Kmflett's Blog

Nigel Farage’s elected MP 4th July. Clacton (8^th July), Milwaukee, GB News studios, Hong Kong

On 4th July Nigel Farage was elected, on his 8th attempt, as an MP, in this instance for Clacton. He stood for Reform UK, not a political party but a business of which Farage is the main shareholder.

On 8th July Farage visited Clacton, attended a meeting and posted shots of this on X.

What Farage did not post was any detail of when his Constituency Office will be set up or how his Clacton Constituents can contact him with issues. Recent postings appear to suggest he has an office, most likely on the Parliamentary Estate.

Meanwhile Farage has resumed his 3 times a week GB News show which would appear to be his main occupation

On 14th July speaking not from Clacton but from a property in Westerham Kent, Farage announced that he was off to the US to attend the Republican National Convention which anointed Donald Trump as the Republican Presidential candidate. He flew to Milwaukee immediately after the King’s Speech on Wednesday 17^th July, not bothering to remain for the start of the actual Parliamentary business-the debate on it.

Farage did not get to meet his friend Trump in Milwaukee.

Back in the UK Farage was doing a podcast for the Daily Telegraph on 22^nd July.

On 23^rd July had made it into the Commons again to make his maiden speech- on a referendum on Britain leaving the ECHR.

On 24^th July he attended his first PMQs

He has commented on events in Southport and Leeds, both a long way from his Constituency. He also commented on a disturbing incident involving knives in Southend which is a bit nearer his Constituency.

There is no evidence of any more visits to Clacton, or speeches on it. Parliament is in recess during August so he can pursue his own interests and he did. On 5th August he was in Hong Kong (visiting his son who works there, fair enough btw). However also on 5th August he tweeted a call for Parliament to be recalled.

He has now returned to the UK since he has appeared regularly on GBNews (obviously) and LBC on 6th August.

On 8th August there was a serious fire (suspected arson) in Jaywick in Farage’s Constituency. Three families were left homeless and seven other houses were damaged. Farage did manage a tweet noting he might stop by at some point

The letter in the Daily Fail (above) summarises Farage’s efforts as an MP so far. He is drawing a substantial Parliamentary salary and doing his actual job at GBNews

Parliament is in recess, Farage is entitled to a holiday and many would like him to take a lengthy one.

11th August. Farage has been on Fox News spouting his usual nonsense (very close to incitement as often). No sign of any visit to Clacton of course

13th August. Still no reports of Farage in Clacton but a new poster has appeared in the Constituency, seeking his whereabouts

The Bristol Riots of 29-31 October 1831 are a well known event in British History, coming as they did in the run-up to the passage of the 1832 Reform Act. The Act began the extension of the Suffrage that so far has concluded in 1928 when both women and men got the vote.

The nature of the riot is disputed and in particular by E P Thompson in the Making of the Working Class(1963). Thompson agreed that the slogan of the rioters ‘King and Reform’ was not an obviously reactionary one. The King was believed to favour reform so it was not a reactionary ‘Church and King’ mob (also the traditional principles of the Tory Party).

Thompson argued that while the protesters had democratic sentiments the Bristol riots were not a ‘politically conscious revolutionary action’. Rather they exemplified the ‘persistence of older backward looking traditions of behaviour’. By contrast Peterloo in 1819 had exemplified the ’emergence of the self-disciplined patterns of the new working class movement’. He went on to argue that ‘Ignorance and Superstition had been jerked from loyalist into Radical courses; but we get a whiff of the Gordon and Priestley riots in the words of the Bristol rioter who threw an armful of manuscripts and books from the Cathedral Chapter Library into the fire declaring ‘there could be no reform without books were burnt’.

The line between the mob and the crowd was finely drawn and the former could on rare occasion transition into the latter as with the Gordon Riots. However the mob’s roots were reactionary, while the crowd’s were progressive and democratic.

One might note that in the riots of early August 2024 a mob in Liverpool partly destroyed a library. Perhaps some had legitimate grievances on housing, low pay and so on. However the progressive and democratic way of expressing that was to oppose the divisions racism causes as did Stand Up To Racism protests across England in the same period

The Thompsonian example of Bristol is illustrative and other views and perspectives exist, see perhaps particularly work by the Bristol Radical History Group

Keith Flett is the Editor of A History of Riots (CSP 2015)

When in Algiers in late April 1882 Marx decided to have his beard trimmed. He wrote to Engels about the experience on 28th April 1882. The photos mentioned are not extant. The well known picture of Marx with trimmed facial hair is not genuine, or shall we say, an artist’s impression

Apropos; because of the sun, I have done away with my prophet’s beard and my crowning glory but (in deference to my daughters) had myself photographed before offering up my hair on the altar of an Algerian barber. I shall receive the photographs next Sunday (30 April). Specimina will be sent to you from Marseilles. On inspection you will observe that, CONSIDERING the 8 whole weeks (during which I did not in fact have one day of complete repose) of painting with collodion (after the manner of Ludwig of Bavaria), j’ai fait encore bonne mine à mauvais jeu.

Collodion was an early form of photography, while Ludwig of Bavaria was someone thought to have good looks. Marx is making the point that despite not sleeping well for eight weeks he didn’t look too bad

Is Larry the Cat set to be expelled from Downing St as JoJo Cat is parachuted in?

The new PM Keir Starmer has evaded analysis of where precisely he is coming from. A Blairite?, a Wilsonite? or something else. We may find out.

There are some things we do know about Starmer. He is an Arsenal season ticket holder, his father was a toolmaker and his mother a nurse and he used to be the DPP. He and certainly the factionalists around him like a good purge.

With this last point in mind the question must be asked is Larry the Cat set to be expelled from Downing St?

Keir Starmer and familhave a cat called JoJo. In an interview in April he noted that his children were more friendly to the cat than they were to him. A familiar syndrome hardly unique to the Labour leader and PM.

Tom Baldwin’s biography of Starmer makes reference to him extracting JoJo from a fight in the back garden and getting a scratch on his thumb as a result.

Reports have suggested that Starmer intended to move JoJo from Kentish Town to Downing St. The move has now happened.

Those familiar with cats will know the type, always up for an encounter with other cats and often provoking it. Will Starmer enforce peaceful co-existence between Larry and JoJo or will Larry be expelled?

Liz Truss latest: Bank of England & the Blob to blame for financial crisis & interest rates. Also McDonalds has browns didn’t help.

Liz Truss did a 40 minute podcast with the Telegraph on 30th July. It can be Googled. In fact it was amusing enough to suggest a new sitcom, although those hit by Truss’s 49 days won’t find anything to laugh at.

Truss underlined that she was not in anyway to blame for the financial crisis her Premiership provoked nor the rise in interest rates. It was all down to the left-wing Bank of England with supporting roles from the OBR and the Resolution Foundation. Those actually on the left might struggle with this characterisation, although Truss had a point in arguing that the Bank is unaccountable. She would have known this before becoming PM but apparently had no strategy to deal with..

Truss also blamed Tory MPs for not backing her particularly Gove and Sunak but Rees Mogg got an honourable discharge.

In incidental comments she noted she had come across people on the doorstep in her former Suffolk Constituency who wanted a Revolution (I think I may know at least one..) and only mentioned Woke twice.

Finally she was asked why she was late to her Count on the morning of 5th July. She noted that she had been in McDonalds in Kings Lynn with her husband and daughter. Her daughter was eating hash browns but Truss had stuck to water as she didnt feel hungry at 5am. The 30 minute warning of the result being announced apparently didnt appear and then she was held up at a railway barrier.

It seems Truss is frustrated at every turn by various incarnations of the Blob

1911, 1832, 2024. After the worse ever defeat, where next for the Tories? Some historical notes

It’s not the key or even an important question in British politics right now but the future of the Tories as the historic party of British capital remains of interest for the longer term. Of course another party could fulfil the function of property and capital or, historically, Church and King. The continued existence of the Tories is by no means certain

Depending on how you want to read the statistics the defeat of the Tory Party on July 4th, winning 121 seats, was the worst since 1911 or 1832. After the 1832 defeat the old Tory Party was rebuilt from the grassroots as a membership organisation. 1911 was an imperial crisis around trade and war and was resolved at enormous cost via World War One

Rishi Sunak remains as leader until the Tory Conference although he is off to California for a bit at the end of July. Pre-Election talk of a merger between the Tories and Reform, or a split from the Tories to Reform- in other words a realignment on the right is muted with a Tory leadership election in process and Commons summer holidays. Suella Braverman couldn’t get enough backing for a Tory leadership bid and she may defect to Reform in the Autumn. Presumably that would be timed for the Tory Conference. The question whether she has the support in the wider Tory Party to do this. Conservative Post which claims to represent hard right Tory members backed Braverman for the leadership and was posting pictures of Yaxley Lennon’s far right and fascist rally in central London on 27^th July. A dangerous and unpleasant politics in flux

When Labour lost in 2019 the Labour right spun it as the worst result since 1935 (when the Party was recovering from the 1931 split- the parallel is too little explored) but that was on seats not total votes. It can hardly have been missed that Labour won in 2024 by getting less votes than Corbyn in 2017 but getting them in the right places. As an Election strategy it worked well..

This post is not about Labour however, simply to note that for a long while after December 2019 much of the media was full of stories and comment about Labour’s travails.

Once the Tories finally determine a new leader on November 2^nd these may resurface. At the moment coverage of the Tory leadership campaign which began on 29^th July is limited.

Of the seven candidates three are clean shaven men in suits with hard right politics (however they may describe themselves), Jenrick, Stride, Tugenhadt. Cleverly is distinguished by wearing a beard. Meanwhile Priti Patel is an MCC member and Kemi Badenoch is concerned about postmodernism.

Perhaps looking the right for a reconfiguration, based on that lot, is not the right question. It may be that Starmer has in mind the fulfilment of Harold Wilson and to an extent Blair’s mission of making Labour the natural party of Government.

However with the far and fascist right on the rise across Europe and Farage and Yaxley Lennon stirring it here, there could be trouble ahead if a close and active watch is not kept on what is happening.

Beard Liberation Front

18th June

Contact: BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

Beard Campaigners say Marx’s 1882 view underlines caution on hot weather beard trims

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that caution needs to be exercised in beard trimming, as a heatwave with temperatures up to the high twenties centigrade is forecast for some parts of the UK this weekend

The campaigners say that while facial hair can protect against the sun, a full organic beard may be uncomfortable particularly when, as it typically the case in urban areas, high humidity accompanies high air temperatures.

It is possible to cool the beard by using hand held fans, visiting air-conditioned offices and shops and also by briefly immersing it in chilled beer or lager but during a heatwave a prudent trim of the beard can be a way for the hirsute to cope

There is precedent for beard trimming but it comes with a significant degree of caution.

While in Algiers in April 1882 ,towards the end of his life, Marx wrote to Engels that his ‘prophet’s beard’ had been shaved due to hot weather. Photos were taken and Marx wrote to Engels on 6^th May 1882 enclosing one. However he noted ‘no art can make a man look worse’ suggesting that he realised that the beard trim had been a mistake

A photo of a comparatively clean-shaven Marx does exist but is believed to be a mock-up rather than an actual picture.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course we’re not the beard police but we would urge those considering a beard trim to keep Marx’s May 1882 comment in mind. The result may not turn out for the best.

The 2024 Season of The Hundred has concluded. As before mainly decent women’s games (with some good crowds) and often one sided men’s games with a changing cast of pop up players.

Its the contractual obligation season as franchising is meant to operate from 2025, assuming there is interest, which IPL wise there seems to be. As with the first three seasons there is some attempt to demonstrate how The Hundred is different even if it is really just T20 with twenty fewer balls. That extends to language:

Five Balls, aka an Over (was briefly a Set now largely not used)

Pace On, Pace Off. Bowling a slower or faster ball. Normal practice across cricket

Funky. Was innovation. Shots that (hopefully) score runs that are not (yet) in the MCC coaching manual

Whack: commonly used term meaning at least an attempt to hit a ball for four or six

Up & Over. Hitting the ball skywards with the aim of clearing the inner field and probably the boundary. Loosely related to Rugby League’s ‘Up & Under’

Decisive victory. Another one sided game

Amazing. Everyday occurrence

The Eliminator Semi-Final

What was Marlers Bar, Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, N10

45 years since the opening of the first ‘Wetherspoons‘

These days Wetherspoons is more often in the news for closing pubs, although it is still opening some as well. The official view is that ‘this town ain’t big enough for two Spoons’

This year marks the 45^th anniversary of the opening of the pub that started the Wetherspoons chain, in December 1979.

I used to drink in Marlers bar with friends and with my late father at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. It was about a mile from my parent’s house which was in the Alexandra Park area of Muswell Hill.

How I heard about Marlers I can’t recall but probably via CAMRA (this was before social media and mobiles).

As a research historian I’m wary of basing things on memory which is often a bit unreliable and prefer to check against printed sources.

The problem here is that as a source the interwebs are just as unreliable as memory.

My memory suggests that Marlers was a joint venture between Andrew Marler and Tim Martin. The officially approved version indicates that Marler was the original owner and then sold to Martin. That did not preclude Martin from having an interest previously of course but it is Marler (who had a beard) I remember behind the bar.

What happened to Marler is mildly obscure though his record of owning the Worlds End in Camden Town and then a pub in Shepherds Bush is well known.

The interwebs indicate that in 2012 he was the owner of two pubs in the St Albans area, one of which, the Cross Keys, had been sold to him by Wetherspoons.

What of the beer in Marlers? My memory suggests that it was from regional brewers like Wadworths, Greene King and Ruddles that were then hardly available in London. CAMRA sources from the time concur. I thought I also recalled Sam Smiths but I might well be wrong.. Copies of the London Drinker from that period more or less confirm this.

A friend who I drank with in Marlers at the time, Mark Baker, recalls ‘it was quite exotic stuff for that part of the world at that time (i.e. wasn’t Ind Coope or Courage!)’

It was certainly the case that Marlers was a shop conversion (more or less unheard of the time). It appears to have been a bookies. Before that the interweb suggests it was a private drinking club for footballers, One source says Spurs, another Arsenal. We can be sure it was not both but the pub is on the Arsenal side of Haringey so it was quite probably them.

The pub has long since ceased to be a Spoons anyway but the story has a, for most, happy ending.

Wetherspoons returned to Muswell Hill, up the hill, just at the top of the hill itself in fact. The Mossy Well is rather a handsome pub a Good Beer Guide regular and were you in the area you could do worse than stop by. Possibly best not to mention the name Marler though.

Wetherspoons started out in Haringey and Tim Martin (who was a lawyer) is on record as saying that a key reason was because there were no decent pubs where he then lived in Wood Green.

Mr Martin is not always right but on this he is absolutely correct. Unexciting as the range of beer in Marlers bar in the late 1970s might seem to us now, 45years ago it would have been very easily the best real ale and hence the best beer range in Haringey. Keg meant Twitbreads and Grotnys. Other alternatives included Courage Best (John Baird Muswell Hill) Ind Coope Burton bitter (Alexandra, St James Lane N10) and Bass and Charrington IPA (Railway Crouch End).

Beard Liberation Front

29^th July

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

2024 Beard, Shorts & Sandals Official Season reaches peak

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the 2024 Official Beard, Shorts and Sandals Season has reached a peak with ideal weather conditions forecast for many areas this week

2024 Guidelines

1] Shorts should ideally be three-quarter length-‘culottes’ for the 2024 season. The length of shorts is particularly important as climate change may mean that unprotected legs get sunburnt. UV remains high even when the sun is absent

2] Footwear should be casual. There is a considerable range of sandal type footwear now available. Some leave parts of the feet and toes open to public view, while some do not. The BLF is not prescriptive about the matter.

3] Socks should usually not be worn. This policy was confirmed by a vote earlier in the summer.

3a] If the beard, shorts and sandals are to be displayed in relatively busier urban areas it is likely to be prudent to wear closed rather than open casual footwear and ankle socks, not visible to others may be worn.

4] There is no prescription or definition on what type of beard may be worn, or how this may match with the shorts and sandals. This is left up to the individual.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the Beard, Socks and Sandals season has been a major influence on summer fashions in recent times and the 2024 season is no different. We can celebrate peak season and flaunt the beards, shorts and sandals, while of course sticking to the official guidelines