Kmflett's Blog

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.

Gramsci

Simon (now Lord) Hart has written a diary of the Tory Government 2020-24 published as Ungovernable (2025). Between 2022 and 2024 he was Chief Whip. From 2020 to 2022 he was Secretary of State for Wales (MP for Carmarthen West)

Entry for June 20th 2022

News Corp Party at the Hyde Park Gallery. Charlie Brooks (husband of Rebekah) made sure I met Rupert Murdoch himself although he seemed totally bemused by the concept of the Secretary of State for Wales. I don’t think he had ever heard of Wales

There is no denying that since he was elected as an MP in July 2024 Farage has done a good job at representing Clacton on the world stage. He hasn’t done any Constituency surgeries, but you can’t have it all.

This week Farage has been on holiday in France despite the fact that the Commons was sitting and he missed a key debate on Starmer’s latest EU reset.

He will not however be back in the UK just yet. Next week he is billed as a keynote speaker at a BitCoin Conference on 27-28 May in Las Vegas

An association between the ILP and cricket is well known. CLR James the West Indian socialist moved to the UK in 1933 and lived in Nelson, Lancashire. He became the cricket correspondent of the Guardian and joined the ILP in 1934.

However via social media a much earlier link has been found.

The ILP was formed in Bradford in 1893 and there is a picture of a medal from the 1894 Bradford ILP cricket league.

Harry Watton from the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians @acscricket.bsky.social has identified it as a medal related to the 1894 season of the ILP Bradford Cricket League. It was won by East Ward Cricket Club and presented to the club’s captain Mr Jenkinson on 23rd September 1894

Further information on the early ILP and cricket much appreciated

Most Reform UK voters are not Labour’s to win back. They are largely embedded within a “right-Conservative” bloc, as noted by Manchester University’s James David Griffiths. Chasing them means alienating Labour’s base.

Guardian Editorial 23rd May 2025

The first Test of the cricketing summer is underway at Trent Bridge with England playing Zimbabwe in a one-off Test.

The appearance of a fully bearded England coach Brendan McCullum suggests that the England cricket team are moving from Bazball to Beardball where the impact of facial hair with both bat and ball will become more significant.

Source: Persausion

Few current Reform voters have voted Labour back to the 2005 Election (won by Tony Blair). Most have backed the Tories. Note the 2015 peak for UKIP

Beard Liberation Front

21^st May

Contact: BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

Ange Postecoglou’s Beard Power sees Spurs win in Bilbao

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Spurs win in the Europa League Final in Bilbao was due in significant part to the Beard Power of manager Ange Postecoglou.

Postecoglou has been a full time managerial beard wearer in the 2024/5 season.

The campaigners say that the Spurs manager will now automatically appear on the Beard of Summer shortlist in June 2025.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Ange Postecoglou is an excellent example of someone who presents a positive image of the hirsute in the public eye, even if the Final was something of a close shave.

The Sunday Times Rich List for 2025 which estimates the personal wealth of the richest at least notionally UK based people suggests that in global Big Beer the personal fortune of the owner of Heineken is doing rather less well than the part owners of ABInBev.

Of course both are public companies so the personal wealth of the owners, while interesting, and concerning to many, does not particularly reflect how Heineken and ABInBev are doing

Charlene De Carvalho-Heineken and Michel De Carvalho have dropped from eighth to fourteenth in the Top 350 with a personal wealth of £11.751bn in 2024 down to £10.09bn in 2025 but still maintaining their 13^th place

Meanwhile Alejandro Santiago Domingo and Lady Charlotte Welleseley who are associated with ABInBev have risen from 78^th to 61^st place with a personal wealth of £2.2bn in 2024 now up to £2.661bn

The Earl of Iveagh and the Guinness Family is at 186 down from 179 with wealth of £916m in 2024 down to £856m in 2025. The Earl also owns the Norfolk Estate that supplies the King’s Christmas tree at Sandringham. Guinness itself of course is owned by Diageo.

Big Beer is still very good business, for the owners anyway

The Commons is sitting this week (Whitsun holiday next week) but Nigel Farage is on holiday this week in France. Since he is reported to own a house in France this just be spending time at one of his non-UK homes.

This meant that Lee 30p Anderson had to stand in for Farage. As someone who believes that migrants and asylum seekers should be welcome here the content of the exchange between 30p and Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on 21st May is not something I have sympathy with.

However the actual content is secondary here. What Anderson did was to set Starmer to tell an actual joke about Farage that led most MPs, 30p aside, to have a good laugh. It’s the way he tells them unwittingly or not

Lee Anderson 

(Ashfield) (Reform)

Q9. This Prime Minister keeps telling his gullible Back Benchers that he has deported 24,000 people from this country since he came into power, but he will not say who these people are. It is my guess that they are people who came on work visas or students and that they were simply overstayers, but I am willing to be proved wrong if he can answer one simple question: how many of these people that he has deported are failed asylum seekers that have come on small boats or on the back of lorries? Answer the question! (904298)

The Prime Minister 

I am very proud that we have removed over 24,000 people: the highest record for nearly 10 years. We are taking other measures to get back control of our borders, including the Borders Bill, which gives our law enforcement enhanced powers, including terrorism-like powers. What did the hon. Member’s party do? What did he do? He voted against them, and I will tell you why: they do not want to fix this problem, because it benefits them not to fix it. Party before country.

It is very good that the hon. Member is standing in for the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) today. There was no sign of him yesterday at the EU summit. He was the first through the e-gates to somewhere in the south of France: Nice work if you can get it!