Kmflett's Blog

5th October

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say ‘soft & mushy’ conkers claim is bonkers

The Campaign for Real Conkers, which backs no rules conker playing, has said that a claim by the organisers of Sunday’s World Conker Championships that 2023 conkers are soft and squidgy is bonkers.

The claim appears to be a cover for lifting the Championships long standing ban on baking conkers.

The campaigners say they have collected conkers in several UK locations in the last week and found no evidence of softness.

Campaign for Real Conkers organiser Keith Flett said, as far as we’re concerned as ever anything goes, baked, soaked in vinegar or organic. The key thing is to get out and play the game

My beard is my refuge

Refuge from a shaven world

Refuge from suits

Refuge from shaving

My follicles are friendly

They are a refuge

KM Flett

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers has published the shortlist for the coveted Beard of Autumn Award.

Its the last of four quarterly awards before the annual Beard of the Year in December.

There will be two preliminary rounds of voting with a final Beard Off starting in early October

Beard of Autumn 2023 shortlist

Andy Parker, brewer

Ange Postecoglou, football manager

Christopher Eccleston, actor

Gary Lineker, MOTD

Tom Allen, comedian

Paul Hollywood, GBBO

Andrew Boff, politician

Herb Alpert, musician

Suella Braverman’s speech at the Tory Conference on Tuesday was made on the site of the Peterloo Massacre on Monday August 16th 1819.

Yeomanry on horseback cut down, killed and injured protesters for the vote. The Magistrate who sent the Yeomanry in William Hulton went on after the 1832 Reform Act to found the West Lancashire Conservative Association, one of the forerunners to the Tory Party.

Shelley, whose words Braverman quoted at the end of her speech was a leading opponent of the Tory Government that had backed the Peterloo Massacre.

Shelley is our history, the Yeomanry is Braverman’s history

Suella Braverman is not a fascist. She is a Tory Home Secretary. But her speech at the Tory Conference deliberately attempted to whip up racist and fascist sentiment against refugees and indeed anyone the Tories hate.

We can despair but we can also fight back. London dockers marched against the racism of Enoch Powell in 1968 and the National Front was defeated by the Anti Nazi League and Rock Agsinst Racism mobilising a powerful movement against them.

Michael Rosen’s words warn about what can happen if we don’t do that again

Fascism: I sometimes fear…

I sometimes fear that

people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress

worn by grotesques and monsters

as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.

It will restore your honour,

make you feel proud,

protect your house,

give you a job,

clean up the neighbourhood,

remind you of how great you once were,

clear out the venal and the corrupt,

remove anything you feel is unlike you…

It doesn’t walk in saying,

“Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”

Michael Rosen

New MCC President says ICEC report on discrimination in cricket ‘not deep rooted’

Mark Nicholas (Rugby school) former Hampshire cricket captain, commentator and friend of Mick Jagger has been appointed as MCC President, replacing Stephen Fry whose term of office has concluded.

The news is reported in the Telegraph together with a large number of readers comments calling Nicholas ‘Woke’.

Nicholas has three stepson who went to Eton but thinks its time for Eton v Harrow at Lords to end and for cricket to move on. He argues that the tradition has no relevance to the modern game.

On the recent ICEC report into English and Welsh cricket he is more equivocal. He is clearly sympathetic to Ian Botham’s view that he didn’t encounter issues of discrimination and feels that what issues there are, are not deep rooted. Or things can only get better. It doesn’t seem very Woke to me but this is the Telegraph

Liz Truss speech echoes Monty Python on newts

Liz Truss at yet another free ranging speech on the fringe of the Tory Conference in Manchester on Monday has complained that MPs are more interested in protecting newts than building houses. This was not (probably) an echo of the Monty Python scene(Holy Grail) where John Cleese claims he has been turned into a newt (he hadn’t).

Rather it’s a clear echo of Johnson’s newt travails

Boris Johnson’s attempt to have a 11×4m swimming pool built at his new Cotswold mansion faced issues with planning permission. The area was thought to be inhabited by great crested newts, a protected species.

When he was PM Johnson complained that newts were holding up house building schemes in a precursor to the Culture Wars.

Much of the media is bad at historical context so only a few reports of the Johnson Newt stand-off have mentioned former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Livingstone owned newts from an early age including the great crested variety before it was protected and is a noted expert on them

Johnson later capitulated and claimed he would create a Newtopia and Newt Motels as his mansion

https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-newts-ruin-swimming-pool/

However a survey found that understandably all great crested newts have fled the Johnson Estate. He can now have his pool provided as agreed with South Oxfordshire Council he plants some trees elsewhere on his land. The sort of compromise Johnson had no knowledge of while in Downing St.

Meanwhile as might be thought Truss’s newt speech was like all her others, much ado about nothing.

The search for the holy grail continues

Braverman, Peterloo, Church & King, the Archbishop of Canterbury

Media reports suggest that Suella Braverman has repeatedly turned down requests from the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss refugees.

As a letter in the Guardian on 30^th September from Anti-Nazi League founders Peter Hain and Paul Holborow underlined Braverman’s recent speech in Washington on refugees crossed a line

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/suella-bravermans-message-of-divide-and-rule-must-be-resisted

In refusing to meet Justin Welby Bravermen herself displays an ignorance or a lack of interest in the Party she claims to represent

The Magistrate who gave the order to send the Yeomanry in at Peterloo in Manchester in August 1819 was William Hulton (1787-1864).

In a review of books published to mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969 EP Thompson noted that Hutton’s mother had a prize horse called ‘Church and King’ providing a flavour of what the family was like. He noted that when it came to events like Peterloo it was not so much that Hulton would lie about what took place (he did) but that he was simply not interested in what the ‘plebs’, those fighting for the vote, said or did.

Hulton left another legacy aside from Peterloo. As EP Thompson notes in 1832 the Reform Act, a result of Peterloo in 1819, saw the Tories lose South Lancashire. Hulton was one of those who met in a beer house to form the South Lancashire Conservative Association dedicated to defending, like the family horse, Church and King.

It seems the Braverman wing of the Tories is no longer interested

That organisation was one of the forerunners of the modern Tory Party.

Beard Liberation Front

Media release 1^st October

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Power wins Ryder Cup for Europe

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Beard Power has seen Europe win the Ryder Cup against a more clean shaven US team, in Italy on Sunday.

Europe sported some of the most impressive golfing beard in Fleetwood, Lowry and Rahm.

While most major sports including football, cricket and even tennis, have embraced the beard, golf has been much slower with some leading players even looking as if they shave between holes.

However the campaigners say that with leading players such as South Africa’s Eric Van Rooyen and Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood sporting full beards golf has at last embraced the hirsute.

Golfers are able to influence air currents and hence the direction and flight of a golf ball by tweaking the position of their beard before each shot.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, golf has struggled to accept in some cases that women should play on equal terms so perhaps it is no surprise that it’s also tended towards the pogonophobic. However the victory for Beard Power at the Ryder Cup underlines how important hirsuteness is to modern golf.

Socialist History Seminar 9^th October. Catherine Howe, Chartism in London in 1848

1848 was a year of revolution across Europe, but Britain appeared to be an exception.

Catherine Howe’s book on London Chartism in 1848, 175 years ago, explores a rather different reality. The revolutionary currents and activists at work in the Spring and Summer of 1848 that caused a significant response from the State.

Christopher Clark in his recent book on 1848 (Revolutionary Spring) has argued that nowhere else in Europe was the State able to organise such a large number of police and soldiers to face down a potential revolt.

Boyd Hilton (Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know) has argued that it was the force of the State that defeated the Chartists in 1848. The reverse side of this point however is that the Chartist threat was considered significant enough to require it.

Chartism in London in 1848 Catherine Howe Monday 9th October Time: 5.30pm

Recording of the seminar

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/gLVq_YyhuMRFVTJ-IljeIupDsKVekUOvMwBBgUtKHu0IMWptrc1ZWO-VwszGmrxT.v7S2OKwXVuc1x7jK

Organised by the Socialist History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research and the London Socialist Historians Group.