Kmflett's Blog

31st December

Justin & Lillian: can the ruling class be trusted?

After the horse affair Justin and Lillian spent Christmas apart. Justin has told Brian that he ate a whole chocolate log. Lillian returned after Christmas and spent her time being grumpy in the Bull. Eventually, obviously in the Bull Lillian and Justin got together and she agreed that she could trust him again. A bad idea because neither of them are to be trusted.

On Trees

A tree has fallen on Emma’s car requiring the use of a chain saw and a further discussion about a new career as a tree surgeon. A good ambition perhaps but is it possible in Sunak’s Britain?

Lunch at the Vets

Alistair and Denise have been out to eat a sandwich. It was cold,so they returned to the vets. Later they agreed that their relationship must remain strictly professional. Don’t they have a shower at the vets.

Harry

Harry has met Brian and Kate and has been approved a suitable match for a junior member of the Ambridge ruling class (Alice). Meanwhile Chris has got Martha a pony for Christmas. Alice is unsure what Chris is up to,as he usually is himself

In Other News

Brian & Kate plan to share a house. The dream team of 2024

The Times (27th November) revealed that 96 sitting MPs have been given Knighthoods or Damehoods since the Tories took Office in 2010. Between 1997 and 2010 when Labour was in Office the figure was just eleven.

Recipients include Rees Mogg, Fabricant, Patel and Williamson.

The Knighthoods have been mostly handed out as sinecures to keep MPs on side,rather than for any public service they have performed. Its strongly reminiscent of the corrupt political system before the 1832 Reform Act

The 2023 New Years Honours List saw yet more Tory Knighhoods. Indeed every Tory MP elected before 1997 (except Nigel Evans) has now been given a gong

Sir Tim Martin & Old Corruption

The Knighthood of the public face of Wetherspoons, Tim Martin, is a further sign both that the Honour System needs to be abolished and how the Tories operate a system of Old Corruption.

Martin who is reported to have donated money to the Tories is apparently getting a gong for his services to Brexit. Indeed he had a walk on part in the Farage/Johnson Vote Leave show.

Old Corruption was the political system that operated before the 1832 Reform Act where people got political preference for favours they had done, because of who they were, rather than what they had done.

Martin’s Knighthood will set off the usual crowd of Wetherspoons-phobics.

Its certainly true that Spoons does not recognise a trade union and it should. But because Martin has a right-wing public presence doesn’t mean that other large pub companies are somehow more virtuous. They are not.

Further the reality is that compared to many pubs the drinkers to be found in most Wetherspoons represent a better mix of British society than can be found in other hostelries. That was what Martin’s original model, going back 45 years, set out to achieve. The fact that the man himself has managed to tarnish it is a regrettable reality.

29th December

Beard Liberation Front

29th December

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has disassociated itself from comments made by Tory MP for Bury North James Daly. He told the I Paper that his constituency had ‘crap’ parents responsible for bringing up children in an unsatisfactory manner.

He is the latest Tory MP to hold voters in contempt.

Tory MPs James Cleverley and Jonathan Gullis have been excluded from any support of the BLF.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, James Daly has brought the hirsute into disrepute.The Beard Liberation Front unreservedly disassociates itself from his comments

The present Government has done and is doing some things that appear bizarre now, never mind what they will look like to historians (giving a knighthood to Tim Martin is a footnote).

However Government papers released by the National Archives have painted a distinctly odd geography of New Labour, apparently centred around Blair.

There was a proposal to relocate the then Premiership football team Wimbledon FC to Belfast and change its name to Belfast United (it eventually ended in Milton Keynes as the obscure MK Dons). This didn’t happen.

There was also a proposal to hold people seeking asylum in a camp on the Isle of Mull, these days known for a whisky distillery and a creamery that makes excellent cheddar cheese. That didn’t happen further.

Its a reflection of the frustrations that Blair felt when his ideas didn’t happen. Before too long of course he gave up reimagining UK geography and moved on to a global scale with results we are still living with

Was Wimbledon FC the only thing Blair wanted to relocate to Ireland?

Government papers released by the National Archives have revealed that in the late 1990s Tony Blair discussed a plan to move Wimbledon FC, than a Premiership team to Belfast and rename it.

The clubs rogue owner Sam Hammam was frustrated at being unable to redevelop the Plough Lane site in South-West London and eventually the club moved to Milton Keynes in 2004 and became the now obscure MK Dons.

Meanwhile fans formed AFC Wimbledon which despite official disapproval has reclaimed a place in the football league and plays at a new stadium situated close to the original.

Blair’s idea mirrors other grand plans for changing things- Iraq being a key example. He told the Financial Times before Christmas that he had recently met Benjamin Netanyahu a long time acquaintance.

It begs the question of whether it was just the football club Blair wanted to relocate. Were the fans also to be moved and see it might have been difficult to identify all of them, perhaps the whole of south-west London too.

Perhaps later official papers will reveal what Blair did plan for the future of south-west London. In the meantime the fans who formed AFC Wimbledon deserve a far more positive mention in the history of the New Labour years than Blair does himself.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67832071

Beard Liberation Front

27th December. Embargoed until 8pm

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @kmflett

North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll named Beard of the Year 2023

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll has been voted Beard of the Year 2023.

He shaved author and broadcaster Michael Rosen 43% to 31% in the final on-line Beard Off vote.

The winners of each of the three Close Shave votes went to the Beard Off Final, together with the highest placed runner up.

Eric Cantona won the first round, Jamie Driscoll the second and Michael Rosen the third. Humza Yousaf was the highest placed second place.

The long running contest, in recent times determined by on-line polls- looks for the individual who has promoted the  most positive image of beards during the year.

To qualify for inclusion a beard must have been worn for the majority of the calendar year but it is not essential that a beard is worn during the vote.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we congratulate Jamie Driscoll who has been a model of hirsute decency in public life in 2023. We commiserate with Michael Rosen who for the second year running has just been shaved for the coveted annual honour

Beard of the Year 2023 Final Beard Off List

Michael Rosen, author & Arsenal fan

Jamie Driscoll, politician

Eric Cantona, personality

Humza Yousaf, politician

Jamie Driscoll said: This is without doubt the highest honour of my beardy career so far. Thanks to Michael, Eric, and Humza – the competition was razor sharp. I’d like to thank my coach, my parents, and above all, Ali from Dene Barbers at the bottom of my street. I look forward to representing Great Britain at the Beard Olympics in Paris next summer

Michael Rosen said Congratulations and mazel tov to Jamie Driscoll. I will work hard on my whiskers in 2024 to see if I can contribute to this great competition again.

From E P Thompson to Jacques Delors: what kind of Europe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Delors

Jacques Delors who has died at 98 was a member of the French Socialist Party and a Minister from 1974. He’s better known as the BBC have reported as the architect of the EU.

Delors promoted the idea of a single European market, the Euro, a central bank and with all that free movement of labour and people within (but not into and out of) Europe. Delors idea was a managed market where the conditions of exploitation of labour were standardised. That meant of course protections for workers too.

Delors promoted a European identity over individual nation states. The current state of the EU suggests this was not the route to a social democratic Europe Delors perhaps thought it could be.

There were other models of how a genuinely socialist Europe could work together where the market was not a central factor

In 1975 the late historian E P Thompson wrote a piece, Going into Europe, in the pre-Murdoch Sunday Times, about the EEC Referendum of that year. It voted 2-1 to keep Britain in the EEC now the expanded  EU.

Thompson was not a fan but suggested instead how a real internationlist Europe could be configured. 45 years on some bits  are dated but the idea remains of interest, particularly one hopes to the left:

But the opportunity is there, within the logic of our past itinerary.  The lines of British culture still run vigourously to that point of change where our traditions and organizations cease to be defensive and become affirmative forces: the country becomes our own. To make that leap, from a market to a society, requires that our people maintain, for a little longer, their own sense of identity, and understanding of the democratic procedures available to them. It requires also the holding open of every international option: for trade with the developing world, for dialogue with the Communist world, for informal intellectual exchange.

It is fear of this transition – of Money toppled from power – which makes our good bourgeois contort his face into an unlikely expression of internationalism. And, equally, the effecting of this transition is the most substantial contribution to internationalism which our people could make.

That is what we could offer to the European dialogue. And to a Europe which includes Oslo and Belgrade. Long, very long after that, a true idea of ‘Europe’ might return: as a cautious federation of socialist states.  It will develop slowly, tetchily, with jealous regard for individual identities. And so it should.

Despite reports that Charles wants to reduce the numbers of Royals a larger than usual number of hangers on made it to Sandringham for Christmas Day.

What they ate is not officially published but can be pieced together by scrutinising the bourgeois press

Christmas breakfast: Women: fruit, half a grapefruit, toast, coffee served in their rooms. Men: full English in the dining room

Christmas lunch: Pre lunch drinks, gin & Dubbonet, Local Turkey from Scoles in Dersingham, carved by the Head Chef; Mashed & Roast Potatoes, chesnut & sage & onion stuffing, bread sauce, sprouts,parsnips, carrots. NO pigs in blankets; Christmas Pudding doused in brandy and lit by the Chief Steward

Evening buffet: stuffed boars head, ox tongue, roast and boiled hams

Bon Appetit and by the way what cost of living crisis?

The BBC had nine out of the ten most popular TV programmes on Christmas Day. Its a testament to the place public service broadcasting has in national life.

That said ratings are not what they were. Partly because the way people watch has changed. The figures are overnight ratings. They will be higher once on-line (in various formats) are added on.

King Charles Christmas broadcast was top of the pops. It had 5.9m viewers. The Strictly Christmas Special was second with 5.3m.

While the audience for Strictly was more or less level with 2022 the audience for Charles declined from 8.1m to 5.9m. Of course in 2022 there were special circumstances. It was his first Christmas broadcast as King and it was shortly after the death of the Queen.

Even so to lose 25% of the audience in a year suggests that many people had things to think about at 3pm on Christmas Day…