The paper mache heads of fascist leaders Tyndall and Webster that accompanied the march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park were designed by Fluck and Law (of Spitting Image). The posters were by the late David King. Both were striking examples of how the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism represented a new form of protest beyond the still important banners and placards to imagery key in a visual age.
80,000 people (myself included) marched six miles from Trafalgar Square to hear speakers (of course) but also X Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, Tom Robinson and the Clash
Thanks to Jessica Mason @drinksmaven for reporting two brewery moves both it appears focused in part on sustainability.
Greene King is to move out of its historic site in the centre of Bury St Edmunds where it has brewed since 1799 to a new purpose built facility elsewhere in Suffolk by 2027.
Meanwhile Bristol Beer Factory is moving its brewing operations, but not its offices and tap room to a new site in Bristol.
The announcements in both cases are replete with management speak. However such moves are subject to business cases to ensure they cost-in. Moving out of old fashioned premises to new builds no doubt promotes efficiency and makes money. The underlining point being that sustainable production methods while desirable in a world of dramatic climate change also make business sense. Its something not everyone on the Tory backbenches and right-wing media has yet grasped.
Bristol Beer Factory talk about expanding production and creating jobs, clearly good news. Neither they or Greene King get around to mentioning that new premises should also mean better workplaces with modern facilities for employees. Greene King is unionised and no doubt workers will have their say. I’m not sure BBF, as often with craft brewers at the moment, is, although I’d happily be proved wrong.
Meanwhile while its clear BBF will retain their original site Greene King have not revealed plans for their historic site. As Ted Bruning has pointed out on FB there is a lot of history there and it certainly should not be lost
Former BBC football pundit Mark Lawrenson has claimed that his contract was not renewed in 2022 because the BBC is top of the Woke League. This appears to be something that leading analysts of Woke Suella Braverman and Liz Truss have missed, possibly because they are not noted football fans.
Lawrenson was known for a rather downbeat presenting style closer to NodOffery than Woke.
However he is currently sporting a trendy and exceptionally Woke beard style, far more so than Gary Lineker, so perhaps from his perspective he’ll be back on the BBC soon
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it hopes the ancient May Day tradition of Beard Waggling will levitate Nigel Farage out of his natural environment, the pub, and send him back into a well deserved obscurity.
The beard waggle involves shaking the beard vigorously from side to side and in doing so stimulating air currents that can cause objects to levitate slightly.
The BLF traditionally asks its supporters on the traditional London May Day march from Clerkenwell Green (this year on May 4th), to waggle their beards individually or collectively as the mood takes them to celebrate the arrival of Spring and to strike a blow against a clean-shaven political culture
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we are hoping this year that if weather conditions are right the force of the May Day beard waggle will create atmospheric conditions which will levitate Nigel Farage out of the pub
How to practice for May Day beard waggling
1] Make sure the beard is in a good aero-dynamic state. If you have not pruned it so far in 2025 now is the time to do so.
2] Make sure the beard is supple but also dry.
3] Inspect the beard for any split ends or damaged hairs that may impede a waggle
4] Choose a suitable location to waggle, preferably in the sun rather than the shade
5] Move the beard vigorously from side to side and then up and down while otherwise standing still. Repeat several times
5] While waggling the traditional chant is, Hail the Beard, Hail Spring
5] Alternatively beard wagglers may simply intone Farage Out, Out, Out, Out
A warning from history ‘Pound Shop Powell’ Robert Jenrick as Tory leadership contender
The media is bad at history, even very recent history. Robert Jenrick resigned as a Tory Minister in 2023. In December 2023 he spoke to Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday morning show and claimed that migrants don’t integrate into British society. He gave as an example the thousands who have marched calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Jenrick’s not very good pound shop Enoch Powell act once backed up Suella Braverman who was expected to make a leadership move as the Tories lost the General Election. In reality Jenrick recruited Braverman’s supporters and she had to bow out.
Jenrick’s lurch to the right isnt a recent thing.
When he was Communities Minister in 2021 Jenrick has announced in the Sunday Telegraph that he planned to make any changes to historic statues and monuments subject to planning laws.
In doing so Jenrick used Trumpian language. Anti-racist protesters were a ‘baying mob’ while democratically elected local councillors were a ‘cultural committee’ of town hall militants and woke worthies”. If we were to lower ourselves to Jenrick’s level what he was actually proposing was to over ride local democratic processes with decisions by a coterie of racist Tory Ministers.
Jenrick is part of a Tory Great Moving Right Show and it could end up moving very far right indeed based on present performance. His Islamophobic comments on Sky News on 7th August reflecting a CV that underlines an unpleasant and highly contentious past record
30th April 1978: Rocking Against Racism in Victoria Park East London. Still relevant
48 years ago this Spring a march made its (lengthy way) from Trafalgar Square via Bethnal Green Rd to Victoria Park in East London to protest against racism and fascism and in particular the National Front.
It probably wouldn’t be the route you’d take today designed as it was to confront the (considerable) support for the Front in Tower Hamlets and Hackney with a mass show of anti-racist strength. Of course there are still racists in East London but not so many currently.
In those days my preferred footwear were Doc Martens and leaving the house you’d always be on the look-out for a Fronter coming the other way. Eventually I moved to a (then) obscure part of Tottenham to feel safer but even now there is a bullet hole in the (fortunately double glazed) front window to mark where a passing fascist took a pot shot.
The Victoria Park Carnival marked what Victor Serge might have called the ‘birth of our power’. We didn’t expect 100,000 and while the Front had been physically confronted at Wood Green and Lewisham the year before in 1978 mass mobilisation proved an effective way to marginalise them.
Building the Carnival required a lot of work on the ground. No social media or mobiles then. It required mass flyposting and leafleting often in areas where the Front had support.
The paper mache heads of fascist leaders Tyndall and Webster that accompanied the march were designed by Fluck and Law (of Spitting Image). The posters were by the late David King.
Thousands of people (myself included) marched six miles from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park where yet more thousands had gathered to hear X Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, Tom Robinson and the Clash.
It’s part of history now, but also part of our present as the fight against racism and fascism continues, as does the celebration of our music and our culture-the kind Reform, the Tories & unfortunately some at the top of the Labour Party have never heard of.
Beard Liberation Front sorry to see Humza Yousaf step down
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it is sorry that Humza Yousaf is stepping down as First Minister in Scotland.
Mr Yousaf has in the last year been the most prominent beard wearer in a position of political power in Britain as a whole.
The campaigners say there is no evidence that dislike of Mr Yousaf’s beard was a factor in his resignation. Rather there was clearly a political dispute.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we are keen supporters of beard power in politics. There hasn’t been a Prime Minister with a beard in Downing St since 1902 and there were hopes that Humza Yousaf would help to promote change. Unfortunately it was not to be.
Liz Truss has been the subject of political ridicule since she was outlived by a lettuce during her 49 day period as Prime Minister. Those mortgage holders,renters and businesses still paying the price of her attempt to re-fashion the economy may take a rather more serious view.
The focus on Truss as something of a laughing stock has increased since the publication of her recent 10 days memoir. Reviews have not been friendly but Truss ploughs on convinced she is right and others wrong. Of course there are numbers like that, who lack all critical faculties.
Conversley one or two commentators, Lewis Goodall for example, have argued that Truss should be taken seriously. Some others agree that Truss’s points about financial institutions having too much power which really should rest with elected politicians do have substance even if she does not.
In my view Truss should not be taken seriously but the ideas she promotes should be.
These are focused of course on what appear to be ever expanding conspiracy theories which see left-wing ideas in the most unlikely of places- the Bank of England?-and see ideas of a small State and a free market thwarted.
These ideas are widely held on the political hard right perhaps particularly in the US. Of course there are other right-wing perspectives which offer variants of this as well- see the recent hard and far right conference in Brussels addressed by Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage.
Truss I think really does believe the conspiracy theories or at least some of them. Whether other more serious figures do, or rather see them as a way to politically disrupt the status quo remains an open question.
On Saturday 27th April there was another demonstration in support of Palestine in central London. There have been a series of protests since October 2023. Despite claims by right wing commentators and media they do not take place every week. A rough average is twice a month. In between local and regional protests take place.
The size seems to have been around 200,000 people, a significant number given the numbers of protests there have been. The picture above was taken before the entire march had reached the Park. The Met Police posted on X that with the head of the march having arrived the rear was in Piccadilly giving another indication of size.
As usual the march was overwhelmingly peaceful and orderly. There appear to have been two arrests. As one of the organisers John Rees posted on X it is the scale of protest that means demands for them to be banned have so far failed. The key victory was on Armistice Day when then Home Secretary Suella Bravermen tried to pressure police into banning a march and ended up losing her job.
Even so the police continue to impose conditions on the march from timings to route.
On Saturday there was a small static pro-Israel protest in Piccadilly which police also imposed conditions on. A projected march by the Campaign against Anti-Semitism, a right-wing group, was cancelled. Behind this were further attempts to get the marches for Palestine stopped.
In reality the CAA march didn’t happen because they refused to discuss with police timings or a route. They wanted to march wherever they want. There has never been an absolute right to do that but in particular the CAA clearly havent noticed recent changes to protest laws.
While the changes are to be deplored in essence they tend to mean that if you protest without engaging with the police you can be arrested, often for some rather vague and ill defined reason.
The Hyde Park protest on 27th April was another significant success for those determined to support .alestine and protest Israel’s actions in Gaza. More will clearly be needed, just as the right will continue to try and stop them. So far the power of the movement is stopping them.
Solidarity is having an impact both with official political circles in Britain and with those most in need of it in Gaza
Liz Truss has,via the Spectator’s Steerpike column (28th April) rubbished a Guardian report that her new memoir was only 70th in the best seller lists in its first week of publication. The Guardian pointed out that Truss’s book had sold 2,228 copies.
According to the Sunday Times best seller list which claims to be more accurate that figure is correct (2,230). However as the Spectator notes Truss’s tome is currently only in hardback and sales are much less than a paperback. The Guardian’s comparison was with all sales.
The Sunday Times does point out that on the scale of the first week of publication of political memoirs recently Truss has sold 1,000 copies less than Matt Hancock.
Salman Rushdie’s book on his life in 2022 tops the hardback list. Second is RuPaul’s The House of Hidden Meanings about an international drag superstar, a memoir, albeit a strkingly different one to that of Liz Truss who is third in the list.
