Change often takes time one point those Reform Councillors who took control of Councils a couple of months ago may eventually ponder. So far change seems to have been limited to what flags can fly from municipal flag poles.
However as UNISON have revealed there has also been a positive change. Where Reform now run Councils union membership has increased significantly. Its not surprising given the threats Farage and Co have made to Council workforces. Eventually even Farage will have to grapple with reality
The survey into 2025/26 football season ticket prices has been done by a sports betting outfit but its not surprising that a report appears in the Morning Star, focused on matters material.
Arsenal have the highest season ticket price at £1,217. Its claimed that fans would need to work for 50 hours to get this amount of money, although obviously it depends how much they get paid. Spurs and Chelsea season tickets are in the same area perhaps provoking the thought on who the fans are- class wise.
By contrast a West Ham season ticket costs only £435 and Man City charges £425 (Manchester United £608). By contrast again an Everton season ticket costs £730 meaning more working hours to afford it with the average local wage at £20.84.
Hard right lie machine focuses on smoky bacon crisps.
So far this week the Telegraph, GB News, the Express & the S*n have run stories that Starmer’s recent deal with the EU means that smoky bacon crisps will no longer have a smoky bacon taste.
Obviously Farage has been shooting his mouth off about this, even tho pictorial evidence suggests that he chooses a fag with his pint (and a cigar later with the fine wines).
Given where the story has appeared those who still retain sanity will have deduced that its not true and of course it isn’t.
Let’s start with Torres who produce the fried egg crisps loved by some. Do they contain any fried egg? None at all. Quite how the flavour is achieved is either a secret or a mystery.
I haven’t been eating crisps since January as part of a wider effort to lose weight. However when I was I enjoyed a packet of sausage & tomato crisps at my local beer and beard bar. One day I scanned the contents. The crisps were vegan friendly.
It wont trouble Farage & Co but actually Walkers smoky bacon crisps have been vegan for a while. It’s nothing to do with EU. More one suspects that Walkers noting the market for facon as well as bacon saw a commercial advantage
The Times (18th June) reports that the Tories have raised £700,000 pounds at their summer event held at the Science Museum. Its the most raised at the event since 2019.
Prizes included pheasant shoots.
In the first quarter of 2025 the Tories raised £3.3m compared to £1.48m for Reform
Beyond the media obsession with Farage it suggests capital still see the Tories as potential representatives of its interests and it still likes shooting pheasants
The Beard Liberation Front the informal network of beard wearers has said that Reform MP Lee Anderson is not eligible for the Hirsute Personality of the Year Award. The winner is announced on 23rd June as part of National Beard Week 2025.
The campaigners say there are two issues. Firstly it is questionable if Mr Anderson’s beard is genuine. Secondly it is questionable if he has a personality, at least a positive one.
BLF organiser Keith Flett said we are of course open to representations from Mr Anderson if he thinks he has been unfairly excluded
List of MPs who voted against decriminalising abortion (Commons 17th June 2025)
Labour MP Toni Antoniazzi has been successful in carrying an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill in a Commons Debate on 17th June that will mean, if the entire Bill is in due course passed, that women will no longer be prosecuted for procuring an abortion outside of the current framework.
The law on abortion is unchanged but the situation where women in desperate circumstances can end up in jail is being removed.
The amendment was passed by 379 votes to 137.
The 137 No votes are listed below. While abortion is a matter of conscience and strong moral views, it is also something that attracts bigotry. Most of those voting against were Tories (not all Tories take this view) but also voting No were 4 Reform MPs. As usual Farage couldn’t be bothered to show up
A History of the present. From Iraq in 2003 to Iran in 2025. The politics of ‘regime change’
If Netanyahu’s comments appear eerily familiar, it is because they are. The same Netanyahu, and Iran hawks in the US, pushed a similar argument in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraqis then, like Iranians, the world was told, would welcome the removal of Saddam. The Middle East would be reshaped.
In Iraq, where ultimately an incompetent US effort was made at nation-building, and Libya – where it was not – there followed periods of bloody chaos, which continues in Libya.
Tony Blair was at the annual Order of the Garter Ceremony at Windsor on 16th June.
The Order which dates back to 1348 has a maximum of 24 members at any one time plus the King and Queen and assorted Royals (but not Prince Andrew in public, although he is reported to have attended the behind closed doors lunch)
I voted Labour in 1997 but I don’t remember anything about this being part of the New Labour project
In 2025 discussion on the left is about how to shift a Labour Government towards pursuing a more left-wing or at least social democratic agenda. For example, a clear break from austerity, a wealth tax, an end to cuts on benefits and a clear anti-racist position. Alternatively another focus is whether it’s possible to create an alternative left-wing political structure to challenge Labour on this basis.
The media is highly unlikely to remember it or feature it but ten years ago this month, June 2015, a potential answer to these points arose.
Ed Miliband lost the 2015 General Election, much it must be suspected to the surprise of Tory leader Dave Cameron. Miliband had led Labour mildly from the left but at the Election the Party had not decisively broken from Tory austerity, or developed a clear anti-racist policy, in fact with the Ed Stone, a series of modest demands suggesting no clear break from the previous five years of Tory & Liberal Democrat Government, the reverse.
On May 8th 2015 Miliband resigned as Labour leader, and Harriet Harman became interim leader. Nominations from MPs for a new leader opened on 8th June and closed on June 15th.
35 MPs needed to nominate a candidate for them to make the ballot. Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper easily cleared the threshold. Two others also did so. Liz Kendall from the Labour right, whose campaign manager was the then unknown Morgan McSweeney, and Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn just got over the line with 36 nominations. A number of MPs, including my own, David Lammy in Tottenham, made it clear that while they did not fully agree with the Islington North MP, they felt it was important that there was a voice from the left on the ballot. This idea of Labour as a broad church of left and progressive views has since been abolished by Keir Starmer.
It’s too soon to write a formal history of this period- although there are a number of accounts from people involved in Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign. I do remember well the moment it was announced that he had got a place on the leadership ballot. In an evening activists meeting in North London, someone found the news on twitter. There was obvious enthusiasm in the room. The possibility of a left campaign had not seemed that likely.
Jeremy Corbyn had started his political life as a Haringey Labour Councillor and then became the Labour MP for Islington North in 1983. As Chair of Haringey TUC we worked with him over a sustained period and backed his candidacy for Labour leadership.
Looking back at media releases done at the time the appeal of a clear anti-austerity politics and a break from a situation where the rich made the poor pay for economic crisis is clear.
Subsequently commentary has appeared that this was all a North London bubble not reflected elsewhere in the country. It wasn’t.
The leadership election was held under a new system of One Member, One Vote (OMOV). This allowed people to sign as Labour supporters for £3 and get a vote for leader.
The result was again unexpected. By the time of the result in September 2015 Labour membership had risen to 552,000 with 112,000 of those being the £3 registered supporters who had mostly joined from June.
The anti-austerity and anti-neo-liberal mood built not just an election campaign for Corbyn but the beginnings of a popular movement.
It might be argued that the rest is history but at ten years it isn’t yet. The history is still being written and the left still has a chance to shape what the history books of the future will say
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer have finally signed the US-UK trade deal at the G6 and a bit meeting in Canada on 16th June.
Cynicism must be tempered with the possibility of saving jobs at least in the short term.
In the longer run as Neville Chamberlain found in September 1938 signing agreements with far right politicians has a limited potential. Fortunately however Trump is not Hitler even if some of his colleagues are admirers..
