Andy Twelves on social media picked this up, but the story is in The Times and elsewhere
Labour Conference in Liverpool has a No.10 North lager on tap. There are numbers of decent indy brewers in the area so it might be assumed that this is a local Helles or Pilsner.
It isn’t. It’s rebadged Carlsberg 3.4% cooking lager. The strength was recently reduced (which makes Carlsberg money in reduced duty) but the price of course was not.
Disappointing given how much Andy Burnham touts pubs and beer. No doubt however the conference centre has contracts in place which exclude indy products. The answer of course is to leave the conference and have a drink in one of the many excellent indy pubs in Liverpool instead.
We recently marked the 105th anniversary of Joe Grundy’s birth. On Friday a new Grundy was born thanks to a lot of hard work from Amber and the NHS. It’s a boy and the BBC is already reporting that the name will be Joe
Driving Lessons and class struggle
After Borsetshire bus cut services making it difficult for Brad to get to Uni at the right time he decided he’d learn to drive. Jazzer stepped forward to give him lessons but is sceptical about how long Brad will need to get Driving Test ready.
In the most recent lesson Brad demolishes Helen’s gate which will apparently cost Brad £95 he doesn’t have. Tracey noting that Helen has got expensive tickets for the family for a half term even thinks she could have covered the cost of the gate herself.
Walkies
Lynda and Robert are looking to downsize from Ambridge Hall after ending their B&B business. However an alternative is to set up a dog field business to allow dogs to walk safely without issues taking place. Kate has undertaken to look for a suitable spot. What could possibly go wrong?
Anna after Carol
Anna has been pondering details of Csrol’s funeral. She is not religious and Carol had some pagan beliefs. Alan the Vicar has stepped in to help underlining the flexibility of the CofE’s religious offerings. This may not delight all Parishioners of course.
Children at the wedding
Pip and Stella originally planned to have a mostly child free wedding, now it appears that the attendance will be mainly children. The moral maze of Ambridge..
Beyond Anyone But England, Farage, Braverman & the England football team
In general on sporting occasions Ive been an Anyone But England person. That’s not because I deny great sporting achievements made by English women and men. On the contrary they can be celebrated, as can those of other teams.
However I am international socialist and my flag is not that of England or the other ‘Home Nations’(I’m a Scottish North Londoner who lives partly in Wales) but the red flag.
English sporting teams are mostly much better representations of the nation they represent than they once were and that is positive. Indeed the far right who mostly backed England have noticed.
Farage did not like the England football team taking the knee claiming that sport and politics should not mix. Well at least until he got his own Reform football team.
Braverman says she is not English but supports the England football team (Twitter 22nd Sept 2026) but they aren’t really a good representation of England. She has yet to notice that the England football manager is German. Farage probably knows but can hardly comment. His ex-wife is German
Neither I think are actually football fans. Farage’s intern tweets but his interest is in fishing and horse racing. Braverman, who knows…
David Olusoga wrote a piece in 2021 on the link between the England team and the better aspects of Englishness. I don’t think E P Thompson was a big football fan (it gets a couple of mentions in the Making of the English Class and David Kynaston’s new social history of 1965-66 finds him watching highlights of the 1966 World Cup final and supporting England) but he might agree. He however always saw it as a contradictory thing. His retort about why English socialists had not arguably produced the body of theory that their European counterparts had was because they had had ‘so bloody much to oppose’ meaning English and indeed British imperialism.
These are matters which socialists should be engaged in discussing and debating not just amongst themselves but in workplaces and pubs.
The far right don’t like the England football team that the England of 2026 has produced. A good reason to support them while keeping the imperial context firmly in mind
The Telegraph’s Allister Heath inhabits a planet far, far away from Earth. As Labour Conference starts there is dismay on the right that Andy Burnham has (probably) ruled out an early Election. Whatever the left may think about the current Government (check this blog for some pointers) its mere existence provokes the right to demand its end.
Heath has in mind a Tory/Reform Government (he has fallen out with Restore) which were it to happen would not be as right-wing as Heath wants but that’s for another day.
Farage is starting a General Election tour of the country determined that there will be an Election in 2027. If that doesn’t happen expect the next round of Farage Riots
Meanwhile Heath is disappointed to find that Andy Burnham is not Dave Spart anxious to press the self destruct button..
Had Burnham been a revolutionary Left-winger, somebody who fancied himself as a historic figure destined to remodel Britain in his image, he would have gone for broke, called an election and damned the consequences.
Local election results (turnout here was 25.9%) are poor predicters of the political weather but they are still better than opinion polls because they represent actual votes cast.
The interest here is the significant rise in the Labour vote and a decline in the vote for Reform and even more so for the Greens
Whether that is a good thing for those who want a Britain at the very least significantly to the left of where the great moving right show has taken it is an important political discussion. An important part of that is whether Labour is up for can actually do some of the significant changes that would mean.
Conversely a result from Brighton demonstrates the opposite (turnout 33%), although it looks a little confusing as, often, its a multi-member ward. The departing Cllr was Labour so Greens have gained an extra seat
Queen’s Park (Brighton & Hove) Council By-Election Result:
1] Select your conker. Do this yourself. DO NOT use a conker provided by someone else who may give you a poor specimen.
2] There is no specific kind of conker that makes a good game winner. Large conkers may more easily splinter for example. Some prefer conkers with flat and sharp edges
3] You may use the conker ‘as is’ known as ‘organic’. Alternatively you may seek to harden it by baking it, soaking it in vinegar etc. There is no guarantee that an artificially enhanced conker will perform any better than an organic one.
4] Drill a small hole through the conker. A nail will often achieve this. Again you must do this yourself
5] Thread the conker through the hole you have drilled. A strong chord, perhaps a shoelace is best
6] You are now ready to play.
7] Make sure that the chord is long enough to allow you to stand at least 1 metre plus away from your opponent. This would generally be the case as space is required for the conker swing.
8] Players take alternate turns to try and hit and destroy their opponent’s conker
9] Those with poor aim may hit the knuckles of their opponent more often than the conker so you may wish to wear gloves.
10] The winner is the player who determines their opponents conker unusable in further rounds, usually by causing it to splinter into two or more pieces
Research has provided an on-line database of who Britain’s slave traders were from the sixteenth century to 1807 when Britain’s role in the slave trade was curtailed.
David Olusoga has fronted two BBC programmes that look at the detail focusing in Bristol, London and Liverpool.
A key point is that the profits from the slave trade were central to the foundation of British industry and infrastructure. Not incidental but central. a key part of British history.
Olusoga notes that while the London based South Sea Company is known for the 1720 bubble, a financial collapse in fact it was a slave trading company.
One of the most horrific parts of the series is when he looks at the books of the Company held in the British Library. There is an account of how slaves must be branded with the Royal crest but it becomes clear that the Company doctor has now allowed that because of the danger of infection. The books minute the instruction to proceed with branding nevertheless. The names associated with this include Governors of the Bank of England and the Lord Mayor of London.
