Kmflett's Blog

The Ambridge Socialist

November 3^rd

Give no quarter to the Kulaks

The Budget has provoked much muttering from the Kulak class, and particularly Kulak spokesman and hobby farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson acquired his Oxfordshire farm because it was tax efficient. That is he could pass it on tax free on his departure. The Budget introduced limits to this meaning some tax might have to be paid.

Of course everyone else who has anything worth inheriting has to pay tax on it above a certain amount. Why farmers should be exempt given there are no doubt ways of getting round it with the help of a financial advisor is unclear except no doubt to readers of the Telegraph and Mail.

The Ambridge Socialist says no quarter should be given to the Kulaks of Ambridge and is monitoring closely conversations in the Bull on the matter.

*The above story should not be taken to mean that the Ambridge Socialist supports Stalin’s policy on the Kulaks and the Gulag

Charging Station Update

Justin Elliott has landed Fallon with a smaller unit than planned but at the same rent. Meanwhile Fallon thinks there is a big demand for oat milk in coffee. We shall see when the charging station gets around to opening which will apparently be some time in 2025.

Rewilding, a new moral economy?

The lease for the Rewilding area which is held with Borchester Land is up for renewal. That of course means a negotiation with Justin Elliott. He has told Lilian that he doesn’t want a memorial weed patch but its unclear exactly what he could do with the land. It was of course one of Peggy’s pet projects. In a rather odd conversation with Justin, echoing the Christmas Carol, BL supremo Martyn Gibson has told Justin that there is more to life than money and he should stop harassing Kirsty and Rex.

Darling and Mate

Is this really how they speak in Ambridge or is it just the scriptwriters?

Cat news

The Ambridge Socialist backs Hilda’s continued pursuit of the cat struggle

George

George is being bullied in prison. Whether this will be character building or character destroying we shall see but it underlines that prison is often not the best way forward, despite what the Reform UK Ltd social media posse think

The Hundred a format of cricket invented by consultants employed by the England and Wales Cricket Board was designed to be sold to global business and the sale is currently in progress.

I’m equivocal about the Hundred. The T2O format I can live with and occasionally enjoy. The Hundred is simply a tweak on it with a large amount of tedious hype. Clearly others think so as the viewing figures for Sky and BBC for 2024 show a significant decline.

The real interest here though is not the cricket- the women’s Hundred, decent, the men’s Hundred mediocre, but the interaction between an English tradition and global capital.

Lords cricket ground and the MCC that runs it epitomises tradition as much as the Tory Party and the Church of England, although of course that in 2024 is something of a caricature.

The Hundred team that plays at Lords is currently called the London Spirit. MCC members have just voted to accept the gift of a 51% stake in the team from the ECB. The remaining 49% is up for sale and the first round of bidding has just concluded.

Reports suggests bidders included:

Chelsea FC owner Ted Boehly

Sanjiv Goenka, owner of the IPL team Lucknow Super Giants

Ambani Family, owners of the IPL team Chennai Super Kings

Members of the Glazer family who still own a majority of Manchester United FC

Its likely that most if not all of the above have also bid for other Hundred teams.

its also likely that they will not be content with owning 49% but will want control of the team and the venue for their investment. We may be looking at the renaming of Lords…

During the several months of the Tory leadership campaign Robert Jenrick’s increasingly strident hard to far right views deserved to be matched by a uniform but they never were.

However as the results of the leadership contest were announced on 2nd November Jenrick at last turned up in his uniform. It consisted of a tight fitting jacket done up with one button and a blue tie worn past the waste.

As a uniform it needs work but at least it was a long awaited start

The final two contenders in the latest Tory leadership contest Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick were both are on the right of the Party and in the wider world have hard right to far right politics.

The most striking thing about the winner Badenoch is NOT that she is a new contender offering a way forward after the Tories worst Election defeat since 1832. It’s true she doesnt have any experience of being in Opposition, let alone of leading anything, being elected in 2017.

However….

Badenoch was for a period sponsored by Michael Gove and hence heavily promoted by the Murdoch media with whom Gove had a special relationship (it seemed). She served as a Minister under Truss during her 49 day regime, in this case for International Trade. She also had previously held various Ministerial positions under the Johnson Government from 2019 including Minister for Equalities.

In short Badenoch has a lot of legacy baggage to account for

Newport Rising November 1839: the campaign to free three leaders transported to Tasmania

185 year ago on 4^th November a large body of Chartists attempted an armed rising in Newport, South Wales. It failed, albeit only just.

Three leaders Frost, Williams and Jones were originally sentenced to death but campaigning pressure saw the sentences commuted to transportation to Van Diemens Land (Tasmania).

The sentences were eventually pardoned in 1856 although only Frost returned to Britain (to Bristol)

In January 1841 there was a discussion in the Lords as to whether the three Chartists were receiving preferential treatment on the orders of the then Whig (Liberal) Government. This was denied by the Marquess of Normanby:

had no objection whatever to do so. It was generally supposed that the same indulgence had been given to these parties as to other political offenders; but political offenders were of various degrees. It was to be 

supposed that political offenders of every grade were to be treated with less rigour than other offenders; political offences were of various degrees, and he wished it to be understood that he did not consider the offences of these men came under the description of that class which ought to be treated with leniency.

However during the discussion it was revealed that a Chartist meeting had been held in Bristol in January 1841 with the express purpose of commuting the sentences of the three leaders of the Newport Rising. Its an important reminder of solidarity campaigning in the Chartist period

Frost, Williams, And Jones – Hansard – UK Parliament

The Tory Party: the great dwindling membership show

Kemi Badenoch has won the vote of Tory members to be the latest leader of the Tory Party. There have now been six in the last 15 years.

She did not get anywhere near 50% of the vote of the total membership meaning that if the ballot had been held under existing trade union legislation it would have been declared invalid.

More significantly there were just 131,680 members eligible to vote compared with 328,000 in 2001.

While the Tories are the historic party of British capital (a title to which the LibDems can also lay some claim) they are clearly in serious and significant decline

2024 contest

There were 131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.

Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes

Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes

There were 655 rejected ballots.

2022 contest

Members’ ballot

Truss – 57.4% (81,326 votes)

Sunak – 42.6% (60,399 votes)

Turnout – 82.6% (142,379 out of 172,437 eligible voters)

2019 contest

Members’ ballot

Johnson – 66.4% (92,153 votes)

Hunt – 33.6% (46,656 votes)

Turnout – 87.4% (138,809 out of 159,320 eligible voters)

2005 contest

Members’ ballot

Cameron – 67.6% (134,446 votes)

Davis – 32.3% (64,398 votes)

Turnout – 78.4% (198,844 out of 253,689 eligible voters)

2001 contest

Members’ ballot

Duncan Smith – 60.7% (155,933 votes)

Clarke – 39.3% (100,864 votes)

Turnout – 78.3% (256,797 out of 328,000 eligible voters)

The figures are from this House of Commons briefing paper on Conservative leadership contests.

Its sad to see that Scots comedian Janey Godley has died after a long illness at 63.

She became known for her parodies of Nicola Sturgeon during the pandemic period. The context of those weird times needs to be taken into account of course.

Most particularly given the moment she must be remembered for holding up a protest placard during Trump’s 2018 visit to Scotland which stated robustly that ‘Trump is a c**t.

*Walter Benjamin saw revolution as applying the emergency brake to a world out of control. That is exactly what Janey Godley did in 2018

Beard Liberation Front

2nd November

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that there are major concerns about the future Tory position on beards after James Cleverly who narrowly failed to make the final stage of the contest, said he would not serve in a new Shadow Cabinet but sit on the back benches.

Cleverly looked set to be the first Tory leader with a beard since 1902 and his failure to make the deciding leadership vote raised concerns about pogonophobia in the depleted ranks of Tory MPs.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, while the leadership race may have been a close shave there are significant concerns about a lack of hirsute diversity at the top of the Tory Party

A warning from history: the return of Patrick Minford

Scrolling through Twitter I came across a GB News clip of Farage talking to Patrick Minford. Minford thinks Rachel Reeves Budget was a disaster. He argued there should be tax cuts starting with the 45p top rate of tax. He did not get around to the other bit of the well worn Minford doctrine about interest rate rises for some reason.

Patrick Minford, currently at Cardiff, previously Liverpool, has been around a long time. At over 80 he was Thatcher’s favourite economist. In 2022 Liz Truss was a fan of Thatcher and Minford.

Minford aside from influencing Thatcher, was also a key ideological mover in Brexit and Truss’s autumn 2022 Budget. Farage who supported all three is also a Minford fan

Minford is essentially a free market fundamentalist believing that tax cuts are a way to promote a sound economy and accepting that interest rate rises go along with this. He has no time for State intervention believing people to be rational economic actors who can make their own choices with their own money.

There is of course a wider political agenda here, essentially one of letting the free market rip. Meanwhile Joseph Choonara is good on what was specific about Trusseconomics and the Guardian’s Larry Elliott provided a good uptodate profile of Minford in 2022

Joseph Choonara’s analysis of Trusseconomics in International Socialism. Beyond Neo-Liberalism

http://isj.org.uk/trussonomics/

The Guardian 6^th September 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/06/from-thatcher-to-truss-the-economist-behind-new-pm-fiscal-plans-patrick-minford

Liz Truss is on ‘Planet Normal’ talking about the Budget &  Big Government

Liz Truss (see her Twitter account) has been on Planet Normal, which exists in a galaxy far, far away & is Telegraph podcast. She does not like Rachel Reeves Budget for the usual reasons.

She argues that the economic establishment believes in Keynesianism which is odd because it certainly didnt between 2010 and 2024 when she was a Tory MP, Minister and briefly PM. Rachel Reeves who has Treasury Brain as much as Labour’s first Chancellor Philip Snowden in 1924 may well support a form of economic orthodoxy. Its hardly Keynesian though

Liz Truss

Treasury orthodoxy backs big Government, high tax & spend and Net Zero. On #planet normal I talk about how to take on this failing approach.

‘The basic issue is we have an economic establishment in this country that believes in Keynesianism ….’

In order to turn this country’s economy around, it won’t be enough just to get rid of the ghastly Reeves. The whole failed edifice needs to be brought down.