The Budget needs to help Indy Beer as Global Big Beer continues to thrive.
The global brewer Heineken reported its latest set of results last week. The jargon used speaks to market traders who determine share prices but even so there is enough to grasp that things are going ok.
Revenue grew globally by 8.7% with sales of cider and non-alcoholic drinks up 11% driving that.
There was strong demand for Heineken 0.0% in the US, Brazil and Vietnam.
The target of growing operating profits of between 4% and 8% is being maintained.
Heineken, second only to ABInBev in global beer has 300 brands including Amstel, Strongbow, Birra Moretti.
Heineken has 2,400 pubs in the UK under the Stars and Bars brand.
Analysts are looking for sustained results of a similar kind of the future.
There is no mention of the UK market, and nothing on the craft beer brands Heineken owns such as Beavertown. The profit bottom line is elsewhere.
Meanwhile reports suggest that the Government may legislate to allow more indy beers on the bar in UK pubs where pubs co prefer the convenience of dealing with global big beer even if customers want local choice.
At the moment the market is working in favour of the few not the many
Its Autumn in Ambridge: Apple Day & Ploughing competitions
The Budget on 30th October may impact working people in Ambridge- Justin and Brian will be ok- but BBC reports from the village have focused on seasonal issues.
Apple Day, a tradition which was made up in 2000, saw Chris, Emma, Alice enter a further period of truth and reconciliation. Meanwhile in a ploughing match organised by Brian, Ruth won the Cup with Neil second. That underlines the order of things in Ambridge. The Archers win and the workers come second. Don’t tell Keir Starmer though.
Brad has visited George in prison
Things aren’t going well for George as he snitched to a prison officer. On the plus side the officers are unionised. That probably won’t help George though. Emma is anxious. Hard times
Opposing Tommy Robinson
Ambridge Socialist supporters were out in central London on 26th October with tens of thousands of others to oppose the latest mobilisation of supporters of Tommy Robinson. Yaxley Lennon looks set for a jail sentence although there is some good news for him in that respect- he is too old to end up on the same prison wing as George Grundy
In other news
David has a had a flu jab from Ben who has started a secondment at Azra’s Surgery
Fallon is waiting for things to happen with the EV charging station
Fascism is a warning from history. Organising & marching to oppose it is the history lesson for today
The London Socialist Historians Group was amongst a range of organisations from trade unions to anti-war & climate change campaigns that backed the counter demonstration against Stephen Yaxley Lennon’s latest attempt to mobilise a far right to fascist street army in central London on Saturday 26th October.
The counter protest was backed by the TUC, Stand Up To Racism, many unions and campaigns
While numbers on such occasions are notoriously difficult to judge a benchmark is that the fascists could must no more than they did at an earlier demonstration in July while the size of the anti-racist, anti-fascist protest grew considerably in size.
As on earlier successful efforts to push back fascist organisation the anti-racist message needs to be further promoted and organised in workplaces and communities
The historians say that from Cable St in 1936 to Wood Green and Lewisham in 1977 and Walthamstow in the 2010s the importance of mass protest to halt fascist attempts to mobilise cannot be denied.
Historically it is a work in perpetual progress, never actually complete, but to be renewed in each generation. Saturday’s mobilisation of anti-racists and anti-fascists underlined that after the opposition to the August riots, the movement is on an upward trend. With the far right growing around the world, it needs to be
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, fascists offer easy solutions to the problems thrown up by market capitalism. Those easy solutions, history underlines, lead to death, war and destruction
Jonathan Agnew steps down as BBC cricket correspondent. A fascination with people keeps him going
With the completion of England’s Test series in Pakistan Jonathan Agnew has stepped down as the BBC’s cricket correspondent. He will continue to be on Test Match Special when it covers Test matches. Whether he will cover any limited over games in future is not clear
Ive been a listener to TMS since the 1960s (introduced by my late father, (A Scottish Communist cricket fan) and while Agnew was not around then he has certainly become the voice of cricket.
Perhaps in his criticism of franchise cricket there is a small echo of the ‘in my day’ which has been a feature of some cricket commentary, but in general he has recognised and moved with the times. I think that’s down to Agnew’s fascination with people and why they do what they do, something he surely shared with the late Brian Johnston.
On a personal note he has been a promoter of beards and cricket and the Beard Liberation Front which I organise. Its time to remind Aggers than when people step down from a role, if they are male, it is customary to grow a beard.
TMS means the world to me. I feel like the bridge between a bygone age of Brian Johnston and Fred Trueman, to a new era involving the likes of Steven Finn and Alex Hartley.
Looking back, it was just a bunch of middle-aged white blokes, or even a bunch of late-aged white blokes. Now the modern TMS team is nothing like that. I’m very proud of what we have achieved.
Beavertown. In search of good beer. What was achieved?
Beavertown was the 2011 north London creation of Logan Plant, son of Robert, the Led Zeppelin star. Two years ago, Heineken took full control of the company. It now profits from its Tottenham associations, selling One of Our Own Beavertown IPA at Spurs’ stadium.
The above is an extract from a Guardian Editorial based on a recent poll that shows many people who drink ‘craft’ beer don’t realise that the big names of craft such as Camden and Beavertown are owned by global Big Beer. ABI and Heineken respectively are in the frame. The beers are now brewed in state of the art industrial breweries in Ponders End.
The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) have launched a campaign which focuses on independent rather than craft beer. Its certainly something I support and I don’t drink either Beavertown or Camden.
And yet not all independent brewers produce good beer and not all are good employers. I don’t know whether Camden and Beavertown now recognise union (Unite) but Big Beer in general does work with unions.
I drank Beavertown from the start when it was brewed in the kitchen of Dukes Brew and Que in Haggerston. The brewing then moved elsewhere in Hackney and then in 2014 to Tottenham, a few minutes walk from my house. Most Saturdays I could be found at the tap room. The beer was invariably good and you could chat with the brewers and those running things. It was about as far from Big Beer as you could get.
I certainly knew Logan Plant- a Wolves fan- whose favourite beer was Bathams. The original recipe for (cask) Neck Oil was based on that. Of course it no longer is. Last time I had a chat with Logan in 2022 he was talking about another Black Country brewery Holdens.
The aim of Beavertown was always clear (at least as stated to me). It was not to sell out to Heineken as happened in 2022. Rather it was to improve the quality of beer available in pubs and off licences.
Has that been achieved? Possibly with Neck Oil and Gamma Ray. The problem is that in the hands of Heineken while quality of some sort is guaranteed whether it will be the quality of beer that was produced before 2022 is open to doubt.
The ultimate problem was that in trying to promote better beer the business grew and that meant looking for investment which came from Heineken. A tale then not of beer but of market capital…
England lost the Third Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi on 26th October and with it the series 2-1
Full marks to Pakistan for coming back from a defeat in the first game
Its also time for further reflection on Bazball, the form of cricket pioneered by England coach Brendan McCullum which aims to bring Test cricket into the 2020s.
Its an aggressive attacking form of cricket but the defence is sometimes lacking in my view. Still as a lifelong Spurs fan I’m very used to that.
Above (Times 25th August) is a sort of Whackit Index of English cricket. Jamie Smith’s excellent first innings 89 has made it on to the list, without which England would certainly have lost by an innings.
‘Mick Lynch broke through into the public consciousness in the summer of 2022 as a ‘working-class hero’ in the fight against the cost-of-living crisis. He was able to generalise out of his members’ sectional disputes in a way that other union leaders were not. He was in the right place at the right time saying the right things but was he doing the right things? This talk, based upon my book (https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526173096/), will be a celebration and critique of Lynch as a union general secretary and social democrat, where his lack of strategic planning and support for the current Labour Party emerge as his two-sided Achille’s heel’.
The seminar was part of the autumn theme of working class leadership and the left. Some more points on this will be posted shortly.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has thanked the BLF Expeditionary force of Hazel (@hackneyhaz) & Ian (@marriotti67) for getting the BLF banner in a potentially match winning position on the third and, as it transpired the, final day of the Pakistan v England Test at Rawalpindi on Saturday 26th October.
England have made progress in developing the Beard Power side of their game but as the result shows matters can still get too hairy for them
BLF Organiser Keith Flett, it’s great to see the BLF banner back on tour thanks to Hazel and Ian. Thanks to the pandemic its been a while. Our records suggest that last time it was seen on tour was in South Africa in early 2020
BUDGET: CAMPAIGNERS CALL FOR A LUXURY TAX ON SHAVING
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to take the chance to be innovative in the Budget and announce a luxury tax on shaving.
The campaigners say that while there has been a significant growth in beards, in reality they still represent a minority in the country compared to the clean shaven.
The BLF insists that shaving is environmentally unfriendly and a Shaving Tax would do a good deal to address carbon reduction targets by reducing use of electric shavers and power used to make shaving products.
Those currently employed in the shaving industry can easily be re-deployed into the beard care area of the economy, a growing sector.
A Shaving Tax could be levied at £100 a year for all those who did not have a beard at the beginning of the financial year- April 1st– without good reason. It would hit popular targets such as clean-shaven bankers in the City who would have to grow a beard or pay up.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Rachel Reeves can boost her popularity and the Exchequer’s finances considerably by implementing an innovative Shaving Tax.
YouGov have produced a poll on what those asked think Woke means.
No response scored highly, with being socially aware at the top with 15%
Interestingly 6% thought it meant being awake, which in a sense it does, but politically so.
Its not great news for Liz Truss and her groupuscule of co-thinkers though who perpetually term anything they don’t like as ‘Woke’. Truss has a lot of work to do before her definition of Woke as a term of abuse gets currency
