Kmflett's Blog

Some readers will be familiar with the struggles of small breweries, craft beer, pubs and hospitality in general. Just this week Jolly Good Beer, a well known craft beer distributor, shut with immediate effect.

However Big Beer also has its struggles. There isn’t a violin small enough to cover it but it remains of wider interest.

Carlsberg has reported issues in China- where it competes with Heineken and ABI. The Chinese beer market is down 5% and looks set to continue to decline. Carlsberg still managed to increase its share of the declining market by 3% however.

In the UK market Carlsberg has been hit by Molson Coors launch of fake Spanish lager Madri.

Recently Marstons sold its brewing interests to Carlsberg including a substantial cask beer operation. Its clear that as a global brewer Carlsberg’s interests are firstly in lager and secondly mostly elsewhere around the globe.

The losers here will be UK brewers, where Carlsberg will no doubt seek to squeeze to safeguard its own business, pub and drinkers, perhaps particularly those who cask ale.

Is the market working here? For the few (Carlsberg shareholders) but not as often for the many.

18th August

It may surprise some that many vets are unionised. However of course while Alistair used to run his own practice as the Ambridge vet for some years he has worked as an employee for a bigger veterinary company. A small number of Big Vets now dominate the sector.

According to the BBC the boss has now heard about Alistair, Denise and Paul and has called Alistair in to see him. He needs union representation or, or if he is not yet a member, advice.

Justin is trying to force Alice out at the Stables

Having been told by Lilian that he cannot just sack Alice, Justin is now trying to force out in what looks like a rare case of constructive dismissal. Just walking off the job due to a dispute doesnt fit that. However in reality someone else has been hired to do Alice’s job and on her return she has been given nothing to do. In reality Alice would do better to seek Union guidance than resort to the law but Justin’s intentions are clear.

A Level Results: a new generation of Borsetshire worker intellectuals in prospect

Good news for Mia and Brad whose A level results will see them at University in September. A new generation of proletarian intellectuals will in due course lead Borsetshire workers to victory. Possibly

In Other News

Azra has been weeding Adil’s allotment and found some garlic bulbs which Lynda urges her to enter in the Flower and Produce Show

George has tried to frame Harry for the bridge incident but even Borsetshire police weren’t falling for that one. His behaviour continues to be erratic and concerning, even if arguably stereotypical.

Alice is pursuing regression therapy at the suggestion of Kate. Will she remember her lines in future?

Beard Liberation Front

17th August

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has celebrated the 60th anniversary of the BBC’s flagship Saturday night programme Match of the Day.

For 40 of the programmes 60 years the key presenter has had a beard. Jimmy Hill presented from 1973-1988 and Gary Lineker has presented since 1999.

The campaigners say that Match of the Day is one of the most hirsute British TV programmes and such has facial hair been frowned on at the top of the BBC its an achievement that deserves to be celebrated.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Match of the Day first aired on 22nd August 1964 just a few weeks before Harold Wilson won the 1964 Election for Labour. Its now celebrating its 60th anniversary just a few weeks after Keir Starmer won the 2024 Election for Labour. Match of the Day has an important place in British culture and hirsute presenters are part of that.

The initial Parliamentary Register of interests for Reform MPs has lifted a window on a distinctly dodgy world of grifting and far right links. Given MPs are paid £91K a year to do their job it might be questioned why this is needed.

Farage has set himself up on Cameo offering birthday greetings or small rants at £75 a go. He has made £16.5K out of this in the last year. Farage claims he spends 24 hours a month making the 40 second clips.

Lee Anderson has also joined Cameo and is charging £40 a video. Since everyone knows that Lee’s going rate is 30p to date he reports in the Register no interest at all.

The Mirror has the story

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/fancy-personal-pep-talk-birthday-33484206

Nigel Farage the MP for Clacton (he has visited twice since July 4th) is paid £91, 346 a year to do what is meant to be his main job- representing the people of Clacton.

However in the Register of MPs interests just published Farage states that he is paid £97,928 a month for 32 hours work presenting his four nights a week programme on GB News. Farage has now told the BBC this is wrong so presumably he will need to amend the Register

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l1kk9xqnyo

His tax affairs are another matter but Farage notes that the amount paid to him by GB News include VAT and goes to Thorn in the Side Ltd. Tax should be paid by the Company but not personally by Farage. It means the amount he personally accrues is less. Perhaps he needs to launch a funding appeal..

A self styled Man of the People, but in reality millions are not only behind him but also one way or another in his bank account

Northern Star 19th August 1848

Thomas Powell was the most well known of the SpyCops who infiltrated London Chartism in the summer of 1848. The report below relates to a failed attempt at a rising in central London on 16th August 1848 that Powell and others had done much to provoke

We add the following version of Powell’s cross-examination from the Morning Post :—
Cross-examined by Mr Macnamara.—I went by another name—that of Johnson—in order to prevent
my being known to the Chartists. I am in the employ of a relation. I became a delegate about a month
since. I ENTERED THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF GETTING INFORMATION AND COMM UNICATING IT TO THE POLICE COMMISSIONERS . I ENCOURAGED AND STIMULATED THESE MEN IN ORDER TO INFORM AGAINST THEM. I thought something would turn out injurious to the peace of
the country, and I thought I would give such information to the authorities as would put a stop to it.
I knew that I was mixed up with a class of characters who would do anything and everything. When
the chairman made use of the expression, ‘ The blow must be struck !’ only Kitchie and Gurney were
present. I GAVE THE MEN SOME BULLETS. Martin told me that the society in Hatton- garden would supply muskets to the Chartists and Irish Felons. I ONLY GAVE BALLS TO GURNEY. I GAVE HIM HALF A POUND OF POWDER. I ALSO CAST SOME BULLETS ON PURPOSE FOR HIM, AND GAVE THEM
TO HIM. About forty persons were present at the meeting on Tuesday. I was taken to the police

Its 207 years since the Peterloo Massacre, when 60,000 or so gathered in central Manchester to call for the vote and cheaper bread.

The Magistrates sent in the Yeomanry, the local business community on horseback who killed 16 people and injured many others.

Peterloo has a central role in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class that appeared in 1963. However in a new left journal he jointly edited with John Saville, the New Reasoner, in the last years of the 1950s he reviewed a couple of books on Peterloo. He found neither satisfactory but it his assessment of the meaning of that Manchester Monday that is perhaps of most importance:

Strikers or agricultural labourers might be fair game; but  never  since Peterloo  has  authority  dared  to  use  equal  violence  on  a  peaceful British  crowd.  Even  Bloody  Sunday  saw  a violence which  was  care-fully  controlled;  the  real  thing  has  been  reserved  for  Amritsar  or Nicosia.  The  most  dramatic  incident  of  August  16th,  in  its  bearing on  the future,  took place not on St.  Peter’s Fields but some  time later on  the  road   leading  out  of  Manchester.  Samuel   Bamford,   after searching  for  his  wife,  turned  homewards  up  the  road  along  which hundreds  were  streaming  in  disarray  to  the  upland   districts.  In Harpurhey he  caught  up  with  a great  number of  the  Middleton  and Rochdale  contingent: I  rejoined  my comrades,  and  forming  about  a  thousand  of  them into  file,  we  set  off  to  the  sound  of  fife  and  drum,  with our  only banner  waving,  and  in  that  form  we  re-entered  the  town  of Middleton

The State violence on display at Peterloo was vicious but its also reflected a new development. A democratic and organised working class politics

Terry Jermy the Labour MP who beat Liz Truss on July 4th in one of the biggest Election swings ever has been talking to Alain Tolhurst at Politics Home about why Truss lost

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-mp-terry-jermy-on-how-he-defeated-liz-truss

Of course some of the main reasons are obvious to more or less everyone except Truss. Namely the impact of her brief period as PM.

Jermy reports hearing again and again from people that they would never vote for Truss, including Tory members and Tory Councillors. They probably did not vote for Labour but for Reform who Truss only narrowly beat into second place.

Jermy goes on to underline some of the detail about Truss was so disliked. She was the only candidate to fail to turn up to an Election hustings (she was in the pub watching football it appears). She did not do MP’s surgeries and Jermy notes that the view was that Truss was more in the US promoting her book than she was in the Constituency during the campaign.

Post the Election its normal for a defeated candidate to hand over Constituency casework to the new MP to make sure people’s issues don’t get neglected. Jermy notes that Truss hasnt done that but her team have issued two press releases attacking him instead..

It’s easy to ridicule Truss and she makes it easy to do so by her own actions and statements. However the hard right ideas she represents- albeit very badly- are a serious and dangerous current in world politics not least in the US

Photo Aaron Lobo

Nigel Farage was elected MP for Clacton on 4th July. He visited the area on 8th July.

After that he departed for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee where he didn’t meet Donald Trump. He also managed the State Opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech (though not the debate on it) and made a maiden Parliamentary speech.

Parliament is in recess in August. Farage made a short visit to Hong Kong to see his son who works there. He has resumed his GBNews ‘shows’, spoken to Fox News and exchanged pleasantries with Elon Musk on Twitter.

On 8th August there was a serious fire in Jaywick in his Constituency. A number of properties were damaged and some people made homeless. Farage said he would visit and on August 12th, 35 days after he had last been to his Constituency, he did.

He spoke to one person who had been impacted by the fire and spoke to crews at the local Weeley Fire Station which had been one of six which had tackled the blaze.

The visit appears to have been a short PR exercise and Farage does not appear to be running Surgeries or have a contact for Constituents.

It will be interesting to see how long it will be before he next stops by Clacton..