Kmflett's Blog

For the third time since he was elected MP for Clacton Farage has been in the US.

He was a keynote speaker at dinner for climate change deniers the Heartland Institute in Chicago on Friday 13th September.

Also speaking at the event was far right pro-Putin Austrian politician Harald Vilimsky

Nine people got the dubious privilege of paying $50,000 each to sit at a table with Farage for dinner while he no doubt droned on and drank all the wine.

What Farage gets up to would not be of note were it not for the fact that he is a key figure in a growing global hard to far right movement. He may seem like a gobshite but he is a political danger.

He concluded his speech at the dinner by exclaiming ‘Let’s Get Trump Back, Drill, Baby, Drill’ referring to drilling for fossil fuels.

Guardian report

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/14/nigel-farage-defends-us-trip-alongside-austrian-mep-sympathetic-to-russia

Heartland Institute website

Keynote Address by Nigel Farage

We are honored to feature Nigel Farage, a leading voice in the fight for freedom and the architect of the new conservative movement in the UK and across Europe. Farage’s pivotal role in the Brexit movement and his unwavering advocacy for liberty have inspired a resurgence of conservative values throughout Europe. His keynote address will offer invaluable insights into these transformative shifts and their implications for the future of global politics. As these changes unfold across the Atlantic, they signal a new era of conservative resurgence that we can expect to influence the landscape in the United States as well.

It was 11 years last Saturday (13th September 2014) since the launch of that year’s Rainbow Project (the first was in 2013) at Beavertown in Tottenham Hale. One of the beers was the Buxton/Ominipollo Yellow Belly. A ground breaking imperial stout and topically an anti-fascist beer.

I was there that day (the old Beavertown Tap being 10 minutes from my Tottenham residence). There was a link on the Beavertown website with more details of what transpired. In the Heineken era the link has of course gone. All the more important to keep the memory.

Such events are now part of craft beer history-hopefully someone is taking notes…

Beard Liberation Front

13th September

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said there are significant concerns that Republican Vice Presidential candidate J D Vance may have beard mange

Vance has not always worn a beard but appears to have grown one in the early 2020s. When he was named as Trump’s running mate he had a full beard. It was an usual choice for Trump known as a long time beard hater.

However in recent appearances Vance’s beard appears much thinner with some gaps appearing.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course Vance’s apparent mange may just be due to being in proximity to Trump but his beard clearly needs a significant re-conditioning

23 years ago this month Iain Duncan Smith was elected Tory leader replacing William Hague. Just over two years later on 29th October 2003 he was gone.

He was replaced by Michael Howard. As Tony Benn noted in his Diary at the time while Howard would be a more capable leader than IDS no one, including the Tories, thought he would be the next PM. He was there while they worked out who might be.

Howard lost the 2005 Election and made way for Dave Cameron who just about won in 2010 with the help of the Liberal Democrats.

The Tories have had eight leaders in the last 25 years and IDS is a warning to the current Tory leadership contenders. Whoever wins is unlikely to win the next Election and they may even be replaced well before that.

A significant problem for the Tories is who might be the leader after next. With 121 MPs, a significant number of the better known are Truss tainted and less than 20 were around before 2010 and have experience of Opposition.

Labour’s poll popularity is declining according to IPSOS. They havent checked people’s General Election preference because despite what you can read in Twitter comments from Angry of Neasden with 18 followers the next Election is a while off.

Rather they look at the popularity of leaders. Starmer’s popularity has fallen significantly. While I’m not sure that he ever wanted to be popular in the first place he is however still quite a bit more popular than any of the four Tory leadership contenders. That is in so far as any of those asked can recall who they are. Clue: one has a beard, three don’t have a beard.

Even so give the size of Labour’s majority in July there is a significant drop. Its starting to be reflected in local election results, where the Labour vote is dropping. However the Tories are not improving in most cases and despite Farage’s bluster Reform has come nowhere near winning a local Council seat.

On a broader canvass a comparison with the polls after the last big Labour win in May 1997 is interesting.

In August 1997 Labour had 54% of the poll and the Tories 28%. In September 1997 Labour had 59% and the Tories 25%. That polling gap didn’t change much to the 2001 Election which produced a similar result to that of 1997.

The picture for Labour this time looks different and I suspect that this is not news to Downing St. Labour won a 158 seat majority on 4th July with less than 10 million votes. As an election winning strategy it worked well. As a strategy to keep and hold that support its less satisfactory.

Starmer of course has argued that the economic and political mess left by the Tories after 2010 requires difficult measures to be taken. Who the measures should impact is a matter of legitimate debate even if Rachel Reeves doesnt think so.

Labour Conference in Liverpool, both inside and outside the debating halls will be an interesting barometer of all this, probably more so than opinion polls and local election results

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/voting-intention-great-britain-1976-present

Keir Starmer is off to the US to discuss warmongering (this may not end well), no doubt with Blinken, the man who is perpetually brokering a Gaza ceasefire but never, surprisingly… does.

On the plane the BBC picture him discussing strategy with S*n oaf Harry Cole while Robert Peston looks on.

As it used to go, things can only get better

Marx spent much of the summer of 1879 in Jersey and then Ramsgate. Both he and his wife Jenny were unwell and looked to sea air and bathing to help.

Much of the correspondence between Marx and Engels relates to political campaigns and developments they were involved in. However there are also frequent mentions of periods away at seaside resorts.

In Ramsgate Marx spent time to avoid other foreign exiles but reported that he had met one, Meyer, on the sands who fortunately had taken lodgings in Margate. The weather was at best indifferent it seems

MARX TO ENGELS
IN LONDON
[Ramsgate,] 11 September 1879
62 Plains of Waterloo

DEAR FRED,
Letter and enclosure received with many thanks.
The Longuet family will be ‘making’ for London, as Lessner
puts it, on Saturday (next). So far all has gone well with
Jennychen, although she still has a bit of asthma….

…The weather here is partly good and partly bad, the latter
having a tendency to predominate.

Guardian Fletter 12th September

One thing distinguishes the four remaining candidates in the Tory leadership contest. Two years ago this week, all of them were ministers in Liz Truss’s 49-day government (Mel Stride knocked out of Tory leadership contest, 10 September). On that basis, the idea of Tory renewal seems remote, which also underlines to the left the importance of a Labour government providing a genuine alternative.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London

As the Tory Conference starts in Birmingham on 29th September none of the four leadership has yet to apologise for what they were doing in Truss’s Cabinet

I rarely drink wine these days (medical reasons) sticking mainly to beer so the trend towards orange wine has passed me by. Its made by using white grapes with the skin left on and apparently tastes like a light red. It might also be seen as the world of wines answer to murky craft IPA beers.

The Times in the Murdoch era is comprised largely of articles that have appeared in the Sun rewritten at greater length and columnists who for some reason didnt get a job at the Telegraph. However some traditional Times obsessions remain, for example with French food and wine.

Hence it is reported (11th September) that as Bordeaux red wines continue to struggle with sales there is a move to Orange wine production. Apparently Orange wines go well with cheese and prawns.

However they are not new but a reinvented tradition. Their production can be traced back to Georgia 3,000 years ago

From Downing St to Cat Ladies: Politics and Cats

Zoe Williams has written on the US Election and cats

Feline frenzy: could cats swing the US election? | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

In a Presidential debate with Kamala Harris Trump repeated a racist trope about migrants and cats which JD Vance later also supported. Meanwhile Taylor Swift backed Harris while referencing Vance’s earlier slur about cat ladies.

Data (no doubt unreliable) suggests that broadly equal numbers of Democrat and Republican voters have cats so Trump and Vance are doing a double whammy on their election chances.

Trump might consider adopting Engels cat Tidlums who he described to Kautsky in 1891 as the terror of Regents Park Rd.

Some names of Politician’s cats

Engels- Tidlums

Lenin- cat no known name

Churchill- Nelson

Wilson- Nemo (Siamese)

Corbyn- Harold Wilson; El Gato

Blair- Humphrey (until Nov 25 1997)

Thatcher- Marvin (2007)

Rosa Luxemburg- Mimi

Downing St cat in residence, Larry