30th September 1989
Caroline and I caught the train to Blackpool and unpacked at the Florida Apartments, a nice place between the Imperial Hotel and the Winter Gardens. I set up the fax machine, the answering machine, the video, the typewriter and so on
Those were the days of multiple weighty tech. I don’t recall ever receiving a fax from Tony Benn but he certainly left messages on my then answering machine…
Beard Liberation Front
21st September
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @kmflett
CAMPAIGNERS SAY IMAGE NOT WORDS WILL BE KEY AT LABOUR CONFERENCE
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with Labour’s conference about to get underway in Liverpool the Party must send a clear message to voters on its approach to appearance and image.
The group which campaigns against beardism, irrational prejudice against the hirsute, says that Labour must promote a wider message on diversity of appearance with many fewer clean shaven men in suits speaking from the platform. Designer suits are a particular issue.
The BLF runs an annual contest for the most hirsute party conference. Labour is a frequent winner but this is not guaranteed. Beards at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton were patchy. There was a smattering of beards at the Reform UK event at Birmingham NEC but it is not a contender for the beard friendly conference accolade on the basis that it is not friendly
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the last week has seen the media obsessed with Labour’s image. If what we see in Liverpool is a succession of clean shaven men in sharp suits on the platform it will be poll inhibiting
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The Beard Liberation Front will announce the winner of the most Hirsute Party Conference 2024 on October 2nd
Beard Liberation Front updates throughout the day @kmflett
Monday 7th October 5.30pm Rosalind Eyben, John Horner & the Communist Party, Uncomfortable Encounter with Truth. Recording https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/11a-rXdLrMk4n3kXvQ2xwWWqyi8fJ4qKxDWxwzUIhEuiTX1jDXU_iMd4yi22mJj6.HEFilCUPxIMi0LnS
Monday 21st October 5.30pm Fabrice Bensimon, The Chartist Meeting at Kennington Common, 10th April 1848. The daguerreotypes, the crowd and the coachman. In person, Room 301, Institute of Historical Research. Not recorded
Monday 4th November 5.30pm Gregor Gall, Mick Lynch. The Making & the Unmaking of a Working Class Hero? Recording https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/WgVBW_npMr75RoyRFPPtY_66mmRfXXomoZzMjVofQch1IhsnQTTeIL_NjXrSUxMA.VKlYXZZyetLYCdAF
‘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’.
Monday 18th November 5.30pm, Bob Henderson, Lenin in London. Recording https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/D33p6N9Esx17Uo3ad6v2mMzrrnIaxOOTmIswMeGxXa7fEmVCKYfjeZodU7vt1NuH.waeuOJnYjQVPelZD
Monday 2nd December 5.30pm, Aidan Beatty. Gerry Healy & the WRP. Violence, Gender & the Perils of Trotskyism. On Zoom. Not recorded
All seminars are free to attend. Registration required, details to follow. Organised by the Socialist HIstory Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research & the London Socialist Historians Group
Seminar listing for the Spring Term 2025 will be available shortly
Kemi Badenoch & the Making of the English Working Class
Kemi Badenoch a contender in the current Tory leadership contest was born in Wimbledon although she spent much of her life to age 16 in Nigeria and the US. She would not take the point but her Nigerian origins- the country gained independence from Britain in 1960-makes her every bit as British as someone who had spent all their early years in Sarf London.
Her parents had a professional background but she claimed that working in McDonalds as a teen made her working class. I think not, anymore than my teenage evenings and weekends spent stacking shelves and working checkouts at Sainsburys made me a proletarian.
Ms Badenoch is Tory MP for Saffron Walden in Essex and so can be perhaps be excused for not having read E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (1963). The definition of class that he offers is a generic one not just English but it is historically and politically rooted.
Thompson argues that class is not a category but ‘something that in fact happens…In human relationships.. we cannot have love without lovers nor deference without squires and labourers’.
Ms Badenoch’s current position as a Tory leadership contender brings her into a relationship with not just a party of wealth and capital but people who represent and personify it. She certainly has a relationship with the working class, as voters and the many where she represents the few. This does not make her working class
Male Labour leaders & clothes. From Keir Hardie to Michael Foot, Jeremy Corbyn & Keir Starmer
After considerable media coverage Keir Starmer has said that he will no longer wear expensive suits funded by a Labour donor. Given part of his election platform was to sort out the Old Corruption of the Tories why he did it in the first place is puzzling.
Leaving the specific issue aside the Tory media will never be happy with Labour leader’s clothes. Keir Hardie was criticised for wearing a deerstalker hat in the Commons (it should have been a top hat). Michael Foot was roundly condemned (see below) for wearing a top of the range duffle coat on a cold November day. Jeremy Corbyn was routinely criticised as scruffy, which was just code for the fact he was a beard wearer.
As for Starmer M&S suits (in so far as they still sell them) should be adequate
Michael Foot was well known as an early CND campaigner and someone on the left of the Labour Party, one incident in his lengthy career underlined how the media sees Labour leaders left and right.
In 1981 Michael Foot was criticised for wearing a ‘donkey jacket’ at the Cenotaph. In fact it was a perfectly decent winter coat.
Michael Foot at the Cenotaph in 1981 wore a rather smart and warm coat. It’s now in the National Museum of Labour History (the People’s History Museum in Manchester)
one of the museum’s most striking exhibits – the coat worn by the Labour Party leader Michael Foot at the National Service of Remembrance, held at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, on Remembrance Sunday, 1981. This coat was depicted in the press as a donkey jacket, which is something a manual worker might wear. As a result, it was widely believed that Foot, whose party then supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, had disrespected those who had sacrificed their lives in defence of the nation. He was, the argument went, consequently unfit to become Prime Minister. Yet, if you see the coat in the museum it is perfectly respectable and indeed Foot was praised by the Queen Mother for his choice. But, as Foot’s private papers held in the museum archive show, he received many letters from those who believed he had worn a donkey jacket.
(Steven Fielding 2018)
20th September
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has ruled out the Reform UK event being held at the Birmingham NEC on 20th September as a contender for the Beard Friendly Conference of the Year accolade.
The campaigners say that a basic issue is that Reform UK is not a party but a business and that the Birmingham gathering is not a conference but an event where speakers address an audience.
BLF observers have studied the livestream of the event, attended by several thousand people, and noted a smattering of beards in the audience. In general it looks like a Tory conference of twenty or thirty years ago, very undiverse, but somewhat better attended than Tory conferences in the present day.
The number of beards present may not be that different to the Liberal Democrats in Brighton last weekend, where facial hair has continued a long decline. However the reality is the Reform UK is just not a friendly occasion and has the capacity to bring the hirsute into disrepute.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, at least at this stage the number of upper lip moustaches on display is quite limited.
The Campaign for Real Conkers
Media Release. Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
22nd September
2024 Conker Season: ideal weather to collect conkers
The Campaign for Real Conkers, that opposes bans on conker playing and unnecessary rules and regulations in games has said that with stormy weather over the next few days there will be ideal, if very wet, conditions to collect conkers
Early indications are that 2024 will see a good crop of conkers
The campaigners they are maintaining their usual ‘anything goes’ approach to conker games, to encourage people to play without arbitrary rules.
Campaign Organiser Keith Flett said, comments from the self-styled World Conker Championships that conkers will somehow go out of date or be unusable after a week are of course entirely wrong. In fact conkers age well particularly if you bake them or soak them in vinegar
Guide on how to play real conkers safely in 2024
1] Select your conker. Do this yourself. DO NOT use a conker provided by someone else who may give you a poor specimen.
2] There is no specific kind of conker that makes a good game winner. Large conkers may more easily splinter for example. Some prefer conkers with flat and sharp edges
3] You may use the conker ‘as is’ known as ‘organic’. Alternatively you may seek to harden it by baking it, soaking it in vinegar etc. There is no guarantee that an artificially enhanced conker will perform any better than an organic one.
4] Drill a small hole through the conker. A nail will often achieve this. Again you must do this yourself
5] Thread the conker through the hole you have drilled. A strong chord, perhaps a shoelace is best
6] You are now ready to play.
7] Make sure that the chord is long enough to allow you to stand at least 1 metre plus away from your opponent. This would generally be the case as space is required for the conker swing.
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8] Players take alternate turns to try and hit and destroy their opponent’s conker
9] Those with poor aim may hit the knuckles of their opponent more often than the conker so you may wish to wear gloves.
10] The winner is the player who determines their opponents conker unusable in further rounds, usually by causing it to splinter into two or more pieces
Play safely and enjoy!
On Friday morning 23rd September 2022 the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered the Budget based on Liz Truss’s economic principles.
A sample of what the media said:
‘The boldness and courage of Kwarteng’s debut budget is seismic’ Alex Brummer, Daily Mail
‘At last! A true Tory Budget’ Allister Heath, Daily Telegraph
‘A budget for the rich’ The Guardian
‘Kami-Kwasi. Less Britannia Unchained more Britannia Unhinged’ Financial Times
60 years ago this week. Labour’s 1964 Election Manifesto on worker’s rights
The 1964 General Election took place on 15th October. Labour won with a majority of 4 seats. Harold Wilson became Prime Minister.
The Election sits 60 years (ish) between the formation of the Labour Party in 1900 and the 2024 Election victory.
The Labour Manifesto was released on 10/11th September 1964. Below is the section on worker’s rights. By the time Labour left Office in 1970 some progress had been made on most of it.
The Manifesto was launched by Harold Wilson with a 15 minute Party Political Broadcast…
The Election result on 15th October 1964 was much tighter than expected with Labour winning 317 seats, the Tories 304 and the Liberals 9. Labour had a majority of 4 seats. No other parties were represented in Parliament.
To this end we shall implement a charter of rights for all employees. This will include:
(a) The right to compensation for loss of job or disturbance.
(b) The right to half-pay maintenance during any period of sickness and unemployment.
(c) The right to first-rate industrial training with day and block release for the young worker.
(d) The right to retraining for adult workers.
(e) The right to full transferability of pension entitlements.
(f) The right to trade union representation and proper safeguards against arbitrary dismissal.
(g) The right to equal pay for equal work.
We shall also strengthen the factory inspectorate in order to reduce accidents.
Farage to turn Reform Ltd into a new UKIP but is worried about ‘malign actors’ and ‘entryists’
Reform is having a conference at the Birmingham NEC on Friday. Apparently 4,000 have registered to attend. There are two Wetherspoons on site and a two hour lunch break. Tickets are £50
Farage has announced that he is giving up the Reform UK Ltd model where he owns 60% of the shares and turning it into a company limited by guarantee. Recent UK examples of this include UKIP. Farage moved on from that mainly it seems because he fell out with the members.
Indeed in a video address on Twitter Farage has expressed concerns about ‘malign actors’ and ‘entryists’. The far right is fractious but this is likely to mean the Stephen Yaxley Lennon fan club.
Farage officially is no fan of the fascist but Yaxley Lennon has called for a big protest in central London on 28th October and it seems clear that many Reform voters prefer the Yaxley Lennon grift to the Farage grift.
Stand Up To Racism has called a counter protest. It needs to be big
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