Kmflett's Blog

Calling time on Brewdog as James Watt launches ‘shadow DOGE’

Brewdog founder James Watt has had another social media rant

BrewDog’s James Watt follows Elon Musk lead as he shares UK Doge plan | The Herald

In what is clearly another PR stunt Watt says he is launching a ‘Shadow DOGE’ to focus on wasteful public spending

For those unaware DOGE is an irregular US unit run by unelected and unaccountable Elon Musk. In the few weeks of Trump’s second Presidency Musk and his assistants have been on the rampage across US Government departments slashing jobs, stopping spending on essential services and generally (the main plan) causing chaos.

Watt complains that currently thousands of jobs are being lost which would be nothing compared to the number lost if there was a UK version of DOGE.

He also claims he is open to working with any political party on this meaning of course Reform UK Ltd. His current partner is an associate of Farage whose 60^th birthday party he attended last year.

Watt’s decision to out himself as a Musk fanboy has gone down badly in the Scottish media and has raised the question of whether Wetherspoons Tim Martin looks not quite as bad as he used to. Quite some achievement.

It’s more than time to call time on Brewdog products if you haven’t already

Heart Union Week 2025: learning to love the tradition of collective organisation & action

10-16th February 2025 is ‘heart’ unions week. Of course 14th February is Valentine’s Day but the week underlines that ‘love’, or perhaps fellowship, is collective as well as individual.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/heartunions

As they usually do, unions and workplace organising face some challenges

In terms of strikes the figures which until recently were amongst the lowest since the early 1890s when records began rose sharply from mid-2022 although they have dropped back a bit with some significant disputes winning real advances and new issues arising.  The density of union membership still leaves a lot to be desired but overall trade union membership is steady and rising in some sectors of the workforce. Trade unions and collective action, partly thanks to Government intransigence from 2010-2024, have become popular again

Union membership still needs to be higher and industrial action in hospitality and by security guards shows that unions are quite capable of organising in less traditional areas of workplace strength.

This can and are changing very quickly. You need only look at the 1889 London dock strike- previously unorganised workers with a strike wave across the London and other areas of the UK to underwrite matters- to understand that periods of apparent quiet can suddenly explode.

It’s important also to grasp a wider context.

The reality is that if you are not a trade union member your ability to do much about any issue at work is very limited indeed. And if you are then there is the perpetual work of making sure the union effectively represents people- that only comes from an active membership not a benign General Secretary! It will also help if you are actively politically. A change of Government that is broadly on the side of working people when it comes to the current Employment Relations Bill is a start but as Raymond Williams once noted its not just a question of kicking out the Tories, we have to keep on kicking. Bad bosses have not gone away.

Self-activity is the start. As the late Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm noted the world won’t change itself for the better on its own. People are required for that, and people organised in some form of collective activity, which is why being in a union is as important now as it was in the 1890s.

Under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership the Times increasingly resembles the S*n with more ponderous versions of the same stories.

However it hasnt entirely abandoned is ancient class obsessions. One of these is with French cuisine. Traditionally the English ruling class regarded French gastronomy to be superior to English and at least until Raymond Postgate got to work on the Good Food Guide perhaps it was.

In recent times the paper has been celebrating the French liking for English (& US) food. France is one of the biggest world markets for McDonalds.

An Editorial on 12th February celebrates the growing market for frozen thick cut chips in France. The Frite is apparently in decline with the claim that younger people don’t like peeling potatoes (leave the skin on one might say, tho the Times doesnt)

Areas of Northern France have been given over to growing potatoes and there is an area now known as La Vallee de la Frite (Chip Valley)

The French frozen chip market increased 25% between 2019 and 2023. McCain has spotted profit potential and is constructing a 1.4 mile long production line in Chip Valley.

There is however a problem.

Checking Churchill’s Cookbook (1958) which contains recipes from his long serving cook, the only reference to frites are ones made from aubergines. There are no references at all to chips although there are plenty of recipes requiring boiled, baked and sauteed potatoes.

11^th February 1990. Nelson Mandela released from prison after 27 years

35 years ago this week Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison after a long running campaign to free him. By 1994 he was President of South Africa. He died in 2013.

Tony Benn recorded in his diary being in Trafalgar Square (opposite where South Africa House is situated) at a gathering to celebrate the occasion.

‘there was a tremendous sense of excitement..somebody had draped on Nelson’s Column a banner that read Nelson Mandela’s Column;

Benn made a short speech saying ‘Free Britain, Free working people from exploitation’ and concluded ‘I don’t think there has been anything like it since 1945 when the war ended’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

To Tussy my best thanks for the Prussian Minister of Public
Worship, sent me as a VALENTINE.

Engels to Marx 17th February 1870

This is the only reference to Valentines in the 50 volumes of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels. It refers to what was probably a photographic image of the Prussian Minister of Public Works from Eleanor Marx (Marx’s daughter) to Engels. In other words a Valentine’s joke.

Who the Minister was I’ve been unable to establish, a matter perhaps for Dominic Cummings who is keen on this period of Prussian history.

Todd Boehly the owner of Chelsea FC has acquired 49% of the Trent Rockets Hundred cricket franchise who play at the famous Trent Bridge ground in Nottingham.

It comes after US Hedge Fund owner Tom Wagner who owns Birmingham City FC bought a similar stake in the Birmingham Phoenix Hundred team who play at Edgbaston

What exactly Boehly and Wagner will get for their millions- aside from being closely associated with a four week cricket competition in August (when the football season gets underway) remains to be negotiated.

It may be that they just see profit opportunities but they may also have ideas on ‘synergies’ between football and cricket. Either way the last group of people who will be getting a say in any of this are cricket fans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/c20gj0g5v5yo

Before he became PM Arsenal fan Keir Starmer regularly played eight a side football on an astroturf pitch in inner North London. He was playing again on Sunday, perhaps not exactly Lenin of the Rovers, as he missed a penalty.

The question is, did anyone score off the rebound? Before anyone answers Nigel Farage best to reflect that veteran smoker Nigel is not fit enough to make it on to a football pitch let alone score a goal

Nigel Farage continues his efforts to get a role in the Archers which as something which is entirely fictional would suit his perspective on the world even if it would probably finish off the long running serial.

Farmers have been protesting again in central London again on 10th February about taxes. As with such protests across Europe there are two contradictory interests at work. Small farmers may well be hard done by, not so much by taxes but by big agribusiness and supermarket chains. Those at the protest today are likely in the main to have been larger scale farmers and landowners whose interests are not the same as small scale farmers.

The protest organisers made it clear that Farage as a friend of Donald Trump was not invited to or welcome at the protest. Instead Farage appears to have ambushed part of the protest on its way to London for a photo-op.

Stuart Hall d February 10^th 2014, New Left Review Editor, theorist of Thatcher’s ‘Great Moving Right Show’

The Marxist writer and theorist Stuart Hall died eleven years ago today aged 82.

I was intrigued by a picture of Stuart Hall (above) the first Editor of New Left Review carrying the journal’s banner on what I suspect was the 1961 CND march. I wasn’t aware NLR ever had a banner but as the convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group, which does have a banner which hasn’t been on a demo for some years I recognise a sort of political and historical process at work. Any further pictures of the banner viewed with interest…

I’ve had a look through the issues of New Left Review for 1960 and 1961 when Stuart Hall was Editor (He resigned in December 1961). There is nothing specifically about the banner! Nor of course is there anything particularly not known to historians of the new left.

In this period, 65 years ago now, NLR was of course a theoretical journal as it remains, but it was also a network of activists, what is known as the first or Old New Left. There was NLR Clubs around the country-up to 50 at one point. There was also a serious orientation on CND, in its first mass movement phase and the Labour Party- a daily newsletter was produced for Labour Conferences.

There are occasional notes from the Editorial Board and the one marking Stuart Hall’s departure as Editor, also underlined that he had been very active in building the new left, speaking at up to six meetings a week. That probably explains why he is pictured with the NLR banner but details of how often it appeared and where remain to be discovered.

Hall wrote a memoir of his time as Editor of NLR- the first 12 issues (NLR 2/61 2010) where he underlines the orientation on the new layers of people coming into activity with CND which very much fitted the first New Left perspective of being non-aligned with either social democracy or Stalinism

10th February 2025 marks 100 days since Kemi Badenoch was elected Tory leader. Listed below are some notable points

Kemi Badenoch’s first 100 days

Key policy statement: doesn’t like sandwiches

Political decision: reportedly most Tory HQ staff are useless

Political philosophy via Liz Truss: the Blob (see Elon Musk), the North London Elite

Perspective on Net Zero: Eco Nutters