Kmflett's Blog

Israel resumes bombing. People power can change things where Governments wont act

Oct 27th 1968 on Vietnam, 15th February 2003 on Iraq to 2023 on Gaza. People Power worries the State

Oct 27th 1968 on Vietnam, 15th February 2003 on Iraq, to Nov 11th 2023 on Gaza. People Power worries the State

On 27th October 1968 100,000 demonstrators marched to Hyde Park to protest the war in Vietnam. It was organised by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Tariq Ali one of the organisers was clear that the route deliberately avoided going to the US Embassy, then in Grosvenor Square. The aim of the march was not to have a punch up with the police, but a public display of large numbers protesting peacefully against war.

This did not stop the Times claiming that the march was really about violent revolt

‘A small army of militant extremists plan to seize control of certain highly sensitive installations and buildings in central London next month while 6,000 Met policemen are busy controlling an estimated crowd of 100,000 anti-Vietnam war demonstrators’

Times 5th September 1968

It was not of course, although a group of Maoist protesters did engage with police in Grosvenor Square, separate to the main march.

On 15th February 2003 well over a million people marched to Hyde Park to protest about war with Iraq. The protest was organised by the Stop the War Coalition and a coalition including the Muslim Association of Britain and CND. Apparently the march coincided with a heightened terror alert requiring the deployment of tanks at Heathrow. There were also arguments about whether Hyde Park could be used at all.

After the dreadful events of October 7th successive marches involving very large numbers of people have protested against military destruction in Gaza by the Israeli Army, with thousands of civilians dead and injured. The marches have been organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition CND and the Muslim Association of Britain and the aim is a mass peaceful show of solidarity with Gaza. The focus being a ceasefire, with the release of hostages and prisoners on both sides and genuine movement to creating a Palestinian State, independently and democratically governed.

The Government has tried and failed to get it banned and when she was Home Secretary Braverman tried to incite far right groups to cause trouble, with some success on 11^th November.

Historically there are two key points about all these marches. Firstly they are all about Britain’s foreign policy and in particular the link between the British Government, of which ever party and the US on wars. Secondly that they have all been organised by coalitions from below without the official support of unions or Labour, although no doubt many trade unionists and Labour supporters have been and will be involved in all of them.

People Power on the streets worries Westminster and has done for 55 years now. Yet the ability of official politics to understand and relate to the reasons for thousands taking to the streets remains absent.

39th Pigs Ear Beer Festival, Round Chapel Hackney underlines the importance of cask beer

I managed a couple of visits to the 39th Pigs Beer Festival this week, organised by City and East London CAMRA.

It was the 39th Pigs Ear and I’ve been at nearly all of them, from the Bethnal Green days to Stratford and now Hackney. The grade 2 listed Round Chapel does make a great venue, although one might note some accessibility issues. There are lots of steps.

It was one of the best cask beer ranges I’ve drunk recently(the Great British Beer Festival not withstanding) in a world where cans from bottle shops and craft keg (more likely to be found in uncertain times because it has a longer life than the few days for a cask) compete for the drinkers interest. As a lifelong cask beer drinker who also enjoys beer in other formats I certainly wasn’t complaining.

The beer range (cask, keykeg, cans/bottles) was excellent as ever. In recent times there are of course lots of not just London brewers but east London brewers. In that sense the two stand out beers for me were the Redemption/Kernel Victorian mild- two versions- one with the yeast of each brewery and first brewed in 2011 in the early days of craft beer.

The range of styles from ordinary bitters to stouts, porters, IPAs, sours and much else reflected how much the beer world has changed in the last 15 years or so. Aside from the Kernel/Redemption milds I enjoyed particularly Anspach and Hobday’s Christmas Pale and Five Points Gold a new beer aimed at the new duty regime with an ABV of 3.4%. Thornbridge’s Kelham Island Gold Label Barley Wine at the other end of the strength scale was also a very enjoyable third.

The point being perhaps that when keykeg first appeared at the Pigs Ear it was quite a focus. Now craft keykeg is quite widely available while well kept and interesting cask is not always quite as easy to find as it should be. In show casing it the Pigs Ear is doing a valuable job. Hard work for the volunteers but enjoyable for the drinker

There was plenty of space and I didn’t feel uncomfortable (plenty of seating down and upstairs) Of  course the attendance could always be more diverse although I have no personal issues with senior men with beards.

The 39^th Pigs Ear Beer Festival is at the Round Chapel Hackney until Saturday 2^nd December

London Socialist Historians

1^st December

Starmer says his Labour Party has ‘Ode to Joy’ as its anthem. Poll suggests most prefer the Red Flag

Keir Starmer recently told Classic FM (Times 25^th November) that the piece of music that best sums up his Labour Party is Beethoven’s Symphony No.9. the Ode to Joy. Starmer said that the combination of choral voices and orchestra was very Labour. He went on that the music has a ‘sense of destiny and is hugely optimistic.

The London Socialist Historians Group, a network of socialist historians ran a snap Twitter poll to see what its supporters thought of Sir Keir’s choice.

Just 13.5% backed Ode To Joy which however was better than the 4% who preferred Things Can Only Get Better. 28.2% backed Billy Bragg’s There is Power in a Union but the majority of 49.4% backed the traditional Red Flag.

Ode to Joy has been the EU anthem since the 1980s but according to the report Starmer didn’t know this or at least didn’t think it was relevant.

December 1st. World AIDS Day: Remembering the ‘other’ pandemic

December 1st is World AIDS Day when time is taken to remember the many millions who have died and,(in lesser numbers) continue to die of the illness.

Cases and deaths still occur in Britain from AIDS but they are relatively limited. There remains no cure or completely effective vaccine against AIDS but there are treatments that can very significantly increase life expectancy.

I’ll take time to recall several friends who did die of AIDS, far too young, in the 1980s before it became understood how important it was to keep to ‘safe sex’ practices.

In 2023  AIDS is a chronic illness in the UK rather than a pandemic but there remain significant numbers of cases and deaths around the world which impact, as is more or less always the case, the poor more than the rich and in areas where early treatment is less easily available.

In the context of COVID-19 it is interesting to note the similarities with AIDS and the downsides.

The origins of AIDS remain unclear but the line that it was deliberately started by scientists (American rather than Chinese in this case) is fanciful. Certainly transmission from the animal world appears a possibility but there are numbers of histories and theories

There were a number of false stories about how AIDS could be acquired including from toilet seats and through kissing mostly underwritten by a considerable level of homophobia, although AIDS is by no means entirely confined to gay men.

Likewise and this may also seem familiar there were those who denied that AIDS was a significant or noteworthy issue at all, the most well-known UK exponent of this was Dr Michael Fitzpatrick who argued that AIDS prevention was an industry and the scale of illness was vastly overstated.

Keeping in mind this December 1st that COVID is not the only pandemic around in the world- TB and Cholera remain killers too-is a sobering thought.

Tony Blair & the old Battersea Chartists of the 1880s

Tony Blair has been making another of his rare but regular political interventions. This time he was praising Henry Kissinger who has died at 100. Many regard Kissinger as one of the most significant post-1945 warmongers which no doubt is why Blair is praising him. Of course other perspectives on Kissinger are available and no doubt Blair has these in mind too,hoping eventually to be seen as a great statesman

Another recent intervention, in discussion with the Financial Times in September saw Blair reassuring that he was not Keir Starmer’s back seat driver. He went on to argue that Labour seemed like a failed political project given how many years it had not been in Government since 1900. Even so he argued, again, that elections are won from the political centre, and his perpetual favourite that technological innovation is the way forward. He means ID Cards although we await his X account still.

The phenomenon of the perpetually reappearing ex-leader is not unique to Labour. A whole chauffeur driven car,or perhaps a helicopter, full of ex-Tory leaders is available for comment.

However there is also a place in labour history for historical hangovers.

Some of the Chartists of the 1840s were still to be found active in a revived socialist politics in the 1880s. They were primarily followers of the Chartist Bronterre O’Brien who believed that currency reform was central to a fairer society.

W S Sanders in his book Early Socialist Days, recalled branch life in the Battersea branch of Britain’s first Marxist organisation the Social Democratic Federation in the 1880s. The demands of the People’s Charter of 1838, suitably tweaked, were very much part of the SDF’s politics. The O’Brienite currency theory much less so.

Sanders notes that the old Chartists were seen as survivors from another age, listened to with interest by some, with frustration by others, but ultimately an anachronism.

Blair in 2023 is heading to the same place. Hopefully the track record of winning elections is not.

Beard Liberation Front

30^th November

Tribute paid to iconic pre-New Labour era beard wearer Alistair Darling

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to Alistair Darling who has died at 70. He was an iconic beard wearer in the pre-New Labour era.

His memoirs published in 2011 failed to shed on light on the mysterious disappearance of his trademark beard at some stage during 2001.

In the 1990s Darling was one of Labour’s most prominent beards. However as he rose to Ministerial prominence after 1997 pressure appears to have been applied to make him a clean shaven revisionist.

While the reasons for the disappearance of his beard is one of the most important issues in Darling’s life his memoir related entirely to his post-beard political career.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, It’s a matter of regret that Alistair Darling never came clean on why his beard disappeared. The fact remains that pre-New Labour he was one of the most iconic of beard wearers.

London Socialist Historians

30^th November

Sheila Rowbotham on E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class at 60

Sheila Rowbotham has written about her relationship with Dorothy and Edward Thompson in her memoirs. It covered an extended period from when Edward was writing the Making in the early 1960s to Rowbotham’s own ground breaking socialist feminist histories from the late 1960s onwards.

On Radio 3 at 22.45 on Monday 4^th December Rowbotham discussed the continuing influence of the Making sixty years on.

She recalled the times she met the Thompson’s in Halifax and her familarity with many of the locations in the book, growing up in Yorkshire. She was critical of the absence of women in the Making noting that in the 1950s and early 60s Thompson’s sources were mainly of male activists. She also reflected on the lack of a focus on slavery. She concluded though that while the book at sixty may be outdated in some ways, the approach Thompson took, of history from below with a focus on the activity of ordinary people was still an influential one.

Rowbotham’s commentary can be heard on BBC Sounds at the link below. There are four more programmes this week looking at issues such as what Thompson learnt as an adult education tutor, the absence of slavery in the book, and the impact of Thompson’s break from the Communist Party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001svv9

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

The Radio 3 summary of the programme is here:

On reading The Making of the English Working Class

The Enormous Condescension of Posterity

Sixty years after it was first published, five essayists reflect on the legacy, ideas and personal inspiration of The Making of the English Working Class – and plot its place in the present day.

EP Thompson’s landmark social history, The Making of the English Working Class, is a book that changed lives. In an academic world where history was primarily concerned with power and political reform, EP Thompson sought to rescue working people from, as he put it, “the enormous condescension of posterity”.

It’s a book that lies at the root of contemporary social history, of cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, where, in the years after its publication, the idea of agency – the ‘making’ of the title – came to be a defining touchstone in thinking about culture and society. And it was popular too, even if its easily recognisable blue Pelican covers – and almost 1,000 pages – were possibly more dipped into than read cover to cover.

The writer and historian Sheila Rowbotham first met Edward and Dorothy Thompson in 1962, a year before the publication of The Making of the English Working Class. In this essay, she remembers their catalytic influence on her own life and work – and the continuing relevance of the book she first read in proof form as a student.

Sheila Rowbotham is a historian of feminism and radical social movements. She has published memoirs of her life in the 1970s and 1980s.

According to extracts from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries disclosed at the Covid Inquiry Boris Johnson thought those off work in the summer of 2021 with Long Covid were workshy malingerers

Johnson is an expert. When he was Editor of the Spectator in the early 2000s according to Sonia Purcnell in Just Boris he would ‘habitually not answer the phone, commission articles meet advertisers or even his own deadline..

Rishi Sunak has started another Tory Culture War on what British colonial history calls the ‘Elgin Marbles’ plundered by the British and placed in the British Museum.

Its an odd Culture War because Sunak, Starmer and George Osborne at the BM all essentially agree that the Marbles should not be returned to Greece.

I had many disagreements with Christopher Hitchens in his later years but his book on the Parthenon Marbles (2008) remains an eloquent argument for their return.

He argues in the book

‘an opportunity to redress an old injustice and restore an ancient beauty and symmetry..many, many British citizens will never regard the case as closed until the restoration, restitution, reparation or, if you like, reunification is complete

Farage, Populism & I’m a Celeb. Not that Popular

Simon Jenkins writing in the Guardian (30^th November) argued that the 2024  General Election is set to be toxic with most parties trying to out do each other with racist policies on migration. Given that Keir Starmer’s off the cuff comments on the latest migration figures were notably more hyperbolic than the current Tory Home Secretary and a Times Editorial on the subject, Jenkins has a point.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/27/general-election-most-toxic-ever-farage-reform-uk

Of course Starmer will never be a populist. Jenkins has in mind the hard to far right Reform Party currently sort of led by Richard Tice. Reform has been in the news currently around a story (denied) that it offered 30p Lee Anderson money to defect from the Tories. Tice has said that unlike the 2019 Election Reform candidates won’t stand down in Tory seats. Given that the party polled above 5% in some recent Parliamentary By-Elections that could be trouble for the Tories and perhaps Labour too.

The real leader of Reform is Farage who Jenkins styles as a populist. Farage himself knows that he deeply divides opinion but as the example of Holland suggests that isn’t a complete bar to his political ambitions.

Farage has brrn in the Australian jungle being paid £1.5 to appear on I’m A Celebrity and eating penis pizza (what’s wrong with pineapple). His presence however far from being populist or even popular seems to have seen the shows ratings plunge by a couple of million with viewers and advertisers departing thanks to Farage. The shows hosts Ant and Dec have called for politicians to be kept off future series while the Mirror has reported that ITV bosses are trying to find ways to stop Farage droning on about politics from his Jungle HQ.

Farage made it to the final three contestants on 10th December and was the first to be eliminated with 25.8% of viewers votes. This despite the ranks of GBNews viewers and other red faced pontificators voting on the App for him to win. In short Farage was just as unsuccessful as he has been in the seven times he has stood for Parliament and lost.

Reality rarely intrudes into the worldview of the hard right where Farage’s no success like failure will be applauded

It begs the question of how popular populism is, which I suppose might be good news for Starmer