Since the pandemic (and in fact before but it has accelerated) the debate about whether it is more effective to work from home or in the office, or a mixture of both (hybrid) has been much in evidence. Employers sometimes try and mandate office working on the basis that collaborative effort works best in person. It may do of course, depending on the job. On the other hand the employer may have an expensive office building they would like to be used. Trade Unions focus on what works for workers and bosses rather than diktat, flexibility in short.
Nigel Farage interviewed by ITV East Anglia has a third solution. He does not work from his home in Clacton because he doesnt, yet, have one. Nor he claims does he have an office or staff. Rather he works from the bar. GB News viewers will approve
Mr Farage admitted that since becoming an MP he had found it difficult to help constituents because he did not have staff or an office and had been working “from the bar”.
Tony Bunyan 1941-2024. E P Thompson & The Secret State
It is sad to note the passing of Tony Bunyan the author of the Political Police in Britain (1976) who has long been a key figure in State Research and then State Watch.
The extract below from EP Thompson’s essay The Secret State (1978) was the first product of what became of necessity a lengthy and on-going project. The intersection between a concern about the erosion of civil liberties in the present day with the fight to gain the liberties in the first place is a reminder of the need for constant vigilance and campaigning
Thompson notes that the nineteenth century British working-class disliked the intrusion of authority from above and the role of a centralised police force. The twentieth century saw Labour embrace a Statist politics but the libertarian origins of the labour movement live on:
The insurgent British working-class movement took over for its own the old Whiggish bloody-mindedness of the citizen in the face of the pretentions of power. Even when labouring under the manifest class discrimination of the Combination Acts, the secretary of an illegal trade union branch of framework knitters in Mansfield in 1812 was able to protest against a clause in a Bill proposed by the workers’ representatives themselves, which authorized the search for shoddy goods in the houses of manufacturers : ‘if iver that bullwark is broke down of every english mans hous being his Castil then that strong barrer is for iver broke that so many of our ancesters have bled for and in vain.’ The workers had appropriated the democratic precedents and practices of past generations for their own; the ancestors were not ’theirs’ but ’ours’.
And this was how matters continued for at least one hundred years. The Chartist, Radical Liberal, Irish Nationalist and formative Labour movements were distinguished by their sensitivity to libertarian issues, and their suspicion of the polity of statism. When the police forces were enlarged and rationalized (or, as some would have it today, ’modernized’) in the mid-nineteenth century, this was a victory for bourgeois utilitarian bureaucratic policy in the face of intense resistance extending from old Tory localism through Radical Liberalism to outright Chartist opposition— for Chartists and trade unionists very well understood what kind of imperatives dictated government policies. As a consequence of this opposition, the presence of the police in British public life remained unusually subdued. They must be seen as ‘servants’ of… either the gentry or ’the public’, and they must in no circumstances exhibit a brash public presence. And, as a more concrete evidence of the old libertarian tradition, which endures to this day, the British police (at least in Britain) must go about the streets unarmed.
I am not a bus anorak. I have never felt the need to jot down numbers of buses in notebooks or anything like that.
Even so as a Londoner I use buses every day when I am in the Capital [which is on occasion in 2024] so I have some interest as a user.
According to Wikipedia, which may or may not be accurate, the first Routemaster was built in September 1954 and the last in 1968. The link to facts or otherwise of all things Routemaster is here:
There were two heritage Routemaster routes operating in central London until quite recently
I am certainly a fan of the Routemaster and in particular of the 73 route which ran originally from way out West [Hammersmith and beyond] via Victoria to Tottenham Garage. These days it goes no further than the Jolly Butchers and the Axe in Stoke Newington which is not perhaps exactly the end of the world.
Of course while the Routemaster was reliable and relatively speedy as it was conductor crewed, the modern world has overtaken it somewhat.
It is not low floor and so not accessible. That is absolutely not sustainable in 2024. I was not a fan of the original solution to this issue- the bendy bus- now long gone. A new generation of electric buses is doing a bit better.
Even so the Routemaster was and is a design classic, a London icon.
The Routemaster’s longevity and sustainability, despite the downsides noted above, is a tribute to when London Transport was a genuine public service run for passengers by decently paid crews who took pride in being public servants. The struggle goes on.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has named ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan as Beard of the TUC 2024. Runner Up was Martin Furlong from the College of Podiatry.
The campaigners say that the award focuses on a mixture of hirsute appropriateness, usually smart rather than organic, and follicle impact at the rostrum.
The BLF has welcomed the increasing diversity of delegates to the TUC of which beards are a part. Congress now looks a lot more like the workers it is representing.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we congratulate Mick Whelan and Martin Furlong. The Top Table remains notably follicle light however although we accept that Paul Nowak has a reasonable excuse for not wearing a beard
Keir Starmer addressed the TUC in Brighton on 10th September as Labour Prime Minister. Historically it is a relatively rare event. I wasn’t at the Brighton Centre but watched via the TUC’s YouTube feed. Starmer was not and is not a great speaker although he is improving a bit. If you speak a lot this does tend to happen. His speech did actually address what was going to be done to reverse the Tories hostile environment for trade unions. It was probably the first to touch directly on Labour-Union relations since Harold Wilson’s Social Contract (or Contrick as some had it) of 1974/5. I was 18 then and not anywhere near attending a Congress in the trade unionists and their wives era.
The rest of Starmer’s speech avoided focusing on Labour’s renewed austerity agenda. The fact that the speech was made at all relates back to an institutional agreement in 1900 when the Labour Representation Committee was set up. The trade union leaders of the day looked to get representation in Parliament with the aim of passing some measures which benefited workers and in particular protected unions. The relationship was and is between union leaders and officials and Labour, not rank and file trade unionists. It might benefit the latter but only with independent organisation at the grassroots to secure improvements from employers in practice.
I did hear Tony Blair and Gordon Brown speak at the TUC in person. Blair could get and keep the attention of an audience in such a way that what he was actually saying didn’t register that much. That was probably just as well for him. Brown who invariably started a speech with a football joke (as Starmer did today- see Everton)spoke quickly going through streams of economic statistics. The attention usually wandered.
One might summarise that Starmer has room for improvement but that will only come from campaigning from below, not voice coaching.
According to his latest Parliamentary entry on earnings Nigel Farage was paid £81,602 by GB News for 32 hours work. The entry was filed on 2nd September and refers to August, though it appears that as usual Farage’s finances are less than straightforward as he claims this amount also includes some back payments. It possibly also includes tax and overheads though since its channelled through Thorn in the side Ltd how this works out in practice only Farage’s accountant will know.
He also had (smaller) earnings from his Telegraph column, Twitter & Google.
Image is important in modern politics. Whether that is a good thing or not is another matter.
Keir Starmer may have resisted all calls from the Beard Liberation Front to grow a beard but he remains follicly focused. He is a regular at a Kentish Town barber (or was until July 4th) and his hair style is distinctive, more so some might say than his policies.
The Times (9th September)not exactly Starmer’s biggest fan, claims his hair is noticeably more grey since he became PM.
Empirical evidence suggests (unusually for a Murdoch owned paper) there is some truth in this.
What has been missed is the key point made by the late Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead). Namely, a touch of grey kinda suits you anyway. The song also notes though that every silver lining has a touch of grey
Rachel Reeves decision to cut winter fuel benefits for many pensioners reflects a long strand of Labour thinking, tied into Treasury orthodoxy, going back to Labour’s first Chancellor Philip Snowden in 1924.
Faced with the issue of alleviating unemployment Snowden rejected public works schemes unless they could be shown to be a sound investment. He argued that the ‘more positive the remedy the slower the effect’.
Fortunately in the several Labour Governments between 1924 and 2024 such Treasury inspired thinking was not always the preferred policy.
I’ve been attending Test Matches since the 1960s first with my late father and in more recent times with my partner (who I suspect is a bigger cricket fan than myself).
The question of whether five day Tests can continue has been under discussion for a good while. Attendance may be good in England & Wales, Australia and the Sub Continent but not so much elsewhere. The nature of life and work in 2024 militates against such lengthy contests. When I discuss a Test with my niece who is in her thirties the idea of a 5 day game does not compute.
That doesnt mean Tests cant continue but it requires thought about the model and thought beyond the market capital outlook that currently dominates.
I was at the West Indies Lords Test in July, Jimmy Anderson’s last, with Megan and had a good day. Tickets for Lords are expensive although I had actually restricted view seats (hardly restricted) which were reasonably priced.
The Lords ticket ballot for 2025 has yet to open but I already have seats for an England v West Indies ODI in Cardiff in June 2025. This is mainly a world where thinking and booking far in advance is the only guaranteed way to get tickets. That is not how everyone operates, particularly the less well off.
Of course the idea is to fill the ground but keeping some tickets for sale nearer the time or on the day surely can be made to work economically.
In 2025 India visit and grounds will be full but empty seats this year reflect ticket prices well over £100. For a family with travel etc that is a lot of money. A short holiday might be cheaper.
Then there is the weather. When I was much younger getting in to watch a Test didnt cost that much and if there was bad light or rain it was just too bad. You did not get your money back. Of course now you do get it back but not all the other costs- travel, food etc. The expectation should be that cricket is played unless it is really impossible due to conditions. At the moment the presumption seems to be that it might be played or then again it might not. Explanations will be few.
I’m not sure those running the big grounds at the moment are up to grappling with such pragmatic matters focused as they are on the Hundred franchise. Perhaps the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport needs to find a way of looking at the issue without appointing an inquiry to report in 2030. By then it could be too late.
Keir Starmer has revealed to the BBC that another cat is moving into Downing St. Larry the No.10 cat remains in place despite sinister plans being made for his funeral. The Starmer’s existing cat JoJo is already in residence and now Starmer has revealed that a white Siberian kitten, named Prince, is joining it.
The Guardian has provided an important update with information from the Siberian Cat Club. Siberian cats are similar to dogs and can be put in a harness and taken for walkies. This provides some colour to the negotations between Starmer and his daughter
