The Times has published two Editorials on the Green Party in the past week, which I would see as a badge of honour (& will certainly be of interest to future historians). The Times thinks that the Greens have ‘extremists’ in their ranks. It has of course those who support Palestine in its sights but is generally unhappy that the Party has a Manifesto to the left of Labour (hardly difficult). To the Greens credit they seem to have largely pushed back on this. Giving in to it would just encourage yet more Times Editorials.
Meanwhile The Times surveying the European Election results has been pondering whether labels such as fascist or far right are useful in all cases anymore. It still thinks the AfD are fascists and that Farage is soft on them. However Italian Premier Meloni who has genuine fascist pedigree is apparently now centre right.
A YouGov poll on 13th June showed Reform the political company owned by Nigel Farage just edging the Tories by a percentage point. The Election is three weeks off but it does look as if Farage could be spending up to the next 5 years in Clacton.
He may have other ideas. The Times reports (13th June) that he was one of 100 guests who attended a London fund raising dinner for Trump in Kensington on12th June. Donald Trump Jnr was in attendance. Farage cant donate as a UK citizen (with a German passport) but somehow appeared at the event where Mediterranean food, presumably kebabs, was served.
Farage being a great British patriot presumably missed the asparagus and strawberries that might have been central to such an event held in June in the Capital. We can however be sure that fine wines etc were served and Farage’s ‘beloved’ pint of public image beer was nowhere to be seen
Keir Starmer has mentioned his father was a toolmaker again and took umbrage because a TV debate audience laughed. The laughter was surely at Starmer making it his catch phrase. He refers to it again in a lengthy Guardian interview on 22nd June again given the impression that a toolmaker was not a well regarded occupation.
Rodney Starmer ran a toolshop in Oxted, Surrey for many years. He was a self employed skilled craftsman or artisan. His son often says that his father felt looked down upon. Perhaps this was just Surrey because generally such skilled workers were seen as being in the vanguard of the working class.
They have a long history going back to the industrial revolution. In the Making of the English Working Class E P Thompson has a chapter on artisans and he notes ‘the skilled and apprenticed man,who owned his own tools, and worked for a lifetime in one trade was in a minority’ Rodney Starmer fitted the pattern over 175 years on.
Thompson notes that the skilled craftsman had a battle to avoid being deskilled and ending up in a factory and that battle often promoted political radicalism. Rodney was a Guardian reader and staunch Labour supporter.
Not all skills could be mechanised and hence even now the Rodney Starmers of the world continue
Beard Liberation Front Manifesto calls for a more beard tolerant Britain in clean shaven Election
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued its 10 point Manifesto for the 2024 General Election.
The BLF is not standing candidates at the Election but is urging parties to pick up on its theme of a more beard friendly and tolerant country.
The campaigners say that it is deeply disappointing that the main parties have largely conformed to the clean shaven man in a suit stereotype that has dominated British politics since the 1950s.
The campaigners say that the Manifesto ranges from general statements of principle on pogonophobia, irrational prejudice against the hirsute, to specific proposals, for example on a luxury shaving tax.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, there are of course more beards around these days, but prejudice remains. Pogonophobic comments and prejudices are still freely expressed and in some cases people are denied employment because they have a beard. Unfortunately in most instances it remains perfectly legal to do so. We want the next Government to be Beard Friendly and to pick up on the points in our Manifesto. In the weeks before the Election we’ll be pressing candidates on this across the UK.
The Ten Point Beard Liberation Front Manifesto
No to Beardism and Pogonophobic prejudice against the hirsute
Equal rights for beard wearers through a Beard Equality Act
More hirsute MPs
A 20% quota for hirsute Cabinet Ministers
More hirsute public employees and monitoring of hirsuteness levels in the senior Civil Service
Promotion of positive public images of the hirsute
A statue of the last hirsute Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, to be erected in Parliament Square
OfCom to have a statutory duty to monitor Pogonophobia in the broadcast media & issue penalties for persistent transgressors
No dress codes at work, beyond a requirement for smart appearance for public facing roles
A luxury tax on the shaving industry, the proceeds to be used to promote a diverse Britain
As Guardian journalist Nesrine Malik noted on X it reads like a pitch for a management consultancy. UK plc has been badly run, Labour will do better. We have of course been here before. Ted Heath’s 1970-74 Government was satirised in Private Eye as HeathCo because that’s how he saw running the country. He was of course a Tory.
Below are some extracts from the Labour Manifesto for the December 1923 Election which led to the first ever Labour Government in January 1924. A lot of the Manifesto is of its time but some of the general principles still read well. Better than the 2024 Manifesto in fact..
The aged, the widows, the children
Labour Policy is directed to the creation of a humane and civilised society. When Labour rules it will take care that little children shall not needlessly die; it will give to every child equality of opportunity in Education; it will make generous provision for the aged people, the widowed mothers, the sick and disabled citizens.
It will abolish the slums, promptly build an adequate suppy of decent homes and resist decontrol till the shortage is satisfied. It will place the Drink Traffic under popular control.
Equal rights
Labour stands for equality between men and women: equal political and legal rights, equal rights and privileges in parenthood, equal pay for equal work.
Labour’s practical idealism
The Labour Party submits to the men and women of the country its full programme. It urges them to refuse to make this General Election a wretched partisan squablle about mean and huckstering policies. It appeals to all citizens to take a generous and courageous stand for right and justice, to believe in the possibility of building up a sane and ordered society, to oppose the squalid materialism that dominates the world today, and to hold out their hands in friendship and good-will to the struggling people everywhere who want only freedom, security and a happier life.
2024 Beard, Shorts & Sandals Official Season reopens
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the 2024 Official Beard, Shorts and Sandals Season has reopened after a period of suspension due to inclement weather.
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. As usual there will be a vote on this policy for 2024
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 we expect the 2024 season to be no different. At the moment the weather is ideal for flaunting the beard, shorts and sandals, but prudently so
Most who are interested will know that Keir Starmer’s hirsute father was a toolmaker. Little more detail ever follows and you can find the suggestion on social media that Starmer Senior was a factory owner. In reality he ran a small toolshop, the Oxted Tool Co. as a skilled worker. These were not uncommon when Starmer was young but have mostly passed into history.
Eric Hobsbawm wrote a 1983 essay on Artisans and Labour Aristocrats where he touched on toolmakers.They were to be found in the later nineteenth century in railway workshops. They owned their own tools and had a degree of independence from the employer who, conversely, attempted to find ways to remove the artisanal aspects of the job and turn them into proletarians. Hobsbawm notes that the same was true for car factories in the 1930s. Toolmakers were union men (and it was men) and often politically advanced,
Hobsbawm ends his essay by arguing that the sons of toolmakers were unlikely to seek the dignity and self respect of the trade but rather look to a University education. A process known as going up into the next class which is exactly what Starmer did and also what his policy on social mobility is about
Geoffrey Wheatcroft has published a new book on the history and decline of the Tory Party. He has predicted this before but Bloody Panico (Verso, May 2024) hits the zeitgeist.
The Tories were reduced to 121 seats on July 4th with a range of well known Tory MPs losing their seats. Whatever the view on Starmer there was a cause for brief celebration on July 5th, as there was on 2nd May 1997 when Blair came to Office.
Wheatcroft’s book underlines that the Tories are the architects of their own destruction. What comes next on the right and far right of politics is concerning. The Tory Conference from 29th September in Birmingham may have pointers to how concerning.
A striking extract from Wheatcroft’s book:
Lord Salisbury, Stanley Baldwin,Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher each led the Conservatives for roughly fifteen years. In the thirty three years since the fall of Thatcher the Tories have had nine leaders including five Prime Ministers in the space of seven years..2022 will be remembered as the year of two monarchs and three prime ministers, not to mention four chancellors of the exchequer, five education secretaries and more than thirty resignations from Government.
Went by train to Cardiff for the Wales TUC day of action in support of the miners.
I caught the train back with Rodney Bickerstaffe who is anxious that Neil Kinnock should succeed. I think he has an affinity with him because they are about the same age. People feel the older politicians have failed- the Healys and the Benns-and I understand that feeling although we had to take the party through a different phase of its development.
Benn spoke at a rally at Sophia Gardens in central Cardiff and the miners received support of others including health workers. His diary entry is interesting as a reflection of the discussions that such occasions can facilitate ‘behind the scenes’
