Kmflett's Blog

I wrote the above Fletter to CAMRA’s London Drinker magazine and it appeared in the April 1989 issue exactly 35 years ago.

Beard Liberation Front

6th July

contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @kmflett

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the beard hatred of England football manager Gareth Southgate must stop.

While England won their group and the first knock out game (in extra time) of the European Football Championship, Southgate has come in for continued criticism over negative tactics

The campaigners say that while Southgate’s match strategies can be legitimately criticised when this slides over into attacks on his beard it becomes entirely unacceptable. His beard is not to blame

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, let’s face it those attacking Gareth Southgate’s beard are in the main a lot of clean shaven, God Shave The King mumbling, reactionaries.There is no room for beard hatred in sport.

Ambridge Socialist. Starmer must act: Nationalise Bartleby

30^th June

The on/off Bartleby saga has rumbled on all week but there is a more important reality. A Starmer Government must act immediately to nationalise Bartleby and place his care in a worker’s trust in memorial of the late Joe Grundy. Starmer has considerable familiarity with donkeys and so this is at least one thing he can accomplish immediately.

July 4^th: Vote Sid Grundy

Sid Grundy is the Ambridge Socialist candidate for South Borsetshire. We are expecting Labour’s Chris Archer to defeat the incumbent Tory Bufton Tufton and for things to carry on much the same. We stand for real change

In Other News

Joy is taking over the Village Fete from Lynda

A sad farewell has been made for Roy Tucker who has departed for Bulgaria

The BBC reported Felpersham Pride but unfortunately we have no further details yet

The crisis at the Stables seems to be continuing with Justin determined to unfairly dismiss Alice. The class war between the Carters and the Archers continues but to little obvious wider impact for the class struggle

Far right disrupter Nigel Farage is probably best known for appearing in a Wetherspoons pub, pint in hand. Indeed he launched his campaign in Clacton doing just that. Leave aside that Farage prefers fine wines and G&Ts, its an image he has long promoted.

Tim Martin of Wetherspoons has previously appeared on platforms with Farage as a supporter of Brexit. However the Telegraph (29th June) has reported that this time Tim Martin is not backing any party. Martin claims that he only backed Farage and Johnson on Brexit and has never voted Tory.

Given the likely outcome of the Election it is a prudent business move but its another blow for Farage’s trouble strewn campaign

Brilliant Agitprop by Led By Donkeys @ByDonkeys

Its not a photomontage, this was actually lowered into view as Farage was addressing the mob

The Peterloo Massacre took place in central Manchester on Monday 16th August 1819. 60,000 people gathered to call for the right to vote(then very restricted). Soldiers were sent in to disperse the protest and 18 people were killed and hundreds injured as a result.

Mike Leigh made a well received film on Peterloo in 2018 and speaking at a film festival in Malta on 29th June he argued that Peterloo protesters would be ‘horrified and mystified’ by those who didn’t vote. Given the countries around the world where a democratic vote does not exist or is constrained he has a point.

I will certainly be voting on July 4th (for socialism as usual) but it would be an odd historian of Chartism who swerved a chance to vote.

The Chartists and the Suffragettes did campaign for the vote for working men and women and eventually by 1928 the fight was won.

Even so there were and other traditions. Owenite Socialism in the 1830s and 1840s had an element of opting out of market capitalism altogether and the Co-Operative movement from 1844 sought a kind of parallel stream. It later became allied with the Labour Party dating depending on your perspective from 1900, 1906 or 1918.

By that time minority traditions of extra-Parliamentary and anti-Parliamentary socialism and anarchism had emerged. William Morris was associated for a period with some aspects of this in the 1880s. Here the view was that achieving change through Parliament was impossible and hence the vote was not central.

These arguments and debates continue today but as above I still remain with Mike Leigh on the vote, however little real choice it often offers- see Paul Foot’s newly republished The Vote.

The above poll produced by the centrist More in Common should be taken more as a bit of Election fun (of which there is very little) rather than too seriously.

Even so its interesting to note that IPA drinkers allegedly vote Labour more than lager drinkers. With Wimbledon coming up Starmer will surely be pleased that his appeal to Tory voters sees a Labour lead for Pimms drinkers. Why the lead for VK (alcopops for the uninitiated) is so large for Labour is rather odd but is it a surprise that the only drink with a Tory majority is sherry?

One of the Reform Party activists who Channel 4 have exposed as making racist, misogynistic and homphobic remarks has claimed that it was all just ‘chaps down the pub’ stuff. Not any pub I frequent it isnt.

Of course there is a history here mainly of the culture of middle and working class Toryism. This culture focused on the pub, betting on sport, racism and sexism. It thrived when pubs could be white men only.

It was the kind of culture that the leaders of the first Labour Government in 1924, religious and often non drinkers deplored as something that would not help achieve social progress. They were right but still needed the votes…

Times have changed. Pubs are struggling and most will only work if they are the hub of a local community attracting a wide layer of people, some of whom may not drink at all, but come for sociable reasons, food or events.

Strangely this actually describes what many Wetherspoons are like, officially Nigel Farage’s favourite drinking spot. Tim Martin may be rather right-wing these days but he has enough commercial sense to know that if pubs only appeal to the Clacton Reformers, they are on their way out.

Of course independently owned and run pubs can do even better and it is to be hoped that the incoming Government will stick to its word on this issue and help them to survive and thrive.

Brewdog sacks a worker for complaining about racism

The descent of Brewdog continues. Tribune has the story of an Asian worker at Brewdog Waterloo who was sacked after complaining about the presence of a large number of fans of the fascist Stephen Yaxley Lennon in the bar.

The occasion was Yaxley Lennon’s last outing into central London where he gathered far too many racists and fascists in Parliament Square. Yaxley Lennon is currently detained in Canada for,er, immigration offences but another Central London event is planned for the end of July

On this occasion numbers of his fan club gathered in Brewdog Waterloo before heading to Parliament Square. Reports suggest that the police had informed Brewdog and asked them to stay open. This is quite usual for fascist gatherings. The police want them to be in one place where they can be watched.

What happened next however was not normal. A responsible employer would have informed staff due to work that day and suggested that any who would find it problematic could swap for another time. Of course Brewdog which refuses to recognise Unite Hospitality despite it having hundreds of members there did not act responsibly.

When an Asian worker complained and said they felt intimidated the response of Brewdog was to proceed with discipline. Given there is no union this is to put it mildly unlikely to have been a robust and fair process.

Brewdog is meant to be heading for an IPO- a public listing. Frankly how much more reputational damage can it sustain in its present format without some very significant change taking place.

In the meantime swerving Brewdog is the least you can do, while offering solidarity to the sacked employee

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/27/brewdog-sacks-asian-woman-over-reaction-to-edl-members-meeting-in-bar?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other