Guardian and Observer journalists, members of the National Union of Journalists, are on strike again on Thursday and Friday over a decision of the Scott Trust to sell The Observer to a small start-up Tortoise.
I offered solidarity in person last week by visiting the York Way picket which was very well supported (a few minutes walk from Kings Cross station or one stop on the 390 bus).
Ive been reading the Observer (like the Guardian) since the 1960s and was pleased to see them come under common ownership. Of course they represent liberal, progressive journalism, and I’m a socialist. Neither paper is likely to publish an Editorial demanding workers power. However when one looks at the rest of the UK press the difference is still considerable and valued.
The journalists who actually provide the content for both papers are clearly not on board, and going on strike, never done lightly- the first for 50 years or so at the Guardian- underlines that.
Its time for the Scott Trust to think again, to fully engage with journalists and it might also try asking long time readers too…
New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has made an important policy announcement in an interview with the Spectator. She has declared that sandwiches are not real food and that moist bread is unacceptable.
Further addressing the issue of work-life balance Badenoch has declared that lunch is for wimps. She does not take a lunch break but sometimes has a steak (probably a code for a Big Mac) brought in.
She issued a policy update when speaking to the Press Association while visiting Essex on Friday: Asked whether she would be eating a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day, she said: “Maybe a turkey pie on Boxing Day.”
By contrast Keir Starmer likes Pret sandwiches or baguettes (tuna)or a cheese toastie for lunch and said that sandwiches are a Great British Institution. Nigel Farage has posted a short video on social media of his liquid lunch (wine not beer)
Perhaps its time for a Campaign For Real Sandwiches
Nigel Farage was at a farmers protest in Westminster again on 11th December. And again he came dressed as a farmer although on this occasion he was not wearing garish yellow trousers. Farage owns several properties in Kent and possibly one in Clacton (its gone quiet on that again) but he is not now and never has been a farmer.
As in France farmers protests span some rather different bases. There are millionaire farmers, who certainly last time gave their workforce time off to attend. They may be hit by Labour’s inheritance tax changes although their financial advisors will probably find a way around it.
Then there are much smaller farmers who are unlikely to be impacted by tax changes but certainly struggle to get by thanks in part to the activities of the millionaire farmers.
Farmers protests under the New Labour Governments from 1997 tended to be aligned with the Tories, although the far right were also present. The Tories in 2024 are clearly in no position to do much, hence the attraction of Farage and Reform UK Ltd which has a TV station GB News to promote the cause.
Hence Farage appeared dressed as a farmer. However if he wants to play being a farmer he might look for an opening on the Archers where there are numbers of actors who play farmers (rather better than Farage does)
London in the weeks before Christmas was a paradise of odd jobs. Extra hands were taken on at the Post Office, to cope with Christmas deliveries, at Covent Garden where there was a ‘second season’ in fresh fruit and flowers, at the railway stations and at the docks. The Christmas pantomime season gave temporary employment to a whole army of ‘extras’, scene shifters, stage hands, ballet girls and ‘supers’. Christmas was the height of the advertising season and men of the lodging house class were widely employed in delivery on tradesman’s hand bills… also hand bill distribution at the street corners and board carrying..
Raphael Samuel, Comers and Goers. Collected in John Merrick, Workshop of the World, Essays in People’s History (Verso 2024)
Eric Hobsbawm & the Invention of Christmas Traditions
(Eric Hobsbawm noted) that the inspiration for the idea behind the Invention of Tradition, (lege a book he jointly edited with Terence Ranger), came to him when, as a student at Kings College Cambridge, he realised that the famous Christmas Service of Nine Lessons and Carols had only been devised a few years before his arrival in the mid 1930s
From Eric Hobsbawm, A Life in History, Richard J Evans
Kings College Carols (male only choir) is broadcast each Christmas Eve and dates from 1918
In the current context watching the Rees Moggs at home (Discovery Channel) made for more relaxing viewing than the final episodes of MasterChef. It’s an interesting, if partial, study on how the upper class lives in 2024. Rees Mogg does not hide his hard right politics. He has his underpants starched, is never found wearing anything but a suit and cant really explain why as a Catholic he celebrates Guy Fawkes Night.
He clearly likes wine but his taste in food appears basic. He is shown pondering how to eat sushi with fellow Old Etonian and Telegraph food critic William Sitwell, and has to check with his wife what chorizo is.
The star though is Sean Goodwin, labelled the caretaker (butler), in fact the fixer and cider maker. He has a wry and rather subversive take on matters. His beard is a sign.
Ho Ho Ho: Campaign For REAL SANTAS warns against Santas with ‘blatantly fake beards’
The Campaign for Real Santas, which promotes Santas with genuine organic beards, is continuing its 2024 initiative to promote real Santas with genuine beards by warning people to be aware of absurd false bearded Santas as the busiest pre-Christmas shopping weekends are underway.
The importance of the Campaign is underlined by a furore over the use of a Santa with a ‘blatantly fake beard’ at a seasonal event at Winchester Great Hall. While in previous years Santa had a genuine beard in 2024 a self-styled Santa with an absurd false beard was used
The Campaigners say that with unemployment and under-employment amongst mature men over 50, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to use an assistant Santa who does not have a real beard.
At the same time the Campaign is also keen to encourage more female Santas with organic knitted beards.
Campaigners are urging parents and children to demand that Santas vigorously tug their beards as a definitive test as to whether they are in the presence of a real Santa or not.
CFRS organiser Keith Flett said, Christmas decorations and lights are up in main High Streets and Christmas tat is everywhere. Our task of exposing false bearded Santas is more important than ever.
THREE STEPS TO SPOT A GENUINE SANTA
1 Ask the Santa to tug their beard. If it comes away, then the Santa is FAKE
2 If the beard remains intact ask the Santa to tug their beard again. If the Santa swears then they are genuine. If they simply repeat a ‘ho ho ho’ mantra they are FAKE
3 The Campaign for Real Santas says that genuine Santas must have just the right mix of bonhomie and grumpiness and a real organic beard.
Notes
The Organic Santa of 2024 will be named on December 18th. In the last 5 years Michael Rosen and Brian Blessed have been key contenders for the annual honour
The Campaign for Real Santas is organised by the Beard Liberation Front
Lord Salisbury, the last UK PM with a beard, resigned 1902
Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2024 Final Beard Off Vote
Beard Liberation Front
10th December
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social
Parliamentary Beard of the Year: Jeremy Corbyn, Colum Eastwood, Robin Swann, Jon Trickett face off in Beard Off vote
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it faced an unprecedented challenge in drawing up its annual shortlist for the Parliamentary Beard of the Year.
However after much deliberation a shortlist was drawn up and after two preliminary rounds of voting the Final Beard Off vote is now open. In the first close shave round Robin Swann and Jon Trickett topped the poll of several thousand voters and go to the final Beard Off. In the second close shave round Jeremy Corbyn and Colum Eastwood triumphed.
The General Election on July 4th 2024 saw the departure of a large number of existing MPs- mostly clean shaven Tories- and the arrival of an equally large number of Labour and LibDem MPs.
While the existing Parliamentary Beard of the Year holder Alex Cunningham has stepped down as an MP the campaigners say they have now reviewed nominations for the 2024 shortlist.
Politics is a disputatious activity and the shortlist invariably draws comment from partisans.
The shortlist is NOT about the politics of the MPs on the list. It’s about whether their activities during the year have provided a positive image of the hirsute during the year. Obviously this can be disputed- how positive or otherwise- so the shortlist will go to a vote with the winner announced in mid-December.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, there is no question that the Parliamentary Beard of the Year shortlist is a challenge this year with so many new MPs but after reviewing nominations we have drawn up a list comprised of some veteran Parliamentary beard wearers together with some fresh faces as it were
Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2024 shortlist
An on-line poll will run in early December 2024. The vote is on Twitter, but responses here will be counted as well
The vote is on Twitter @kmflett but votes notified on other social media will also be counted
Nigel Farage, notionally, the UK MP for Clacton, is set to make his sixth visit to the US since July 4th at the weekend.
He will be a keynote speaker at an event organised by the New York Young Republican Club. Its annual dinner is a major fund raising event. Trump is due to make an appearance via video link
Significantly while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has been in the US she has not been invited, with organisers saying that they don’t want to feature ‘globalist losers’
On the train to Bristol were a lot of slightly drunk business executives in their late thirties singing in the buffet car. One was wearing a paper hat.
I queued up to get my tea and bacon and egg and they were saying ‘There’s that f**king extremist Mr Benn’ and they sang bits of the Red Flag and kept up an absolute barrage of insulting remarks.
As I went carrying my tray they opened the door with elaborate and false courtesy and said ‘Happy Christmas to you sir’ and I said ‘Yhank you’ and went on.
I think that was the first real experience of the whipping up of feeling of the press against the Labour Party. After the victory of Mrs Thatcher, the old Establishment are now wildly self confident- the Civil Service, the military, business, bankers and so on
