Kmflett's Blog

Liz Truss has been speaking at a hard right conference in Maryland in the US. The Conservative Political Action Conference will hear from JD Vance and Donald Trump later in the week.

Truss called for a MAGA movement in the UK, backed Trump and other hard and far right figures in her speech.

She also updated her conspiracy theory on who is to blame for Britain in her view being a ‘failed State’

It’s the deep state, it’s the unelected bureaucrats, it’s the judiciary.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/20/liz-truss-cpac-speech?CMP=share_btn_url

The unknown E P Thompson?

In 1971 E P Thompson and Eileen Yeo published The Unknown Mayhew (Penguin) which contained a considerable amount of material from Henry Mayhew’s social investigations published in the Morning Chronicle between 1849 and 1851.

Both Thompson and Yeo wrote introductions.

Thompson’s extended piece looks at the life of Mayhew and his politics and seems to have been largely forgotten. At the back of the book there are also several pages detailing the cost of living in the first half of the nineteenth century. They were written by Thompson and seem to continue a discussion he started in the Making of the English Working Class in 1963 about whether the standard of living for workers were rising or falling in this period.

The book was originally published by Merlin Press and republished by Penguin, the most recent addition dates from 1984.

The paperback copy I consulted in the British Library on 17^th February was falling apart but as the librarian noted there is backlog of binding work. Perhaps its time for the book to be published again. Mayhew’s investigations into the state of market capitalism in 1850 (and Thompsons and Yeos commentaries on them) are interesting historically but also have contemporary relevance.

RIP Rick Buckler. Memories of the Jam playing a Right to Work Benefit at PCL, February 1982

I was sorry to read of the passing of the Jam drummer Rick Buckler. For anyone on the left in the later 1970s and early 1980s the Jam had a special place. They started with an image of union jack wearing Mods. With songs like That’s Entertainment and of course Eton Rifles and then as Weller formed the Style Council, Walls Come Tumbling Down, a trajectory to a very different political space was underway.

I heard the Jam live only once. They planned a benefit gig for the Right to Work Campaign at the Polytechnic of Central London on 24^th February 1982. Its now the University of Westminster.

In the days before mobiles and the internet I’ve no idea how I came to hear about the gig although I was involved with the RTWC. Entrance was 50p or free for the unemployed

The Jam played five songs:

The Gift, Ghosts, Town Called Malice, Precious and Eton Rifles.

Eton Rifles, one of Dave Cameron’s favourites songs, was about a clash between Etonians and a 1978 Right to Work March as it went through Slough.

I don’t have much memory of the gig beyond the fact that it was absolutely rammed but it was a sign of how pop and politics could come together in that era

Boris Johnson has posted the below on Twitter

When are we Europeans going to stop being scandalised about Donald Trump and start helping him to end this war? Of course Ukraine didn’t start the war. You might as well say that America attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor. Of course a country undergoing a violent invasion should not be staging elections. There was no general election in the UK from 1935 to 1945. Of course Zelenskyy’s ratings are not 4%. They are actually about the same as Trump’s. Trump’s statements are not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action. In particular the US can see $300bn of frozen Russian assets – mainly in Belgium. That is cash that could and should be used to pay Ukraine and compensate the US for its support. Why is Europe preventing the unfreezing of Putin’s cash? The US believes Belgium, France and other countries are blocking. It’s absurd. We need to get serious and fast.

Quote: Lenin

I read the news: Beatles, Day in the Life

I was sorry to read that Harold Wilson’s former Press Secretary Joe Haines has died at 97. He has a place in Labour History. He wrote Wilson’s speeches from 1969 to 1976 although he was later critical of him.

In 2018 on the letters page of the New Statesman Joe Haines described my letter writing as ‘pointless’. Although I’m not sure quite where I came into the debate I think such mild criticism from Cde Haines can probably be understood as veiled praise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Haines_(journalist)

Tom McNally, Jim Callaghan’s speech writer noted that Haines was ‘very judgemental of others’ (Times Obituary 20th February 2025) so clearly I was just caught in some late crossfire here.

Ironically Haines used the money from writing a biography of Robert Maxwell (who he had worked for as leader writer at the Mirror) to buy a substantial property in Tunbridge Wells. Missives were regularly despatched but not with the byline ‘disgusted’

Boris Johnson who according to the Telegraph is bored and pondering a second political coming will be speaking at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on 2nd September 2025. There will apparently be a chance to ask questions.

Before that however, and charged separately, there will be an opportunity to shake hands with Johnson and have a photo taken. This will cost £121.25

Its an obvious grift but why Johnson needs the money is not fully clear. It may be the maintenance cost for his unknown number of children are pressing.

I have shaken hands with Boris Johnson- for free- when he visited Tottenham in the aftermath of the August 2011 riot. Photographs thankfully are not extant.

Trump, Nixon and the nuclear codes

Trump and his ally Musk are pursuing a strategy (far from unknown) of moving fast and breaking things.

In the last few days Musk’s Doge outfit managed to sack most of the people in charge if US nuclear warheads. Shortly after, once they found their contact details, they rehired them.

Given the erratic nature of the activities or Trump and Musk- albeit there is an element of method in the madness- the issue of the nuclear codes is relevant

Trump has access but he can’t himself fire any missiles. Generals have to give the order and soldiers have to do it. We’re not quite in Dr Strangelove territory yet.

Nixon, probably the closest in style and method to Trump of recent Presidents, in the late 1960s tried to order a nuclear strike on North Korea when he was drunk one evening. Henry Kissinger may seem like an unlikely pacifist but it is thought he stalled the order until the morning when Nixon had sobered up and was persuaded to think better of it.

“If the president had his way,” Kissinger growled to aides more than once, “there would be a nuclear war each week!” This may not have been an idle jest. The CIA’s top Vietnam specialist, George Carver, reportedly said that in 1969, when the North Koreans shot down a US spy plane, “Nixon became incensed and ordered a tactical nuclear strike… The Joint Chiefs were alerted and asked to recommend targets, but Kissinger got on the phone to them. They agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.”

https://www.theguardian.com/weekend/story/0,3605,362958,00.html

Of course bets may be off if Musk sacks the Joint Chiefs as well….

The January CPI inflation figure has gone up to 3%. It was perhaps not entirely unexpected but the extent of the rise probably was.

Cue blow and bombshell headlines from the usual hyperbolic media (which is most of it)

I’m a socialist historian which indicates a knowledge of economic history but not a specialist focus.

E P Thompson’s argument in the Making of the English Working Class that it wasnt the case that living standards were rising for working people in the 1830s was disputed by economic historians on the right. Some workers in this period were doing better, and some werent. As often behind the headlines lies complexity.

When we look at the January CPI inflation figure the biggest factor are private school fees which have risen due to Government policy. Not all private schools are focused on producing the next generation of Boris Johnsons but its also reasonable to say that the vast majority go to State schools (which are funded through taxes)

Two other factors reflecting the increase are tobacco and air travel. The proportion of smokers in the population is thankfully much reduced. Air travel is a broader category but it is ski-ing holiday time.

Beyond that and returning to E P Thompson the significant rise in prices for most is in food. Here inflation year on year has risen from 1.9% to 3.1%.

Its not clear how often those who comment on inflation actually visit a supermarket but I do a couple of times a week. I noted recently that lamb chops (for meat eaters) were priced at £6.50 for four. A few months back it was £5.50.

Food price increases impact at the grassroots. While wages are rising at more than the rate of inflation (for those in union organised workplaces primarily) that wont cover everyone by some distance.

As Biden found in November if a real feeling of being worse off that many have is not addressed it has wider political consequences. Trump focused on reducing the price of eggs which for reasons I dont understand seem to obsess at least some Americans (The Times reported this week a significant rise in people renting hens to lay eggs). Needless to say since Trump was elected US egg prices have continued to rise. Its primarily due to the impact of avian flu, not something I suspect that bothers Trump.

The ONS report is here

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/january2025?fbclid=IwY2xjawIilWxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHapCN45MegosKkfpQxWd6dycJEY8_q-0QvIdLxumBNP5D6rns0nsP00n8g_aem__sN4tfIFIAO2aantVXv-Aw

Thanks to Colum Murphy (BlueSky) and Mike Haynes (Facebook) for informed commentary