Kmflett's Blog

In 2019 the last Test of the English cricketing summer ended on 15^th September. Market above Sport

The Hundred which occupies the English cricket calendar for most of August (along with the One Day Cup) was due to start in 2020. It was delayed due to the pandemic but the last pre-Hundred English cricketing summer was 2019. The last Test versus Australia concluded at the Oval on 15^th September 2019.

The final Test of the English cricketing summer in 2025 concludes at the Oval on August 3rd

I’ve been going to Test matches at The Oval for longer than I can remember.

I was there on 27^th August 1968 with my father when Underwood bowled the Australians out on what had been an uncovered pitch after rain.

Later when I worked as a manager for what is now one of the UK’s largest companies at Vauxhall from 1981, I would often wander down at around 11am to catch a day’s Test cricket. Particularly on the final day (then a Tuesday) if an interesting result was in prospect.

I was there again on Thursday 31^st July, for the first day of the final England v India Test. Aside from getting drenched in a hail storm, it was a good time to watch high class cricket

Things have changed of course. 30 years ago you could simply wander along to The Oval Test and get in on the gate.

The development of the Ashes into the occasion it is today started to see that change, until the situation today where you apply in a ballot for a ticket for the Oval Test in the autumn of the previous year. Entrance is via a scan of your e-ticket on your mobile

It is not now of course the end of the cricketing summer. From Tuesday there are several weeks of the Hundred, which Sky and the BBC are contractually obliged to cover. I may well check some of the women’s games where the standard of cricket is often higher than the men’s games.

But that feeling of the Oval Test marking the transition from summer to autumn has gone. With its departure has come a five match Test series held to very tight timescales with the result that both sides at the Oval were missing key players who are injured.

We live not just in a market economy but a market society, and the timing of the Oval Test in 2025 is part of that, unfortunately.

The Tories & riots. Tottenham Saturday August 6^th 2011 (they were all on holiday & didn’t rush back).

In 2024 and perhaps 2025 late July and early August appears to be riot season. It can be speculated why. Schools are on holiday and the football season doesn’t kick off fully to mid-August. Traditionally riots are also associated with hot weather but while it has been a warm, dry summer it’s not that others.

One riot, of which the 14^th anniversary is marked this weekend, was not caused by any of the above and would certainly not have attracted supportive comments from Farage, then an MEP

The Tottenham riot of 2011, which sparked others, is a guide to how seriously the Tories took the matter when they were in Government…

On the night of Saturday 6^th/Sunday 7^th August in Tottenham there was a riot in Tottenham following the shooting dead of Mark Duggan by police several days earlier.

At the time the Mayor of London was Boris Johnson. He was of course on holiday at the time in Canada with his then wife Marina touring the Rockies in a Winnebago. According to his biographer Sonia Purnell Johnson doesn’t like holidays in Britain.

Prime Minister Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and Home Secretary May were also on holiday abroad.

City Hall tried to contact Johnson and get him to return. As Purnell notes ‘not for the first time..the cry went up: Where is Boris’.

Johnson was not minded to break off his holiday to deal with unrest that had now hit 29 of London’s 32 Boroughs.

On the Monday May returned to take charge followed by Cameron. Eventually Johnson appeared in London on the Wednesday.

By that time Cameron and Clegg had already visited Tottenham. Johnson made it on the late Wednesday afternoon.

Ignoring a crisis, returning late when he realised how serious it was and making pledges about what might then happen seems to have set a template for Johnson for later years

The Ambridge Socialist

3^rd August

Borsetshire Land: Band of Warring Brothers

The Borsetshire Land Board meeting on Friday concluded with a feasibility study into whether Justin and Martyn’s plans for profit making will indeed make lots of profits. Justin has a controlling interest via Damara Capital. However Brian has now told Justin that he is pulling out of his contract with Borsetshire Land. Justin will survive, Stella is in a more difficult position… Collateral damage as Justin would no doubt see it.

Village Shop crisis and community spirit. Ambridge is not broken

Dry rot has been discovered in the flat above the shop, occupied by Chris and Martha. Remedial works will take some weeks. In the meantime the village shop and its contents have to be vacated. Fortunately the Ambridge community joined together to get the job done overnight. Whatever Farage & Co may think, Ambridge is clearly not broken.

No sympathy for Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson has got Bovine TB on his hobby farm. It’s a sign of the times that the usually liberal-ish Academic Archers FB site has some comments expressing sympathy for the obnoxious one. The Ambridge Socialist does not concur

In Other News

George has written, or is threatening to write, a poem. E J Thribb lives

Mia has got a new special friend

It has transpired that Ed had accidentally got footage via a drone of the number plate of the car of whoever set fire to the Bull’s sign. It seems to suggest that the security crisis is abating..

The Gills who never appeared in the first place are now selling Home Farm. A vacancy for some new Ambridge occupants has occurred.

Beyond Your Party, some histories of left names

The media is picking up on the point that Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn’s new political formation, currently badged as ‘your party’ does not have an actual name. A BBC report makes the interesting point that the current names of UK political parties, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat have historic origins which don’t mean a great deal to many voters. Strangely it does not mention the BBC’s favourite subject Reform. Deliberately or not the name has an ambiguity. Some might assume it means positive change. The historical meaning of the word is one of reaction rather than political progression.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3wnqj2pwvdo

The world’s first ever working class party was formed 185 years ago in July 1840 in Manchester and named simply the National Charter Association. When left political parties formed on the rise of a new industrialised working class in the 1880s, we find the Social Democratic Federation (federation being a significant word here) and the Independent Labour Party (party being the significant word)

The report below is from the Glasgow Herald 14th January 1893. Ben Tillett’s contribution was rightly condemned but the discussion focused on a name that would resonate with the working class supporters the new Party was looking to engage with and get the support of. European social democracy preferred to use variations on the name, while the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 added another perspective

Mr GEORGE CARSON (Glasgow) moved, on behalf of the Scottish Labour party, that the title of the organization should be “The Socialist Labour Party,” saying that it was felt in Scotland that there was no reason why they should not call a spade a spade.

Mr H. A. BARKER (London) proposed as an alternative “The Independent Labour Party,” and argued that there were large numbers of working men who were not yet prepared to adopt Socialism as an entirety, yet who would be very glad to join a party which was established for the purpose of obtaining the independent representation of labour.

Ald. BEN TILLETT strongly opposed the resolution, on the ground that English trades’ unionism was better and stronger than any kind of Socialism, whether English or foreign, and his desire was to capture trades’ unionism for the Independent Labour movement. English trade unionists were a body of men who paid their money for the cause, and were Socialists at their own work – not blood-red revolutionists and chattering magpies on the platform, who sneaked to the nearest bed when the revolution came.

Mr GEORGE CARSON, secretary of the General Arrangement Committee, strongly protested against the language used by Alderman Tillett.

After considerable discussion, the amendment was carried by a very large majority.

Its August and the Financial Times (August 2nd) has been pondering what makes a politician charismatic.

Keir Starmer is seen as an authentic politician but authentically dull which doesnt quite work. More is required

If charisma is the ability to keep an audience’s attention, it must involve a mix of voice, language, humour and something ineffable that can be summarised as coolness. You don’t need to be attractive, but it may help to look distinctive. Trump and Johnson have blond hair, Jeremy Corbyn has an avuncular beard.

Jeremy Corbyn the Independent MP for Islington North, and co-founder of the new left formation ‘Your Party’ has been voted Parliamentary Beard of the Year more often than any other MP

Genocide in Gaza a ‘luxury belief: Niall Ferguson departs the ranks of serious historians

Sir Niall Ferguson, knighted not long ago by King Charles and someone who has advised Kemi Badenoch is a right-wing historian, lecturing mostly in the US. Right-wing he may be but Ferguson is a serious historian whose work deserves to be taken seriously.

That is until recently. He has become a fan of Donald Trump a US President who has at best a cavalier attitude to the truth and indeed to history.

Ferguson appears to be on a Trump related journey in respect of Gaza. He believes a genocide is taking place in  Ukraine but not Gaza. A broadly held perspective might be that war crimes have been committed by both Russia and Ukraine, allowing that the former was the aggressor, but the latter is backed and armed primarily by the US. However it stacks up ordinary people, lots of them, are dying.

Ferguson writes in a double page essay in the Times (2^nd August) that those who believe a genocide is taking place in Gaza are indulging in ‘luxury beliefs’ He seems to quote US holocaust scholar Omer Bartov to the effect that Israel ‘has delivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history’. Ferguson provides no citation for this which reads like a Tel Aviv media release.

By contrast we can find the views, as of August 2025, of Omer Bartov to the effect that he thinks a genocide is indeed taking place in Gaza.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/genocide-is-taking-place-in-gaza-and-europe-is-duty-bound-to-stop-it-israeli-scholar-says/ar-AA1JHmCL?ocid=BingNewsSerp

So, farewell then Sir Niall Ferguson as a serious historian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson

Indian batter Yashasvi Jaiswal

An interesting statistic from the BBC cricket site (Ben Jones CricViz Analyst)

India have hit 470 boundaries in this series – the most by any side in any series ever.

So the real Bazballers are not England but India. One wonders how much this will percolate the thought of English cricket writers and commentators..

E P Thompson, the Making of the English Working Class & Civil Service Interns. Would Starmer have qualified?

Pat McFadden has determined that people eligible for the civil service internship scheme should come from ‘lower social economic backgrounds’ as determined by the occupation of their parents at age 14.

My socialist prejudice suggests that while the civil service is highly professional and competent (despite persistent attacks from the right, and scepticism from some of the left too) that it may contain too many PPE graduates. That however is a prejudice and statistics would be interesting.

Defining working class is problematic as even the Times (Editorial 2^nd August) manages to grasp. As Marx noted social being determines consciousness and Keir Starmer the son of a toolmaker who became PM can testify.

Indeed whether Starmer would have qualified had he decided to enter the civil service under the McFadden criteria instead of law, is a bit doubtful. As Neil Kinnock pointed out to Starmer on a recent Institute of Historical Research podcast, where he comes from toolmakers were the (labour) aristocracy. Indeed they were, the most skilled and amongst the best paid of the wider working class.

We can take some guidance from E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class

In the preface he does define what working class is. He writes:

‘I do not see class as a structure nor even as a category but as  something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships’

Indeed Thompson makes the point in the opening line of the Preface

‘The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time, it was present at its own making’

In other words the working class is not a thing or a category but it is defined by a relationship with and often a struggle against other classes, mainly the ruling class.

Thompson saw a relationship, a struggle, a movement. Something to be involved in, not comment on.

‘class is not this or that part of the machine, but the way the machine works once it is set in motion, not this or that interest, but the friction of interests-the movement itself, the heat, the thundering noise‘

Postscript to Paperback Edition, May 1968

August 1960: Peak Scarborough

Andrew Martin has published a new social history of train travel to the seaside of England, Scotland and Wales.

I checked the entry for Scarborough, a North Yorkshire resort I’m familiar with, partly by living in the wider area in the 1970s, on holidays and numerous trade union conferences.

Like many such locations it has seen changing times. I’m not sure that many union or political conferences are held there nowadays.

Martin reveals that 1960 was peak Scarborough at least in terms of train travel. 800,000 passengers alighted at what was then named the central station or an overflow tourist station Londesborough Rd (since close). Of that number 200,000 visited in August 1960. The population of Scarborough at the 1961 Census was 47,309.

A world we have lost but also a world within living memory

Prof Laurie Taylor is 89 & forever young. A memoir…featuring craft beer

Prof Laurie Taylor who a long time ago taught at York and wrote some important sociological works, for example Escape Attempts (with Stanley Cohen) and more recently presented the Radio 4 programme on new sociological research, Thinking Allowed.

I occasionally filled in for Taylor’s Times Higher Column (a satirical take on higher education) when he was on holiday and even more occasionally encountered him at social occasions. I recall him asking with some degree of surprise that I was still employed by anyone..

By profession (well one of them anyway) I was a sociology teacher, or would be if the Tories had not long since abolished such things on most school curriculums after Mrs Thatcher took Office.

Perhaps that’s why my ears pricked up when I heard that Professor Laurie Taylor was discussing microbreweries on his Radio 4 Thinking Allowed programme (in 2015!)

I have seen the Professor drinking wine but I have no doubt that he is an imbiber of beer, although I suspect mainly of the ‘twig’ variety.

The Radio4 programme showcases new research in sociology and the specific focus here was a paper by Tom Thurnell Read (Coventry) titled ‘craft, tangibility and affect in the microbrewery’.

What does that mean you might ask? The answer is don’t worry about it, it’s just a wording to warn off non-academics that they could possibly have any useful thoughts on the matter.

Laurie Taylor referenced probably the most important recent text on the issue of craft Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman (2008) which focuses on why people enjoy doing things well just for the sake of doing so without thought to money, time etc. Despite the title, women can also do this.

55 years ago the Professor was a Trotskyist so he put a frame of the Marxist theory of alienation around Read’s discussion of craft beer.

Essentially alienation occurs when a worker can’t really see the fruits of their labour and instead simply gets some money in return for it. An example might be a worker in a widget factory that is producing a small part for a machine that they rarely if ever appreciate the end result of.

The analogy works well for Read’s paper however. His point was that in microbreweries (not all of them clearly but I can think of many examples) the worker/brewer gets to decide what beer is to be brewed, what ingredients go in it etc. There is a high degree of control over the labour process.

Read also noted that thanks to social media, and also just visiting pubs where their product was sold, microbrewers could get a lot of direct feedback about the beer, tweak it to customer tastes if they felt it appropriate and so on. Generally therefore pride in their work was high, another key indicator of craft.
Taylor did try to get Read to opine on the difference between real ale and craft beer but he sensibly declined.

The point being made here is not about the beer as such but about the process used to make it, and how those making it relate to their conditions of work. Here craft- pride in doing something well that you have a lot of control over- is a lot more to the fore than in a mega-brewery.

Anyway, happy birthday Comrade Taylor, forever young at 89 clearly