Kmflett's Blog

In May 2026 Reform took control of Barnsley Council, which had hitherto always been Labour.

Reports suggest that while Barnsley Council was doing a decent job, within the limits of austere possibility, the vote was against Starmer Labour. That era has now passed, up to a point.

Labour won the third seat in a three member Ward on Thursday (Labour hold the other two).

Surmising what happened from the figures may not of course be accurate.

However it appears that the fascist Restore took votes from Reform, while Labour surged. These may be anti-Reform votes from supporters of other parties. Certainly there is no sign of a Tory revival, although Barnsley would not be the place to look really

Penistone East (Barnsley) Council By-Election Result:

🌹 LAB: 51.6% (+14.4)
➡️ RFM: 23.8% (-6.7)
◼️ RES: 6.5% (New)
🌳 CON: 11.6% (-7.6)
🔶 LDM: 2.1% (-3.6)
🌍 GRN: 1.7% (-5.6)
🙋 Ind: 2.6% (New)
🙋 Ind: 0.2% (New)

Labour GAIN from Reform UK.
Changes w/ 2026.

Turnout 38.58%

In an interview with Caroline Simpson the new Head of Staff at Heron House in Manchester, No.10 North Politico’s Dan Bloom has revealed that there is no cat. Rather there is a cardboard cut out of Larry the Cat.

Since Andy Burnham is a dog person there may be an agenda here…

Instead it has the next best thing — a cutout image of Downing Street’s real-life chief mouser. “We’ve got a cardboard cat, which isn’t quite living up to Larry,” Simpson said.

Caroline Simpson Head of Staff No.10 North

Beard Liberation Front

21st August

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

Prince Harry and Prince William Royal Beard Wars to resume

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with the return of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to the UK the beard wars between Harry and Prince William are set to resume.

Harry’s beard became a subject of controversy following the publication of a volume of the Prince’s memoirs. He revealed that the Queen gave him permission to wear the beard at his wedding with Meghan. This annoyed Prince William, who at an earlier point had to shave his beard off.

The specific point at issue was whether Harry could wear a beard while in military uniform. The campaigners said that there is an historic tradition of beards in the British forces dating back to the Crimean War in the 1850s. The more recent tradition of being clean shaven was invented in the early twentieth century.

The campaigners also said the King wore a beard in his younger years as did his late father and that facial hair can add gravitas to Royal appearances and pronouncements.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Prince Harry is a controversial person currently but his beard is sometimes seen as presenting a positive image of the hirsute in the public eye. It will be interesting to see how Prince William now positions his beard. We fully expect a new round of Royal Beard Wars

It’s peak ‘silly season’ when there is limited news (what there is, is rather serious) and the media look for diversions.

Reform have been doing their best with Richard Tice opining that there is nothing that can be done about climate change and so we should all enjoy the heat, along with the drought, food shortages etc.

However the late John Prescott remains the benchmark for a peak silly season story

In August 1997, the first summer of the newly elected Labour Government, PM Blair was away, and Deputy PM John Prescott was in charge. On 17th August 1997 Prescott was by the Thames launching a new environmental initiative. He was pictured addressing a Chinese crab in a jar. He named it Peter (Mandelson) and pondered if it would claw its way on to the Labour NEC.

Carlsberg Britvic, who are the UK’s biggest brewer of cask beer, have reported a 9% increase in soft drinks sales in its latest results.

Carlsberg beer was first available in the UK in 1868 and may well have been enjoyed by dedicated Pilsner drinkers Marx and Engels.

In 2026 it owns Kronenberg, Skol, Holstein and Hobgoblin (the only beer brand it appears to promote).

As a global big beer brewer Carlsberg’s biggest market is in China where it competes with China Resources Snow Breweries. CR Snow has 60 breweries in China and is HQ’d in Beijing.

Carlsberg Sales in China declined by 3% due to the impact of typhoons and flooding. However there was a 20% growth in the Vietnamese market.

Carlsberg was first exported to China in 1869 but brewing there did not start until 1995.

Grappling with Carlsberg will require an international focus, even if campaigning in the UK may get some tweaks to its global strategies

Where Reform is ‘in charge’ of local Councils it loses no time in demanding that Council staff work from the office and not home.

This of course is not just a Reform obsession. The Tories, Rees Mogg in particular have been droning on about home working for a good while. The Times publishes regular breakdowns of civil servants who don’t go into the office enough based on some arbitrary standard

These urgings remain at the ideological level because, as The Times also reports, there are not enough office spaces for everyone who for some undefined reason must be in the office. In other words to make the policy work would require the spending of large sums of public money on more office space.

Matters have taken a further turn with a report in the Telegraph (21 August 2026) about where Nigel Farage is currently trying to avoid questions about the £5m. The answer is, he is working from one of his several homes. Er…

Things were going well, but something else happened on Monday. With Farage taking “downtime at home though still working”, general secretary Tom Waterson and chairman Lee Anderson emailed Tim Montgomerie to suspend him from the party.

The Times which is not keen on anything green (except perhaps golf fairways) has published another Editorial attacking the Green Party.

Its a mixture of issues it finds with Councils where the Greens have control, Hackney (named), Haringey (not named) and various aspects of Green politics, anti-racism, pro-Palestine it doesn’t like.

Of course its right that while the political positions of Councils can make a difference- think back to the anti-apartheid years- trying to make sure essential services run, in the context of austerity, is what many will look for day to day. We can be sure Reform can’t do that, but it isn’t easy for those on the left of the political spectrum either. It might be suggested that if you want to change the world other places than Local Government could be a thought. These are issues which The Times has no conception of.

When Anne Widdecombe was murdered there was criticism of her politics on social media, mostly from people broadly on the left. I did not participate. I was no fan but had nothing useful to add. However right-wing commentators complained that Widdecombe’s family and friends should be given time to grieve and criticism was inappropriate.

Moving on a few weeks and the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday saw a vigil of 30,000 people organised by Stand Up To Racism in Trafalgar Square.

Yet some right-wing critics of Arday are still digging. I’ve noted Sarah Ditum in the Times and Kathleen Stock in UnHerd. While they note that the original allegations against Arday came from the racist Nathan Kofnas, they dismissed this and then went on to repeat all the things they had said about Arday they had said when he was still alive.

So speaking ill of the dead seems to have become part of the culture wars. It should not have done

On August: no home but the struggle

In the labour movement calendar August is often seen as a quiet month.

Of course as Mayhew’s costermonger had it when it seems quiet, preparations are going on for future activity. However trade union conferences are completed and the annual festivals, the Durham Miners Gala and Tolpuddle, have also been and gone.

As Eric Hobsbawm noted from the 1880s August became a month for the working class to take a holiday even though there was no legal time off until 1938. Rail excursions and the construction of seaside piers were symbols of the change. The 1871 Bank Holidays Act set the August holiday as the first Monday of the month, as this was the busiest holiday period, coinciding with the annual closure of many mills and factories.

The labour movement year traditionally resumes with the TUC Congress, in 2026 in Brighton.

Yet August was not always a quiet month

On Monday 16^th August 1819 60,000 people from neighbouring towns and villages marched for a rally at St Peters Field in central Manchester. They were demanding the vote and an end to the Corn Laws which raised the price of bread. While the protesters could have been armed- veterans of Waterloo were present-the decision was made to make it an entirely peaceful affair. The Government had other ideas. The Yeomanry, local businessmen on horseback were sent in to break the protest up. 18 were killed and hundreds injured.

A wave of repression of meetings and demonstrations followed but a template had been set.

Twenty years later in 1839 the Chartists still pursuing the vote adopted the long held idea of veteran radical William Benbow and called for a Grand National Holiday to end capitalism. The Holiday started on 12^th August 1839. The plan was to stop work and refrain from all taxable items such as tobacco and alcohol so that the rule of capital became unsustainable. It was well supported but could not be sustained.

In August 1842, still associated with the Chartists, a different strategy was deployed. Strikes had started in Staffordshire in July but on 8^th August 1842 a sustained attempt was made to stop mills and factories working across North-West England. History has condescendingly recorded this as the ‘plug plot’. In fact it was a well organised General Strike. It involved groups of workers marching from mill to mill and pulling the plugs from the boilers which powered them. It was an early version of what we know as the flying picket. Again while it was well supported it could not be sustained.

The final August event was the attempted Chartist insurrection in Seven Dials, Central London on 16^th August 1848. The motor for an armed attempt on the Capital stretched back to frustrations after the Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common on 10^th April was prevented from reaching Parliament.

A key figure in August 1848 may, or may not have been the black leader of London Chartism William Cuffay. He was sentenced to be transported to Tasmania, where he continued to be politically active.

It turned out to be  a fiasco because it was built by series of secret meetings, a conspiracy. Early Spycops infiltrated the meetings, arrests were made, and the plan to seize power fell apart.

All these August events took place 175 or more years ago yet there remain lessons for today. Opening organising was essential, and a variety of strategies and tactics were deployed. That they failed does not mean that used again in a different context they might not work this time.

This post appeared originally in the Morning Star