Cleverly on course to be only the second Tory leader with a beard since 1834
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with James Cleverly now leading the race to become the next Tory leader, he could be set to be only the second politician with a beard to fill the role since the formation of the modern Tory Party in 1834.
The other hirsute Tory leader was Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, who was also the last Prime Minister of any Party with a beard. He stepped down in July 1902.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course there have been times in the last years when we felt James Cleverly came close to bringing the hirsute into disrepute. However it remains the case that there is lack of facial hair at the top of British politics and Cleverly’s progress is welcome in that respect.
The 1959 General Election took place 66 years ago on 8th October 1959. An economic slump in 1958 had made Labour led by right-winger Hugh Gaitskell likely winners. However the economy improved and the Tories led by moustache wearer Harold Macmillan got a 100 seat majority.
The turn-out was 78.7% compared to around 60% in the 2024 General Election. In addition between them the Tories and Labour got 93% of the vote. The only other presence in the Commons were a handful of Liberal MPs.
It was the 1959 Election that saw E P Thompson’s reference to Ephology, the attempt by pollsters, psephologists to mould what people thought.
The polls appearing after the July 2024 Election, with another up to 5 years off, suggest a polling industry with nothing else to do but poll. However both the Election itself and subsequent polls suggest that Labour and the Tories have between them the support of perhaps at best 40% of voters
A range of other options from the hard to far right ReformUK Ltd to the LibDems, Greens, socialist independents, SNP and Plaid all have support. A political landscape transformed, that is a multi-party democracy in a Parliamentary system that has for a hundred years at least been designed to function primarily with two parties.
Carlsberg has announced the closure of another iconic brewery- this time Banks’s in Wolverhampton. Around 100 jobs are at risk. Carlsberg claim that the closure is due to the loss of a contract to brew San Miguel lager and a declining market for cask beer. Operations will now be focused at Burton.
Since the creation of Carlsberg-Marstons in 2020 Jennings, Wychwood and Ringwood breweries have been closed and Eagle (Bedford) sold.
Carlsberg claims it remains committed to cask beer at Burton but in reality as CAMRA have noted it faces cost pressures, not least in the UK, and as the San Miguel contract issue underlines, global challenges.
Carlsberg have said they are open to offers for Banks’s brewery (not the brand clearly) but their record on this is poor. They said the same about Ringwood in Hampshire but reportedly failed to engage with a consortium that were prepared to make an offer.
Warinder Juss the new Labour MP for Wolverhampton has held a meeting with Paul Davies CEO of Carlsberg Marston Brewing who claimed the Banks’s site was too old to meet requirements. 114 jobs are at risk
All of which underlines the need for brewery workers to be unionised and for beer drinkers to organise and campaign
Breal Capital the Private Equity Group that is behind buyouts that have seen it (or an umbrella company) acquire craft brewers Black Sheep, Purity, Brew By Numbers and Brick is one of those involved in a rescue deal for the dining chain TGI Fridays.
As part of the deal a number of locations will close and Unite the Union which represents workers has said that 1,000 workers have been sacked without consultation (as required by redundancy law)locked out and left with no clarity if outstanding wages will be paid.
Not really the kind of business practices which might be expected from the owner of craft breweries….
The discussion on whether it would be better for beer drinkers to consume their beverage in pint or two thirds glasses is rumbling on.
The question was raised by a University of Cambridge research project, although given the very small amount of pubs involved the research hardly sustains the publicity. In fact the same researchers suggested people drink smaller measures of wine earlier in the year. They can also be found writing about it on the Institute of Alcohol Studies site. For those unaware the IAS is the modern incarnation of historic temperance campaigns.
If the message is that people should drink less or not all that is a perfectly reasonable point. Not all will agree but its an important discussion.
Tim Martin of Wetherspoons has of course weighed in describing two-third or schooner measures as silly. He notes they are widely used in Australia without any obvious impact on the amount drunk and that if adopted in the UK would likely drive people out of pubs to drinking in the uncontrolled environment of home drinking. On this Sir Tim is right.
The reality is though that Wetherspoons doesnt usually sell beers that lend themselves to two-thirds or even a one-third measure. That is, for example, double IPAs, imperial stouts and sours. These are for sipping not quaffing in pints. On the other hand if stopping at a bar after a walk a pint of Pilsner is just the thing.
We live in an age of 24 hour rolling news, of breaking news. It is immediate, of the present and it doesnt have much time for the past.
The past can provide context and that can be both complicated and awkward. Rather than just providing an instant judgement on something it might suggest that other factors that happened before must be taken into account.
On the left until 1956, and Khrushchev’s speech on Stalin’s crimes, historians looked at all kinds of important issues, the origins of capitalism, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, what makes a revolution and so on. But many avoided the twentieth century because that meant coming to terms with what was then the Soviet Union and Stalin until 1953 was an expert in rewriting history to fit the current moment.
Eric Hobsbawm at a meeting of the Communist Party Historians Group in the late 1950s argued that it was important to be historians of the present as well as the past.
Michael Rosen has been posting on social media his Tutor dialogues, between the tutor and the King. Below is his latest posted on 6th October. It explains clearly what a history of the present is and why its so important:
Tutor,’ said the King to his tutor, ‘when does history begin?’
‘Good question,’ said the tutor, ‘and the answer is that it begins when we say it begins.’
‘Really?’ said the King, ‘surely there are more objective ways of deciding this.’
‘There may be,’ said the tutor, ‘but we have to think about what we want people to believe.’
‘We do,’ said the King.
‘I mean,’ said the tutor, ‘people are often keen to dig up all sorts of old grievances going way, way back. That doesn’t do anyone any good to go over all that.’
‘Yes,’ said the King, ‘it’s quite unpleasant the way they do that.’
‘So what we do, instead,’ said the tutor, ‘is pick a day and state clearly, “This is when it all began”.’
‘I can see a problem with that,’ said the King, ‘it’ll be only us saying that.’
‘I don’t think you need worry about that, ‘said the tutor, ‘once we’ve named the day, we’ll find that all the scribes will write it in their Annals.’
‘But I’ve heard that there are rebel scribes who dig up stuff that shows that the sort of thing that went on on the day that we’ve chosen as the first day of history, also went on before that day,’ said the King, ‘and what’s more, say these rebel scribes, at those times, it was our side doing it,’ said the King.
‘That’s such a tedious, pernicketty point,’ said the tutor, ‘you can rest assured that everyone will ignore it.’
Amidst the cash for access furore several things stand out. Firstly the amounts involved, although large for those with little money, are quite small compared to the amounts sloshing around in the 14 Tory years of Old Corruption. The point is that Labour presented itself as different to that not just a small mini-me version of it.
Secondly it is focused on Labour MPs, not just because Labour is in Government but because the Tories have 121 MPs, the lowest number since 1832.
That said the Sunday Times (6th October) has revealed some small but interesting donations from ABInBev via Camden (which they own) to Labour MPs.
It gave four Labour MPs £10,000 for a fundraising event before the Election. It also gave Leeds MP Alex Sobel three tickets for the British Beer and Pub Association’s annual dinner valued at £990.
Small beer certainly but it might be reflected that historically brewers could rely on the Beerage- brewers who sat as Tory MPs.
Why Global Big Beer is interested in any way with what happens in the UK market is another matter. Certainly Rachel Reeves admiration for the first Labour Chancellor Philip Snowden in 1924 (who was a temperance campaigner)may see a Budget that is not helpful to a struggling hospitality industry. But Big Beer has many other markets to make profits in aside from the UK..
The former Oakdale Arms pub, Hermitage Rd, South Tottenham.
Arsenal fan Keir Starmer has discovered Sue Gray’s Tottenham background
Sue Gray the former senior civil servant who was at the centre of Keir Starmer’s Downing St operation until 6th October was born and brought up in Tottenham.
This of course has nothing to do with her job and neither does the history of her family, although one does wonder if fervent Arsenal season ticket holder Keir Starmer had decided that Arsenal and Spurs could not easily co-exist at 10 Downing St.
Sue Gray’s North London background is not without some interest however. She lived initially in West Green Rd N15 and then in Philip Lane N15, quite close to where Foreign Secretary David Lammy was brought up. Subsequently it seems the family moved to Hermitage Rd N4 (a long road that runs between St Ann’s Hospital and Green Lanes in South Tottenham) and her mother worked at the Oakdale Arms pub.
The Oakdale I’m afraid is no more though I (as the then Secretary of Haringey TUC) and many others were involved in a long running campaign to save it. Of course Ms Gray’s mother was no longer working there- this was in the years before 2010,she died in 2003. In fact the pub had passed into the hands of Milton a Cambridge micro-brewery and was known for good cask beer and food. It was run by Tom Behan- who went on to run the Bumble Inn in central Peterborough-the 2020 Beard Friendly Pub of the Year. The Oakdale was overseen by Steve Early who also ran the Pembury Tavern in Hackney-now Five Points brewery tap.
The pub was owned by North London property developers C and S Shah whose aim was to build flats on it. The pub was a profitable going concern but flats were more profitable. They got planning permission after an appeal to a planning inspector claimed that there was an alternative pub nearby, the Woodberry on Seven Sisters Rd. It has not been a pub for a good while and last time I checked flats had not been built on the Oakdale site. An all too familiar story of C21st Britain.
All that being said Ms Gray due to family circumstances did not do a degree but entered the civil service direct from school and based on her ability rose to a senior level. I’m not sufficiently familiar with the 2024 Civil Service to know if it’s still possible to do that-but in the private sector where I work, there are management apprentice schemes designed to facilitate that. It’s world of which old Etonians like Boris Johnson have no conception.
Alice has been reading her impact statement prior to George Grundy’s sentencing hearing on 10th October. Full marks for Alice for doing it and for George for hearing it. Also well done to Keri Davies for writing it.
A socialist salute to Jill Archer
It’s been Jill’s birthday this week. There was of course cake. The actress Patricia Greene has been doubling up as Jill since 1957 and she is now in her 90s. Famously she was arrested for throwing a flapjack reflecting the best side of the Archers Dynasty
Hornets
After an Asian Hornet stung Zainab David discovered a nest on Brookfield’s land. Bee control was called and with the use of drones the hornet nest was destroyed. There was minimal damage to Jill’s bee hives
Cats
Not only does the Bull have a new cat now Pip has one too. Its clearly following the lead of well-known cat lover Keir Starmer. Perhaps it will be possible to arrange for sponsorship for the new Ambridge cat’s food.. The name of the Bull cat is open for suggestion. Given that Kenton Archer is a relative of Clement Attlee surely it must be Keir.
Liz Truss transported to Australia: claims a ‘red mist of socialism has descended on the Western world
Fresh from her triumph at a Tory Party conference fringe in Birmingham on Monday Liz Truss has been transported to Australia. She was a keynote speaker at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane on Saturday.
She claimed that a ‘red mist of socialism has descended on the Western world’
She then produced her latest list of things she does not like:
Modern monetary theory
Printing too much money
Net Zero
Wokeism
Diversity, equality and inclusion
Left-wing bureaucracies
State media outlets
Where her never ending tour to save the world goes next is unknown
