Kmflett's Blog

This is genuine not one of the New World’s Heath memes. Editor of the Sunday Telegraph

Quite what Nigel Farage has done to annoy Rupert Murdoch is unclear but The Times(2nd July 2026) has printed a detailed investigation into his property empire in Kent and Surrey.

There are some amusing anecdotes.

At his beach front home in Kent a neighbour has put a LGBTQ flag on the fence that seperates the properties.

The Times also reports an altercation in the local Co-Op because it had run out of Farage’s favourite Rothman Blue cigs.

Finally it appears that the road outside Farage’s house has been resurfaced and potholes sorted. Nothing to do with him of course but rather the Reform led Kent Council…

Ben Stokes the England cricket captain has stepped down. Brendan MCullum the coach across all formats- Tests, 50 and 20 overs remains in place, and from the Managing Director of England cricket Rob Key, silence.

As Scyld Berry argues however the issues go further up, with those administering cricket overall. They may have business experience but they don’t have first hand experience of cricket,

As Duncan Stone underlines in his book Different Class, until the way English and Welsh cricket is run changes fundamentally, the crises will continue to come and the marginalisation of the game from the top down threatens.

England in World Cup Semi-Final

An England sporting side are in a World Cup semi-final on Thursday in London. It’s obviously not the men’s football side (yet…) and its certainly not the men’s cricket team. Rather England women face South Africa’s women at Lords..

The Men’s Football World Cup kicked off in Mexico City on 11th June. Mexico beat South Africa. The game was unremarkable aside from three red cards but the atmosphere was fitting for such an occasion. It was however, as not reported on ITV, for the few not the many. Standard tickets cost £750 which is the average monthly wage in Mexico.

The tournament might well have been better if it had been played in Mexico and Canada only but as it is the majority of the 104 games will be played in the US. Since Trump has never heard of sports washing who knows if it will manage to get to the Final.

As the Round of 32 has been reached its become clear that there are two World Cups. Trump has stayed away so far. Harassment of players and officials, Iran being a prime example, has been a deplorable feature. On the other hand as Simon Kuper argues in the Financial Times (27^th June) there is also a fan led World Cup, with supporters of teams in the stadiums- Scotland being an obvious UK focused example- but also with watch parties and big screens.

The Men’s Football World Cup is of course a global event with a global audience and wall to wall media coverage.

Meanwhile another World Cup is reaching its conclusion as England Women beat the current holders New Zealand at The Oval on 27^th June as part of the T20 series that will end with a Final at Lords on July 5th. There was a capacity 21,018 crowd despite the fact that England Men were playing in the football World Cup on the same evening.

Media coverage is of course minimal. The Times manages a column by Elizabeth Ammon.

Yet the tournament has a global reach with India playing Pakistan a game which usually attracts the biggest screen based global audience of any sport.

The whole thing is screened on Sky and on ICC.TV and radio commentary is on Radio 5 via Test Match Special.

A World Cup without the machismo

Beard Liberation Front

1st July

With two goals against DRC to see England progress to the last 16 of the World Cup, Harry Kane has taken his tally so far to five goals.

While the focus is on the Golden Boot, the number of goals scored where players like Messi and Mbappe are in competition, the Beard Liberation Front say that in modern football the Golden Beard is as important as the Boot.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett, said Beard Power is an under appreciated and under analysed part of the World Cup and Harry Kane is a leading exponent of it.

This Editorial on the Trent Bridge Test which England lost to New Zealand was posted by @michaelappleton on Twitter.

It provides an alternative view of proceedings from a NZ paper which I suspect will find an echo among at least some England cricket supporters. The irony of course is that in a previous life Brendan McCullum was a Kiwi Test cricketer of some repute

The owner of Sam Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster, Humphrey Smith has died aged 81. He was a divisive character and the most polite word my brief appreciation could find was ‘idiosyncratic’

However the BBC have published a report including comments by those who thought he was a decent man

The Mayor of Tadcaster describes him as a ‘true gentleman’ and a ‘man of principle’. Indeed like Dave Cameron and Boris Johnson he went to Eton

The York Press has a range of tributes including descriptions of Smith as ‘distinctive’ and ‘eccentric’. I’m sticking with ‘idiosyncratic’. I hope the brewery and beers survive and it is run more in keeping with the 2020s rather than the 1950s. Strangely the mobile phone ban may actually be entering the mainstream. Humphrey Smith a man before his time? Hmmmm

Sam Smith’s brewery boss Humphrey Smith dies aged 81 – BBC News

You always compare yourself to the best in your sport. The human being is like that. It’s like the baker comparing himself with the best bakers around him: who makes the best croissant, the best pain au chocolat? Of course I watch the games of other great players to see what they do. I think it pushes players to raise their level. I think other players watch me too. ‘OK, Kylian does that, I can do that too’

Mbappe talking to Simon Kuper in 2021, quoted by him in the Financial Times (29th June 2026)

Mbappe is a contender for the player who will score the most goals at the 2026 World Cup. He is currently leading the competition for the Golden Boot

The site of the Griffin pub

Burnham plans a No.10 of the North in Ancoats, where the world’s first working class political party was formed in 1840

Andy Burnham has revealed plans to set up a No.10 Downing St of the North in Ancoats in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/30/burnham-no-10-north-ancoats-manchester?CMP=share_btn_url

185 years ago the world’s first working-class party was formed at a meeting in a Manchester pub

The National Charter Association, the first working class party anywhere in the world, was formed at a delegate meeting which began 186 years ago on 20th July 1840.

The NCA provided an organised structure to attempts to win the vote for working men around the Six Points of the People’s Charter.

It had an elected provisional Executive, and a branch structure with a paid membership. It lasted until 1860.

The concept of a trade union focused party came much later in the nineteenth century, although the NCA did work with the trade unions of the day which were often Chartist focused. The NCA did however encompass a wide range of views from moderate Parliamentary reformers to those who supported a socialist revolution such a George Julian Harney.

The meeting took place in the Griffin pub in Great Ancoats St, Manchester. The pub dated from 1791 and was closed in 2005 by which time it was known as the Land O Cakes. It is now the Bem Brasil restaurant*

Perhaps typically of how much of Britain’s working class history is either forgotten or not remembered at all I don’t believe there is any current plaque on or near the spot to mark the event.

*thanks to @gwilty200 for info on what the pub is now

Who attended (the conference started on a Monday)

Source: Manchester Conference 1840 | chartist ancestors

The following names are those of the delegates to that first Manchester conference (source: History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854, by R.G.Gammage ).

John Arran and Joseph Hatfield, West Riding of Yorkshire.
James Leach and James Taylor, South Lancashire.
J.Deegan, Staleybridge and Liverpool.
David John, Merthyr Tydvil and Monmouth.
J.B.Hanson, Carlisle.
W.Tillman, Manchester.
George Halton, Preston.
Samuel Lees, Stockport.
Richard Littler, Salford.
Mr Andrew, Glossop.
Mr Lowe, Bolton.
Samuel Royse, Hyde.
William Morgan, Bristol, Bath and Cheltenham.
James Cooke, Leigh.
George Black, Nottingham.
James Williams, Sunderland.
Thomas Rayner Smart, Leicester and Northampton.
James Taylor, Loughborough.
Richard Spurr, London.
Richard Hartley, Colne.

What the meeting decided

A NCA Executive Council, consisting of seven full-time, paid members, was responsible for the co-ordination of the national Chartist movement.

• The general secretary was to be paid £2 a week, and members of the executive were to receive 30 shillings a week while they were sitting.
• The Executive Council was to be elected annually by a ballot of all NCA members with each county being able to nominate one candidate.
• Members of the NCA had to sign a declaration agreeing to the Association’s principles and buy a 2d quarterly membership card. Where possible members were organised locally into classes of ten under a class leader who was responsible for collecting each member’s 1d subscription.

Classes were grouped into wards or divisions and monthly ward meetings heard reports from class leaders.

• There was to be a ‘collector’ for each ward responsible for forwarding subscriptions to the National Executive.
• The membership was divided into classes of ten, whose leaders fed into was, town, ‘county and riding’ that had its own councils with officers elected democratically.
• There were to be local branches, and an annually elected general council and an executive.
• Half of the money collected by local branches was to be at the disposal of the executive and plans were formulated to stand Chartist candidates at the next general election.

The York Press has reported the death of Humphrey Smith the owner of Sam Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster at 81.

Smith, possibly the only modern brewery owner to have gone to Eton, was noted for his idiosyncratic approach to more or less everything.

Mobile phones, dogs and children were banned from his pubs, when they were open. Around half are currently shut.

One cask beer was produced OBB, occasionally supplemented by a strong Stingo.

Prices were sharp, except in Sam Smith’s London Estate

His Wiki entry notes that he held ‘conservative views’

It might be hoped that with Humphrey Smith’s death Sam Smiths might at least consider entering the twenty-first century

Humphrey Smith (businessman) – Wikipedia

Humphrey Smith of Tadcaster’s Sam Smith’s Brewery dies at 81 | York Press