever return to Office. Anyone who has paid it, or faces having to pay it will be interested. The Treasury will be interested in where the money to pay for it is coming from. Badenoch did not say.

Badenoch did say however that other parties offer beer, jam, lentils.

Reform, promising free beer tomorrow.

Jeremy Corbyn, promising free jam.

Lib Dems, promising free lentils.

It is fair to assume that by contrast the Tories offer gruel. Badenoch might have suggested the 2025 equivalent of oat milk but that is rather Woke for the Tories.

A leader’s speech at a party conference is not complete without a list of things the speaker likes about Britain.

Robert Jenrick is not officially the leader of the Tory Party and his conference speech was mainly a long list of what he hates about Britain.

He did however manage a little list of things he likes. These include:

Big skies over the flat acres of Nottinghamshire.

The best farmers, food, and drink in the world: from Aberdeen Angus beef to Hawkstone Lager.

A love of pubs, a love of animals.

The common law, jury trials, a Royal Family so admired that they make the most powerful man in the world go weak at the knees, a military that has defeated every force on the planet.

The roar of the crowd at Twickenham when the Red Roses beat the Canadians, or Chris Woakes, arm in a sling, goes out to bat at the Oval.

The reference to Hawkstone Lager is of particular interest as conference speeches are not usually used to promote commercial products. Hawkstone Lager is promoted by Jeremy Clarkson. Fortunately it is not brewed by him but by Cotswold Brewing who are very good at it.

You never know with the Tory Party but I presume the mention was gratis rather than paid for