(Edward) Thompson was temperamentally impatient and determined to get the magazine (New Left Review) off the ground as soon as possible. This seems to flow into other parts of his life. Decades later Christopher Hill confessed to me that the ‘rudest and most obnoxious letter I have ever received in my life was from Edward’. Why. ‘Because’ he replied ‘I was taking too long to leave the CPGB’
Tariq Ali. You Can’t Please All. Memoirs 1980-2024
The book, an essential read for those interested in the history of the British left from the 1960s on has many fascinating, and more positive(!) vignettes about both Edward and Dorothy Thompson
Nigel Farage is in the US and will be attending an election party held at Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago Florida residence but he will recognise the great British tradition of effigy burning on 5th November
This year one of the effigies to go on the bonfire at Lewes, perhaps the most well known and arguably most controversial 5th November event is an effigy of Farage
Below is the list of Kemi Badenoch’s Shadow Cabinet. None have experience of Opposition, with a small number having been elected in 2010, and most more recently. After 14 years in Government that is to a degree unavoidable except there are Tory MPs with more experience who have declined to serve and will be found on the backbenches (or as likely pursuing their business interests).
Very few are well known or even known and those that are have invariably featured in a scandal or gaffe of some sort, sometimes more than once.
Parliamentary Democracy in so far as it works does so because an Opposition holds Government to account rather than indulging in niche culture wars. Hopefully the independent left MPs, Plaid and on occasion the LibDems can manage a better job.
Finally there appears to be only one MP with a beard Richard Fuller.
Labour says that three quarters of the members of Kemi Badenoch’s new shadow cabinet abstained in the Commons vote to approve the report condemning Boris Johnson for lying to MPs about Partygate, that 42% of them (11 out of 26) backed Liz Truss for leader and that nearly three quarters of them served in Truss’s government. Guardian 5th November 2024
Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs: Dame Priti Patel MP 2010
Shadow Home Secretary: Chris Philp MP 2015
Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Alex Burghart MP 2017
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: James Cartlidge MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Robert Jenrick MP 2014
Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Laura Trott MP 2019
Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary: Ed Argar MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Kevin Hollinrake MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Victoria Atkins MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade: Andrew Griffith MP 2019
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and Shadow Minister for Equalities: Claire Coutinho MP 2019
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Helen Whately MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Gareth Bacon MP 2019
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport: Stuart Andrew MP 2010
Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology: Alan Mak MP 2015
Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and Shadow Minister of State for Energy and Net Zero: Andrew Bowie MP 2017
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and Shadow Minister for Women: Mims Davies MP 2015
Opposition Chief Whip (Commons): Dame Rebecca Harris MP 2010
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons: Jesse Norman MP 2010
Shadow Leader of the House o2015f Lords: Lord True
Co-Chairmen of the Party: Nigel Huddleston MP & Lord Johnson
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Richard Fuller MP 2019
Also attending
Parliamentary Private Secretary: Julia Lopez MP 2017
Clacton MP Nigel Farage is representing Clacton on the world stage again this week. He is in the US supporting Trump’s Presidential Election campaign.
He was at Trump’s final rally in the marginal state of Pennsylvania and was praised by Trump:
“He’s always been my friend for some reason. He liked me, I like him. He’s shaking it up over there. He was the big winner of the last election in the UK.
“He’s a spectacular man, very well respected. Nigel Farage. He’s a little bit of a rebel but that’s good. Don’t change Nigel.”
Jessica Morden, Newport East MP secured an adjournment debate on the Chartist Rising in Newport 185 years on from the 4th November 1839. Her opening contribution is below with a link to the remainder of the debate. There are of course other points that could have been made but a Commons debate on a significant moment in Britain’s radical history is important.
Not one Tory MP was present
I am back, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to Mr Speaker and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for having granted this debate on exactly the night when the Newport rising took place 185 years ago. It was a night on which thousands of working people from across the south Wales valleys marched on the Westgate hotel, in my constituency, in the fight for the vote and the right of ordinary people to have their voices heard. Earlier this evening, at Newport cathedral, the annual commemoration took place at the unmarked graves of ten of more than 20 chartists who lost their lives that night. I am grateful to my friend and parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones), for covering the other end of the M4 by being there tonight and having said some lovely things, I hear.
The Newport rising was the last armed rebellion against authority in Britain. We are proud of our Chartists and proud of the role they played in shaping our modern democracy. I have called the debate tonight to honour the sacrifice of our local heroes, the Gwent Chartists, who remind us that the freedoms and democratic rights we enjoy today were secured by ordinary men and women. It comes on the eve of the United States’ election, when democracy feels fragile around the world and faith in politics in this country is low. It is incumbent on our new Labour Government to work to restore faith in politics through the way we act and in the reforms we propose.
US Presidential Election one year on: taking ‘control of memory, as it flashes at a moment of danger’ (Walter Benjamin)
America voted for its next President on 5th November 2024. The archaic Electoral College system that is used did not on that occasion prevent Trump being promptly declared the winner.
We have seen the film before. Political and economic crisis of various dimensions created a situation where a lurch to autocracy was and is now very possible.
The critical theorist and philosopher Walter Benjamin committed suicide 84 years ago on 26th September 1940. He had been detained at the French/Spanish border and feared being handed over to the Nazis.
Benjamin’s writings were wide ranging and complex although he was associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and influenced by Adorno and Brecht amongst others.
Many of his writings still speak to our times perhaps particularly his brief piece on the Concept of History (1940) It grapples with how historical memory is understood in the present day:
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize “how it really was.” It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger
Like numbers of important left-wing thinkers from the past Benjamin was much discussed in the period after 1968. While his writings continue to be collected- particularly the Arcades Project- one fears he has become less well-known again now.
Historians say increasing University tuition fees ignores Labour’s history
The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has said that the decision to raise University tuition fees to £9,535 from September 2024 goes against Labour’s history on access to higher education.
The historians say that the Government does deserve credit for addressing the financial crisis of Universities which Tory Government did nothing about. However even with an increase in the maintenance grant, higher fees will put off students from a poorer and working class background from going to University
The 1959 Tory Government commissioned the 1963 Robbins Report into higher education. It did not act on it, but the 1964 Labour Government did creating a wave of new Polytechnics, now Universities, creating significant new opportunities for people to go into higher education. Fees were not charged, and modest maintenance grants provided.
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, education should be a right not a privilege. There is a funding crisis in higher education largely created by the previous Governments back at least to 2010. Labour’s tradition is to promote access for working people to higher education and higher fees is going the wrong way.
The obvious link between Kemi Badenoch & John Major is that they are both leaders of the Tory Party.
However there is a more specific link. The Sunday Times (3rd November 2024) reveals that Badenoch drinks Coke Zero which must however be at room temperature.
John Major in a 1993 speech had the same view of beer:
“Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs”.
By warm beer Major meant that served at 12C (54F) which is room temperature, tepid similar to a well stewed cup of tea.
In 2024 leaving aside those that like global lager served as cold as possible to hide the less than great taste, many beer drinkers would probably prefer 10C a little more for a stronger stout.
Likewise I suspect many consumers of Coke Zero prefer it cold
And it’s surprising how quick A little rain can clear the streets
I don’t want or plan to generalise and I’m well aware that the 1917 Russian Revolution took place late in that year when the weather was not at its kindest.
Even so the weather does have an impact on protest in the UK and there is no more relevant time to review the point than the, very wet, Chartist march on Newport in South Wales which ended on 4th November 1839, 186 years ago.
Since protest and the numbers it attracts can be unpredictable so the impact of the weather is to.
The ‘common sense’ on weather on demonstrations in 2025 is that if it is wet (people stay at home) or warm and sunny (people have other things to do on such day) turnout is hit. Hence a dry but overcast day is best.
It would take some considerable research effort to bottom that point out.
We do of course know of occasions when the rain hit protest quite significantly.
It’s worth keeping in mind that while in 2025 we have access to reasonably accurate weather forecasts that was not the case in Victorian Britain.
The Chartist Northern Star newspaper did not have a weather page.
When the Chartists rallied at Kennington Common for the vote on Monday April 10th 1848, they were prevented from crossing the river to demonstrate outside Parliament. On the afternoon of that day there was fighting between Chartists and the police on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge. Or there was until heavy rain caused the Chartists to disperse.
In early November 1839 the Chartists gathered in the South Wales Valleys with the aim of marching to Newport in what history calls the ‘Newport Rising’, in actuality it was a just about failed attempt at armed revolt. One reason for the failure is thought to have been that several days of heavy rain had rather dampened the spirits and organising ability of those involved.
There was heavy rain as the Chartists marched from Merthyr and Pontypool to rally at Rogerstone outside of Newport on the evening of Sunday 3rd November 1839. It was not raining on the same evening in 2025 in South Wales so anyone who looks at counter-factual history might speculate on a different outcome to events.
Of course in 2025 clothing that can protect against wet weather is much improved, but the reality is unfortunately that wet weather protests make less impact as they look as much like a lot of people who have become wet and bedraggled rather than the militant protest they actually are.
If we can grapple with climate change extreme weather events will decline so protesting to secure the future of protest makes particular sense. Unlike the Chartists we can also at least be glad we have, in the meantime, weather forecasts.
There has been much commentary about how often, or not, Nigel Farage has been in his Clacton Constituency after he was elected as an MP on July 4th.
He certainly does not hold a regular Constituency Surgery, at least in part it must be suspected because he is concerned about a visit from the friends of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who do not hold Farage in high regard.
However he was in Clacton on Saturday, and he was pictured in a pub that was not a Wetherspoons.
It might be thought that given the proximity of the US Election Farage would be there to support his friend Trump. Why he isnt will no doubt become clearer in the days to come.
