Kmflett's Blog

Elections in England: The Big Question. Has Laura Kuenssberg defected from the Tories to Reform

The BBC’s Election programme covering local Elections in England ran from 23.10 on May 1st and was presented by Laura Kuenssberg. Fortunately veteran psephologist Sir John Curtice who knows of what he speaks was also on hand.

The big question of the night however was whether Kuenssberg is ready to defect from the Tories to Reform

Update. Laura Kuenssberg BBC wesbite May 1st 23.10

But the biggest question is can Reform UK turn their incredible hypothetical success we see in opinion polls into real power?

We’ll find out over the weekend if Kuenssberg has defected to Reform but it looks likely

England fast bowler Mark Wood doesnt like golf, reflecting the class history of the game in England

England fast bowler Mark Wood has told the BBC that stories that key members of the England cricket team are more interested in golf than cricket are wrong. He notes that while some do like and play golf they are also train hard at cricket, which is their professional game.

Wood notes that he doesn’t like golf having no interest in the game and in doing reflects something of the origins of the game in England (Scotland is different).

The late miners leader Mick McGahey described golf as a waste of time. At his election victory party in November 2024 Trump had as the guest of honour Bryson DeChambeau. He is a championship winning golfer, aside from being extremely annoying, which no doubt endears him to Trump.

The class divide is clear from a historical perspective too. Eric Hobsbawm notes in Labouring Men that in the late nineteenth century as the male working class was identifying itself by wearing a cap, the middle class turned to golf courses. Twenty-nine golf courses were laid out in Yorkshire between 1890-95. Before 1890 there had been just two.

Mark Wood comes from Ashington in Northumberland an ex-mining area

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/c705gk8ejnvo

CAMRA London Drinker September 1980

Above is the beer list from the first ever Wetherspoons, then called Martins, which was in Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, N10

Greene King Abbot (still a Spoons staple)

Ruddle’s County

Well’s Bombardier

Young’s Special

Sam Smith’s OBB

Arkell’s BBB

Notable that none of those beers were regularly available in North London 45 years ago (Youngs had a handful of N.London outlets, the Spreadeagle, Camden Town and the Prince (now Princess) of Wales Lea Bridge Rd. I’m also interested to see Sam Smiths mentioned. How Martin mentioned to get hold of it given the eccentric ways of the Brewery is of interest.

I think all the beers listed are still brewed albeit Ruddles County, now owned by Greene King, is sadly diminished

Roger Protz then editing the Good Beer Guide commented on BlueSky

Thanks Keith for sharing. Before all the controversies of Spoons, as GBG editor I hurried to “Martin’s Free House” a converted bookies, to sample “beers from far & wide” not seen in N London. Even GK then only in Suffolk & how did he get the Sam Smith’s? SS still crazy after all these years.

Exmoor Ales closes & blames Big Beer keeping their beers off bar tops

Roger Protz has posted regret on Blue Sky at the closure of long standing cask brewery Exmoor Ales which is based in Wiveliscombe, Somerset. Four people have lost their jobs.

The story is a little more complicated than that as the beers will now be brewed at Hogs Back in Surrey. The report below suggests that the same head brewer using existing yeast will be in charge but local provenance of beers is important, in my view.

Exmoor Beast a 6.6% porter, most often found in Wetherspoons down the decades, which liquorice and chocolate notes has been a long time favourite of mine and indeed of my late father

The reasons for the closure are familiar, pandemic debts, difficult trading conditions and recent tax changes. However there is also an important emphasis on how difficult it is for smaller brewers to get their beers on bars, where global beer companies like Heineken, ABInBev, Coors and Carlsberg increasingly control what is and is not sold. Government action on guest beers to address this is urgently needed before we see more Exmoors

Exmoor Ales, based in Wivelscombe, is closing its doors | Somerset County Gazette

Trump’s 100 days. The Sound of Silence from his UK fan club

Donald Trump completed 100 days in the Oval Office on 29^th April provoking much media commentary. The Orange one himself was at a rally in Michigan, as ever more about the performance than anything he did or did not say.

From his UK fan club however, the sound of silence.

Liz Truss posted a fortnight ago that Trump is right about everything but on his 100 days, nothing. Boris Johnson seems to have fallen out with Trump on Ukraine, posting on 26^th April critically about his policy (such as it is). Meanwhile Farage’s mouth is for ever wide open. Hot air comes out, flies enter but on Trump’s 100 days, silence.

It  took  a  large  team,  subsidised  by  the  Milord  Foundation,  much arduous  statistical  fiddling  to  get  this  result.  However,  summarised on  the back of an  envelope  it  can be  seen  that:  (a)  66.5%  of  the  population in  1848  were  Chartists and/or wholly  sane,  (b)  the only  wholly sane,  and  therefore Chartist,  candidate in  1959  (Coun.  Lawrence Daly)polled 11%  of  the total,  (c)  this  gives  us  1%  per annum drift,  with an error  of  0.25%,  probably  attributable  to  leap-years.  For  a  full  summary of our conclusions,  see our forthcoming article  in  the  ” American Journal  of  Communicational  Guphology.”

This is an extract from a Pessay on Ephology by E P Thompson that appeared in the final autumn 1959 issue of the New Reasoner. It merged with Universities and Left Review to become the New Left Review in 1960.

Lawrence Daly who stood as an independent socialist in Fife went on to become a leading figure in the NUM

This is (allegedly) from Fox News. It does rather sum up Trump’s first 100 days whatever the source. The Penny is the One Cent coin

This article provides some long lost detail on the first Wetherspoons pub in Muswell Hill.

It notes that it had been an Arsenal drinking club, was opened as a bar by Andrew Marler and then sold to Jerry and Tim Martin.

It also comments on the beer prices and the beers sold. Its from the London Drinker (July 1980) the magazine of the London branches of CAMRA which continues to be published in 2025. Marlers, then Martins, is still open as a pub but the Wetherspoons in Muswell Hill these days is the Mossy Well at the top of Muswell Hill

Former media rep Carrie Johnson opted for a forest green Triceratop outfit, while her husband Boris went for a classic tangerine orange Tyrannosaurus rex costume. The occasion was their son Wilf’s second birthday at the weekend but Johnson’s direction of travel seems clear…

Canadian Tory leader defeated in poll. Jenrick urged UK Tories to follow his example

The Canadian Tory leader Pierre Poilievre has lost the election for PM to Liberal leader Mark Carney, despite the fact that the Tory leader had been 20% ahead in the polls before Trump became US President again in January

One person who backed Poilievre was Tory leader in exile Robert Jenrick who write in the Telegraph (6^th October 2024). There is something to be said for King Midas in Reverse strategies..

None of this has escaped the attention of other right-of-centre politicians around the world. Robert Jenrick, the front-runner to become the next leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, made a special trip to Canada earlier this year to meet Poilievre and some of his staff.

“Rob definitely sees Pierre as showing the way in how to do popular conservatism in opposition,” says a member of Jenrick’s campaign team. “He’s picked a handful of policy areas in which Trudeau has made salient choices and explained in a fresh, modern but authentically right-wing way how those choices have made ordinary Canadians worse off.” At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham over the weekend, Jenrick said he wanted to make the Tories the party of home ownership again, pointing to Poilievre’s record in this area.