The Beard Liberation Front the informal network of beard wearers has given emergency advice to Joe Biden on how to distinguish between a clean shaven and a hirsute politician
BLF organiser Keith Flett said that while the distinction is not always straightforward Putin clearly does NOT have a beard
Introducing the latest set of Wetherspoons results (not too bad) Tim Martin also gave some tips on how to widen the moat. These are:
Beer Gardens
Rest Rooms for staff ( perhaps try recognising a union)
Above bar glass racks
Better beer dispense systems
Martin also thinks Rachel Reeves can bring economic experience to the Treasury. We shall see…
Beard Liberation Front
12th July
BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that on the occasion of his last Test Match for England at Lords, England bowler Jimmy Anderson has joined the Beard Hall of Fame.
The Beard Hall of Fame is a constantly updated list of hirsute individuals whose beards have made a positive impression in the public eye and have assisted their particular achievements.
While Jimmy Anderson does not always wear a beard the BLF says that his range of facial hair styles from clean shaven to stubble to bearded, is clearly carefully calibrated to maximise the impact of his bowling in specific conditions.
The Beard Hall of Fame includes a wide range of hirsute public figures including well known sportsmen such Moeen Ali and Harry Kane.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said,Jimmy Anderson’s place in the Beard Hall of Fame is well deserved. He has provided a positive image of the hirsute over many years
Beard Liberation Front
10th July
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266
Jeremy Corbyn named Beard of the new House of Commons
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has named Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn as the Beard of the new House of Commons.
Corbyn was elected as the MP for Islington North for the eleventh time on July 4th on this occasion as an Independent. However he was narrowly pipped to the title of Father of the House by Tory MP Edward Leigh who signed on just before him when first elected in 1983.
Nevertheless Jeremy Corbyn has been voted the Parliamentary Beard of the Year more often than any other MP and easily qualifies for the coveted title of Beard of the House
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, when Jeremy Corbyn was first elected beards in the Commons were rare indeed and his appearance provoked comment. The current House has more hirsute MPs than have sat since the 1920s but Corbyn is without question Beard of the House.
The Magistrate who gave the order to send the Yeomanry in at Peterloo in Manchester in August 1819 was William Hulton (1787-1864).
In a review of books published to mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969 EP Thompson noted that Hutton’s mother had a prize horse called ‘Church and King’ providing a flavour of what the family was like. He noted that when it came to events like Peterloo it was not so much that Hulton would lie about what took place (he did) but that he was simply not interested in what the ‘plebs’, those fighting for the vote, said or did.
Hulton left another legacy aside from Peterloo. As EP Thompson notes in 1832 the Reform Act, a result of Peterloo in 1819, saw the Tories lose South Lancashire. Hulton was one of those who met in a beer house in 1834 to form the South Lancashire Conservative Association dedicated to defending, like the family Horse, Church and King.
That organisation was one of the forerunners of the modern Tory Party.
After 4th July 2024 it looks like the work needs to start again, not in Westminster but in what E P Thompson again called ‘those shadowy parts, the provinces’ (where he lived himself being no huge fan of London)
Along with other MPs (including Jeremy Corbyn) Keir Starmer was sworn in on 9th July. As Tom Baldwin’s biography notes Starmer follows the Arsenal way, with a 1-0 win being fine and 0-0 being OK. No doubt Starmer’s allegiance will continue to be Arsenal where he is season ticket holder
Beard Liberation Front
9th July
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has condemned beard haters, the official terms is pogonophobes, for an obsessive campaign against beard wearing in the England football team.
England play a semi-final game in the 2024 European Championships on Wednesday and manager Gareth Southgate has maintained his award winning beard despite attempts to blame him and it for various issues with England’s performance.
Having failed there the beard haters are now focused on England captain Harry Kane, who also wears an award winning beard.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, our message to the beard haters is hands off the beards of Southgate and Kane. Beard Power is a key part of the England team
The NHS at 76: we’re still not learning from our history
5th July was the 76th anniversary of the NHS. The moment in 1948 when health care (including at that point dentistry)became free at the point of use. It is a principle and practice that has to be campaigned and fought for ever since. There remain voices in the Tory media and politics who want a US style health insurance system.
Its not just the Tory Party either even though Nye Bevan fought to implement the NHS in the face of Tory opposition
Tony Blair makes another of his occasional interventions arguing that the NHS needs to engage more with the private sector to flourish in future.
This is not exactly news. It’s what Blair has been saying for 30 years. During the New Labour Governments of 1997-2010 it was carried through in practice and it has continued since then.
The new Health Secretary Wes Streeting is an enthusiastic privatiser and an NHS free at the point of use will need defending from his activities
The NHS is a massive institution and employer, rightly so, and should be able to call the shots in any relationship with the private sector. That was not what happened in the New Labour years.
Public Private Partnerships in effect left the public to take all the risks and the private sector to take all the profit. The operation of the market in the health service runs directly contrary to it being a public service unless its put in a tightly controlled framework that benefits the many not the few.
Post the 4th July Election Woke, not a huge feature of the campaign, is back. Writing in the Sunday Times(7th July)Tony Blair has warned Starmer not to be vulnerable to Wokeism. He does not define what this might be.
Meanwhile Suella Braverman, unfortunatly re-elected as an MP on a split Labour/LibDem vote, has been speaking at a far right National Conservatism conference in Washington (8th July) one of the many reasons she gave for the Tories election failure was that the ‘lunactic woke virus’ had not been slain.
Speaking remotely to the ‘Popular’ Conservatism Conference in London on 9th July Braverman repeatded the point
It might be argued that the terms are left deliberately undefined with the expectation that the audience for them defines them anyway as anything they don’t like…
Carlsberg has successfully bid to takeover Britvic the soft drinks manufacturer. The deal focuses on the contract to bottle Pepsi which Carlsberg already has in some other countries. It furthers Carlsberg’s ‘beyond beer’ strategy and earlier reports suggested it would take its share of the UK drinks industry to 26%.
In terms of beer however Carlsberg is nowhere near the UK market leader. However in a shameful episode (but hardly the first of the old Beerage to do it) Marstons had agreed to sell its share of its brewing joint venture with Carlsberg to them for £206m. It ends a 180 year old brewing history of Marstons which henceforth will be a pub company.
Carlsberg’s commitment to cask beer is questionable since it has been shutting cask breweries such as Jennings, Wychwood and Ringwood. Meanwhile Marstons has been in dispute with CAMRA about selling beer that is not cask through hand pumps, The dispute has its idiosyncracies because while it can be agreed Marstons should not be doing it, it also seems to suggest that handpumps are the only way of delivering real ale. CAMRA’s earlier commitment that keykeg beer is real ale seems to have been forgotten with a more fundamentalist group in charge. Perhaps I’m wrong here and would be pleased to be proved so.
CAMRA has sought commitments from Marstons that it will allow its pubs to sell a range of cask and rightly queried what Carlsberg’s plans for cask are which may also impact on Bass whose brand ownership arrangements are complex.
I’m not sure why Carlsberg should be listening to CAMRA (Marstons is a different matter, since it in part relies on cask drinkers in its pubs) and it might be thought that its a subject for a new Government to review whether what is proposed is in fact in the public interest. Obviously Tata steel and the water industry are at the top of the Labour industrial in-tray but this deal won’t happen overnight.
Time for CAMRA to mobilise an actual campaign and to reaquaint itself with how to wins friends with and influence a Labour Government
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