Drawing picket lines & Palestine protests. Inga Bystram’s first draft of history exhibition extended!
The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has praised the picket line and protest drawings of Tottenham based artist Inga Bystram as the first draft of history.
Since the upsurge in class struggle from summer 2022 Inga has visited picket lines of strikers ranging from the RMT & ASLEF to the NEU, UCU and RCN and captured the mood and collective strength of unionised workers fighting for better conditions. Two years on, indefatigable as the struggle itself, she is still capturing picket lines
She has also drawn extensively on Palestine protests including the huge central London protests
An exhibition of Inga’s picket line and demonstration drawings at the Cock Tavern, 23 Phoenix Rd NW1 1HB near Euston Station in central London has been extended until the end of September 2024
The drawings can be viewed between 9.30am and 11.30pm seven days a week, with a few exceptions when the space is being used for union meetings. The exhibition is free and the Cock is a community pub where you can also stop for a drink and a chat.
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, of course we are used to seeing photos of picket lines, but Inga Bystram’s drawings capture the mood and feel of a picket line and of demonstrations in different ways. They are the first drawings and drafts of history!
Recently Sky News ran a poll on Twitter asking what was a reasonable price to pay for a pint of beer or lager. The majority opted for the £6-7 option, higher priced options were available.
For some, particularly those drinking in large cities and who don’t frequent Wetherspoons, this might seem an obvious answer. You can certainly pay more for stronger beers but you will probably drink them in smaller measures- a half or two-thirds of a pint. For a 4-5% beer you might expect to pay the £6-7.
Of course you can pay less and cask beer in particular remains in some cases lower priced (much to the chagrin of brewers who don’t have lower production costs but have to sell their beer). Its quite possible for example to get a pint of well kept cask beer in central London for under £5 a pint and around the UK it might be significantly less.
An interesting analysis of the state of craft beer in the Guardian (8th April) notes that beer prices can seem ‘scary’ particularly if you are buying a round. It also notes that sales of craft beer remain decent,even if Big Beer is forever encroaching on sales.
The issue is to sell the beer at a reasonable price that won’t put people off but also allows the brewer a profit margin.
By profit here we should be talking about not the super profits of Big Beer, but a ‘normal’ profit. That is one that pays for costs of material and production and wages and gives the brewer a living income.
That was the formula set the the Assizes of Ale and Bread (see above) before the market took complete control in the early 1800s. The market was regulated.
Labour is promising to do something around this, grasping that the market alone works for the few not the many. The issue and one that needs to be discussed and promoted is what an effective intervention in the market might be
Bernie Grant d. 8th April 2000. Anti-racist, socialist, beard wearer.
I’m not in London today but if I was I’d be making the short way from my Tottenham residence to the old Tottenham Town Hall today to pay respects at the plaque marking the life of one of the great post-1945 political figures, Bernie Grant.
He died 25 years ago today after a period as leader of Haringey Council and then Labour MP for Tottenham from 1987, one of the first four black MPs to be elected in the modern era.
There is no question that Bernie made a significant impact on Haringey politics and well beyond which continues 25 years on. He was the first black leader of an authority anywhere in Europe and while the example has been far too slow to be followed it was a landmark.
His fight against racism and opposition to the Thatcher Government when he was Council leader again set a template
I was Chair of Haringey Trades Union Council throughout the period that Bernie was Council leader and MP.
I recall particularly Election meetings where in those days we would invite the Labour candidate only to speak. Bernie was an inspiring and indeed an idiosyncratic speaker. Throughout the period he was pursued by the tabloid press (fortunately it was well before social media) and particularly the S*n who labelled him ‘Barmy Bernie’. We were always on the look-out for ill-intentioned types at these kind of meetings keen to twist an off-cuff the remark.
My connections do go rather wider. His brother was a trade union colleague in telecoms (as was his partner) and like myself a cricket fan, neither of us for England…
We have to accept I think that political figures like Bernie Grant come along only rarely in each generation. Remembering him 25 years after his death is important not least for the motivation it should give to continue the fight now. And it certainly does need continuing
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has congratulated Russ Cook (@hardestgeezer) on completing a 10,000 mile run across Africa and raising £570,000 for charity in the process.
4 years since Starmer was elected Labour leader. Election victory is likely, but why?
Its 4 years (4th April 2020) since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader. There are a great many things that could be said about what some see as his Great Moving Right Show but in this post I focus on some English empiricism.
What interests many voters who have other things in their lives than pondering the state of the left is whether Starmer can lead Labour to eject the Tories from office. We’ll only find out when an Election is called obviously but in the meantime polls provide a very rough guide.
Labour (Starmer’s personal standing is another matter) have been ahead in the polls since November 2021 and currently has a 20% lead over the Tories. A YouGov poll taken on 3rd April 2024 has predicted a Labour majority of 154.
Poll leads though are not everything. They usually appear because the incumbent Government is messing things up. They are maintained to a successful Election victory if the opposition in this case Labour is able in various ways to harness the discontent to a positive mood to support it
We can see this in the period 1992-1997
We can’t obviously be sure what moves the polls but I do think that there is some evidence that there are particular events which change people’s minds on a long-term basis, as Black Wednesday seems to have done in 1992 and the brief Premiership of Truss in 2022 may also have done.
By 1992 Thatcher had been forced to resign over the Poll Tax debacle and was replaced by John Major. Major, unexpectedly and quite narrowly, beat Labour, led by Neil Kinnock, in a General Election on 9th April 1992. For the few months afterwards the Tories led Labour on average by 5 points in the opinion polls.
Then came Wednesday 16th September 1992, ‘Black Wednesday’. On that day the Tory Government withdrew the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). In order to protect the pound Chancellor Lamont raised interest rates from 10% to 12% in the morning, and then up to 15% in the afternoon.
The following day interest rates returned to 10% but the damage was done in terms of electoral standing. Voters with mortgages, perhaps more inclined to vote Tory, had seen the spectre of the cost rising by 50% in a day. If it had happened once clearly it could happen again.
By November 1992 polls were showing ratings of around 30% for the Tories and 50% for Labour. They changed little until the eventual election in 1997. Labour’s lead was nothing to do with Blair, who wasn’t Labour leader in 1992, rather it was the late John Smith, but with an event so potentially cataclysmic in its impact that it stuck in voter’s minds.
It’s worth pointing out (thanks to Lindsey German)that the October 1992 pit closure crisis underlined and amplified the Tory crisis. The Tories had spent the mid-1980s demonising and defeating the miners on pit closures. But when Heseltine tried again in 1992 the mood was very different. Public support swung behind Arthur Scargill and the NUM’s efforts to stop further closures.
Whether you think Starmer is a decent Labour leader or not, it won’t be that much to do with anything he does or doesn’t promote, which is perhaps just as well. What 1992 and after suggests is that it’s about Tory crisis and whether the left and labour movement can galvanise the mood around that which has the real impact in particular on the cost of living and energy crisis. That in turn promotes a mood for change, and one outlet for that (amongst others) is an election.
In short polls, crude though they may be, simply reflect much wider currents in society, and whether Labour can successfully associate itself with and sometimes lead efforts to suggest things can get better. Work in progress or as Starmer refers to it (Mirror 7th April) his mission.
Sgt Knacker Burns faced a disciplinary hearing this week after leaking personal details of Harry Chilcott’s activities to Alice. Uniquely for recent Archers history he was accompanied by a sort of union rep. Knacker got a final written warning for two years. Given that he had broken data protection law he was perhaps lucky. However he may also consider himself unfortunate that he is a member of the Borsetshire Force. In the Met he would either have been promoted or retired on a full pension depending on the level of awkwardness he had caused..
Changing Places, Miranda, Brian, Lilian and Justin
A lot of harrumphing and spluttering from Justin this week signifying nothing very much. A sort of sub Brian Rix bedroom farce is playing out.
George: Influencer
Who exactly George is influencing with his social posts of Bartleby in a field is unclear. Eddie’s mention of Johny Morris and Animal Magic may well have appealed to the Archers core audience, but that was all a long time ago
In Other News
Harry may have alcoholic liver disease. Alice has got involved. A sort of replay of the Helen/Titchener reprise. At least finally Helen did say no. Alice needs to do the same
Jolene has fessed up about recent events at the Bull
A YouGov poll on 3rd April predicted that Labour will win a 154 seat majority at the Election. We shall of course see but for those of us who want the Tories out this can’t be seen as anything but positive.
However the detail of the poll is interesting. Starmer’s Great Moving Right Show has seen Labour support decline in 50 urban seats. Yet such was the size of the Labour majorities achieved by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 that none will be under threat.
Where Labour is making headway is in Tory held seats. Labour is up 8 points in Tory held seats but the real story here is the very significant decline in Tory support and the rise of Reform. Psephologist John Curtice notes that in Tory held seats Reform is polling at 14% while in Labour held ones its at 6%
In Basildon a totemic seat won by Labour in 1997 the party’s support is up 12% but the Tories are down 33%.
Corbyn’s part in Starmer’s poll victory is unlikely to see the current Labour leader congratulate the former one but it underlines that the world is more complex than headlines suggest.
That means that a near identical vote share to Corbyn in 2017 40 to 41 which saw him win 262 seats will see Starmer win 403…
The Original Muswell Hill Wetherspoons in early CAMRA guides
I’ve written on my memories of the first Wetherspoons in Colney Hatch Lane Muswell Hill N10.It opened in 1979 and living around 15 minutes-walk away I drank there- mainly at weekends.
However memory is fallible. Recently I was given as part of a process of house moving some early CAMRA London Pub Guides. These do mention the pub and give a basic indication of its development.
Real Beer in London (1981/2) lists the pub as Martins and lists the beers as Fremlin’s Tusker, Greene King Abbott and Wadworths 6X. The last two at least were very hard to find in London at that point. It notes ‘real draught cider and other guest beers may sometimes be available’ and says it’s a clever shop conversion
The 1985 North London Beer Guide lists the pub as Wetherspoons and notes a ‘changing selection of guest ales and cider’. It says its noisy and smoky
The 1997 North London Pub Guide lists the pub as Spoons with beers including Abbot, Flowers, Boddingtons and Directors and notes the pub had been extended in 1994. By this point the pub is no longer listed as being part of Wetherspoons London pub estate.
45 years on its difficult to recall how revolutionary the arrival of Wetherspoons was. The model is now very familiar. Back then it was unheard of
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Glamorgan captain Sam Northeast, has scored the highest ever individual score at Lords on the second day of the 2024 County Championship season.
The hirsute Northeast surpassed Graham Gooch’s 333 made against India in 1990 on Saturday afternoon scoring 335 not out before Glamorgan declared.
The campaigners say that Northeast’s beard played a key role in his triple century, the follicles interacting with windy conditions to help propel balls towards the boundary.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it is an early reminder to the England selectors that Beard Power is a key part of modern men’s cricket.
The writings of Boris Johnson provide one kind of a history of the political present.
As Kevin Ovenden and others have pointed out on social media they are motivated by no great political principle but a calculation of low political positioning and advantage. Johnson’s position on Brexit where he backed both remain and leave before determining that the latter would best serve his political career is well known.
In his Mail column this week he demands that the UK and US continue to arm Israel, noting along the way how unfortunate the killing of Aid workers was. The key thing he argues is to defeat Hamas (leaving aside as numbers of commentators have noted that even assuming this is possible the Israeli ‘strategy’ is entirely counter productive in doing so).
This position, some research indicates, is not based on some high flown principle, but because it will annoy Dave Cameron and perhaps help to position for a Johnson return after the debacle of a Tory Election defeat.
In October 2006 (Sonia Purnell, Just Boris) Johnson was writing a column for the Telegraph not in the Mail. He called for the US to help Iran build a nuclear bomb on the grounds that they would eventually do so anyway and that it might help balance out relations with Israel, which also has the bomb (unofficially, obviously). The aim as this week, was to annoy the then Tory leadership and promote Johnson’s political career.
For this historic party of the British ruling class, whose aim is meant to be, and often is, to promote the interests of that class, a figure like Johnson reminds of his degenerate and corrupt the Tory tradition has become
