I suspect there are quite a few even in the Tory Party who know that Suella Braverman is of the political far right. She delivered a full length rant about the EHRC at a far right conference in Brussels on Wednesday. A local Mayor had tried to ban it. That was wrong in my view, although protest was certainly appropriate.
Writing for, er, GBNews Braverman claimed that that attempt to ban the conference was an attack on free speech.
By Sunday however she was to be found writing in the Telegraph calling for the Met Police Commissioner to be sacked. This seems to be a fairly frequent Braverman demand. She also renewed a call for Palestinian marches in London to be banned in ‘exceptional circumstances’ and claimed, without any evidence, that the marchers support Hamas.
Public life would be better without Braverman in it and there is some potential good news. Due to boundary changes she has to fight a new Constituency at the Election. Such are the Tories poll ratings that according to the most recent survey Labour is within 3% of taking the seat.
In our last issue the Ambridge Socialist highlighted the crisis in hospitality with both the tea rooms and the Bull short of labour and suggested that the issue would be sorted if they paid a real living wage. The matter is on the way to being solved. Chelsea has applied for a job at both places and been successful. While Natasha and Kenton are aware what is their alternative to paying a proper rate for the job?
Brad: no to the enormous condecension of posterity
Brad is a highly intelligent proletarian, in particular at maths. Yet he featured in another Brian Rix style farce at Grey Gables this week where he confused suitcases and generally gave the impression of being somewhat lacking in know how. Its got to stop.
Lady Lord Mayor of Felpersham & Harry. Ambridge is not big enough for either of them
The Lady Lord Mayor of Felpersham (Tory scum) has been hanging about Ambridge this week. Meanwhile Harry is still drinking and trying to drag Alice into his melodrama. Closing time in the village for both in our view
In other news
Mick has got a job at Grey Gables
Knacker Burns is organising the Borsetshire Secret Policeman’s Ball
As most readers of this post will know Woke is a term used primarily by right-wing culture warriors. It has no specific meaning but is attached to things and people they don’t like. Culture warriors are not a tolerant lot (though some may claim to be) and so there is a lot of Wokery.
The Times (21st April) has asked if ‘Woke is Over’. By this they really mean has Liz Truss won.
The article is written by self styled journalist Polly Vernon who asked, again in the Times, in March 2018 if peak Woke had been reached.
Ms Vernon has no actual evidence to demonstrate that Woke is over which is perhaps understandable given that it doesnt actually exist. However she does note that Oatly the oat milk brand is now part owned by Blackstone. Indeed Blackstone own 10% of the now listed company. The deal took place in 2020.
Vernon has also asked the barista at her local coffee shop if people are ordering less oat milk coffee. He agrees with her. Since oat milk is essentially an enhanced version of the gruel which was a staple in Victorian Workhouses this may be understandable.
Meanwhile, bad news for Ms Vernon. Beechwood smoked tofu is on offer in Lidl this week
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph Keir Starmer has said Labour will be celebrating St George’s Day and the flag is something that symbolises ‘our country’
Labour supporters in Scotland and Wales may be distinctly unimpressed. Labour does not organise in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland, which Starmer may vaguely recall.
As a socialist of course my flag stays red
Why the right want St George, who wherever he was born, was certainly not English, is perhaps obvious. He was a military saint and he was a Christian. Plus he has been around as an icon for a long time in English history.
Shakespeare’s Henry V contains the still oft repeated phrase ‘Cry God for Harry, England and St George. As a military and a religious man St George fitted the ideology of the Crusades well
We can agree then that if the reasons for George becoming an English saint, along with being the saint of numbers of other countries, are a little obscure, given the length of time he has been at it he at least has squatting rights to the title.
St George was a soldier in the Roman Army of Emperor Diocletian and was persecuted and killed for refusing to give up his Christian faith.
Given that the Romans had occupied Britain, and that there was some Christianity in the country some kind of connection can be seen.
That said the slaying of the dragon was not a reflection of some ancient English rivalry against Wales but mythic.
In 2024 St George’s Day is little more than a chance for businesses to make some money out of flag shagging. There are no ceremonies associated with it. However in the English traditional calendar, long before flag shaggers, it was a feast day. If Starmer is actually proposing that 23rd April should be a public holiday he may have hit on a fairly popular idea.
Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech 56 years on (20th April 1968)
It is 56 years ago today, 20th April 1968, coincidentally, or not, the anniversary of Hitler’s birth, that Enoch Powell gave his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech to a Birmingham Conservative Association.
No complete recording of the speech exists, but on the 50th anniversary the BBC broadcast a recreation which was read by an actor in segments with critical comment in each section.
Powell was sacked as a Shadow Minister for the speech and never recovered his standing in the Conservative Party. He remained however a significant figure in British politics in the years that followed.
The speech is an important part of British history and should certainly be recalled 56 years on. The question is how it is appropriate to do so. There is no reason why it should not be available in appropriate archives and libraries, together with any other related documentation, for researchers and other interested parties to review. However at the same time, amplifying Powell’s sentiments is highly questionable. Fortunately there appears to be little attempt to do that
Perhaps with racist sentiments widespread on the Tory frontbench and Nigel Farage an ever present media figure there is no need to do so.
Powell’s speech however is a reminder that far right racist views and the Tory Party are not a recent development.
It is 60 years on 20th April since BBC2 first went on air, or rather didn’t because of a power cut. Actual broadcasts started the following day.
In 1967 it became the first UK channel to broadcast in colour.
The world of media and broadcasting has moved on so much in the intervening period that it is hard to know how to assess and position the anniversary historically, although BBC2 is broadcasting a special 60 years programme.
In the beginning of course there was just the one BBC channel broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in North London. In 1955 commercial competition arrived in the shape of ITV and the BBC responded on the night with the death of Grace Archer in a barn fire in the Archers on radio’s Home Service [now Radio 4].
Much of the left was unhappy about commercial TV and its influence on the BBC. The need to attract large audiences with popular programming- to make advertising pay-undermined what was felt to be an essential role of TV. Namely to educate and to promote democratic discussion and debate.
The Pilkington Report, influenced by the late Richard Hoggart, argued for more serious TV fare and one result was BBC2.
It is worth recalling, and this now seems almost incredible, that in the early 1960s owning a TV was something only a few hundred thousand people did. It was expensive and many rented their set instead.
Of those who did own a set it is probably reasonable to suggest that not too many were left-wing activists, who then- as now- probably did not have much time to watch it or money to afford to have it anyway.
Even so it was the left that had set the original framework for BBC2. Its remit, as later Channel 4 and then BBC4, was to provide minority programming.
In particular in the early years it had a Community Unit which produced Open Door programmes designed to encourage people who were not professional broadcasters to put their point across on TV.
When the Wilson Labour Government set up the Open University in the late 1960s it was BBC2 which showed the programmes that went with the various courses.
It is quite difficult to find left-wing opinion on how good, or otherwise, the early years of BBC2 actually were. However Raymond Williams, the literary theorist and writer, did produce a regular TV column for the BBC magazine The Listener [long since departed]in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
His monthly commentaries found him, more often than not, noting and mostly praising a play or piece of reporting that had appeared on BBC2. BBC1 programmes sometimes get a mention but ITV hardly ever does.
While even today BBC2 is not exactly in the centre mainstream of TV it has long since ceased to be a channel for minority interests. It became arguably a channel for programmes that might not attract a mass audience but were still expected to have a broad appeal. The left departed for Channel 4, and when the same thing happened to that, to BBC4
In historical perspective the arrival of BBC2 might be seen as a success for the left in gaining access to the new medium of TV for ideas and arguments outside of a narrow and often conservative consensus. That it was launched in the radical 1960s probably also helped.
The times as ever are a changin’. With a plethora of TV channels, the internet and social media the medium for entertainment, education and debate is changing quickly. The left, or at least some of it, was able to grasp the importance of TV in the early 1960s, and is grappling with new media again now.
Liz Truss’s memoir, Ten Years, contains a false quote claiming that the Rothschilds control the world banking system. It is one of the most common anti-semitic lines and the Board of Deputies has rightly called it out.
Truss has apologised and claimed it was a genuine error. If there are any future editions,which seems unlikely,the passage will be removed.
The reality is however that Truss’s book is full of conspiracy theories about institutions that are,according to her, trying to stop her political advance. The US publisher of the book mainly promotes conspiracy story volumes.
Somehow Rishi Sunak has still failed to bar her from standing as a Tory candidate at the election..
In July 1890 Engels was travelling around Norway. The focus was meant to be on geology but as often good beer was never far from his thoughts. He wrote on 22nd July 1890 of his search for good draught beer
We sampled the beer conscientiously right up to 71 degrees of latitude. It was good, but no so good as the German stuff and invariably bottled. Only in Trondheim could one actually get draught beer. We shall probably carry out a reconnaissance today to see whether there is a beer hall in Bergen where draught ale may be had
The distinction between amateurs (gentlemen) and professionals (players) in cricket was abolished 60 years ago. Yet class and cricket are not so easily divorced.
The gentlemen tended to be batters while the players were often fast bowlers.
The Men’s County Cricket Season started with two rounds of matches using the Kookaburra cricket ball. Used in Australia its widely thought to be more helpful to batters than bowlers. Hence games saw several early season centuries and one triple century. All but one of the games was drawn.
The County game has now reverted to using the Dukes ball which promotes seam and swing bowling and hence is more helpful to faster bowlers.
The person in charge of men’s cricket in England Rob Key is keen on the Kookaburra ball. Then again in his playing career he was a batter…
