Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

25th September

Contact keith flett 07803 167266

Beard Friendly Party Conference 2023: Can Liberal Democrats win for first time since 2014?

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with the Party Conference season underway as the Liberal Democrats meet in Bournemouth the battle has been well and truly joined again in the poll for the ‘Most Beard Friendly Party Conference’.

The LibDems are the traditional party of beard and sandal wearers but their conference last won the Beard Friendly title in 2014

The BLF has observers watching each of the main conferences, LibDems in Bournemouth, Labour in Liverpool and the Tories in Manchester with the winner announced on October 11th the final day of the Labour conference.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett, this is the first year since 2019 that all three UK wide parties with the most seats in Parliament have held an autumn conference. The LibDem Conference has seen some credible beards at the rostrum but how beard friendly it is in comparison to the Tories and Labour remains to be seen

Arsenal played Spurs at the Emirates on Sunday in the traditional North London Derby fixture. The game ended as a 2-2 draw. Yet if one looks at coverage in the media- I checked the Guardian, the I Paper and The Times all seemed to think Spurs had somehow ‘won’ the game.

Clearly they didn’t so how can we understand this beyond the usual football commentary hyperbole. To do so we need to move beyond the sports obsession with statistics and look at an historical concept or two.

We are looking at what historians might term the long Premiership Season of 2023.

Towards the end of September six matches have been played but the reference points tend to be those of the 2022 season. Arsenal came second in 22/23 so the reference here is whether they can maintain that form and perhaps challenge for the title. In that frame they might have been expected to beat Spurs who came eighth, after a poor season in which they changed manager (again). Harry Kane also departed and Ange Costecoglou arrived from Celtic with an impressive record but no Premiership experience. So perhaps Spurs were expected to lose based on the frame of the Long 2022/23 Season which is still with us.

The concept of historical hangovers is well known one. The Institute of Historical Research has a Long Eighteenth Century seminar while Eric Hobsbawm amongst others thought that the nineteenth century ended with the start of World War One in 1914. Based on that the Twentieth Century may be seen to have ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth 11 in 2022.

So does the Arsenal-Spurs draw (which is what was, not a victory for either side) mark the end of the Long Premiership Season of 2022-23? Historians might suggest that it is as yet too early to say

King Charles a Year On: Constitutional Monarchy or Autocracy

Following events in 1649 and 1688 Britain is Constitutional Monarchy. The King or Queen rule through Parliament not via God.

That should mean an accountable and democratic monarchy but that is not what we have.

Andrew Lownie is trying to write a book about Prince Andrew. This does not appear to focus on Woking but an account of his life.

In general official papers are opened the Public Record Office at Kew after 20 years now.

However Andrew’s papers will not be open for research until 105 years after his birth.

The same applies to most other Royals.

Various reasons for this including national security are advanced. The reality remains that the Monarchy is not open to public scrutiny or accountability even though its funded largely through public money.

Meanwhile the Guardian has reported (25^th Sept) that the papers of Queen Elizabeth 11 will be sorted through by a retired Royal Footman before being transferred, suitably weeded, to the Royal Archive.

I thought the official line was that ALL of British history should be recorded not just the bits a Royal footman thinks are suitable

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/24/queen-elizabeth-letters-entrusted-to-loyal-aide

King Charlie & Queen Camilla attended a banquet at the Palace of Versailles in September 2023 hosted by President Macron. There were 150 guests including Mick Jagger and Hugh Grant

The Times described it as ‘frugal’ with only three courses but what else would one expect from a purveyor of neo-liberalism like Macron. However The Times (31st July) has now revealed that the total cost was 474,851 Euros

The starter was Blue Lobster, a rarer and more tasty variant which however is red once cooked. A sort of Starmer in reverse type dish

The main course was Bresse Chicken. A French speciality, again tastier than most with more dark than white meat, served with seasonal Mushrooms

Dessert was Macaroons. See the Great British Bake Off, The Professionals

The starter and main were cooked by three star Michelin chefs (well their operatives anyway) and the macaroons were the work of France’s top pattisier.

The food cost 166,193 Euros.

Drinks included a 2013 Pol Roger ‘Winston Churchill’ champagne and wines in total cost 42,515 Euros.

In addition 100,428 Euros were spent on waiters and 14,806 Euros on tablecloths and flowers.

Perhaps a case of austerity for the many but not the few

The Ambridge Socialist

24^th September

Career Opportunities: Join a Union

It has been a week of career opportunities in Ambridge.

Freddie after realising that he has no future as a DJ, has taken Vince’s offer to become a trainee manager at the abbatoir.

Meanwhile Natasha and Village Idiot Tom have implemented their plan to take direct control of the tea room. It will be fully organic and up market. Is there a market for such an offering in Ambridge when most residents seem happy with crisps at the Bull or something from the Village Shop?

In all cases the Ambridge Socialist has an important message. Fallon and Emma need to join Unite Hospitality and Freddie needs to join the GMB. Relying on Natasha and Vince to play fair should not be left to chance.

Stella, Pip and Rooth too

The saga of Stella and Pip’s relationship and how Daveed and Rooth will cope with it continues. There has been a Friday evening meeting at The Bull. Crisps were consumed.

Flower& Produce Show: Class War deflected

Daveed brought a cow & sold burgers. A few minor squabbles broke out but the class war of previous years was missing. Like the old mole of revolution though class war in Ambridge pops up in the most unexpected places.

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release 23^rd September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners call for Gillette apology over refugee shaving test

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has called for Gillette to apologise after reports that it has been involved in providing unscientific ‘shaving’ tests to prove the age of male refugees coming to Britain.

The Government has an, often unfounded, belief that some refugees claim to be minors when they are in fact adults.

Gillette had provided a report on the age men start shaving and this was cited as evidence in the case of an Afghan refugee who the Government claimed wrongly was an adult rather than a minor.

The judge in the case rightly dismissed such evidence as ‘subjective’

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we mostly take a light-hearted view of all matters hirsute but this is a serious matter. Gillette need to apologise for their involvement in this matter and make it clear that shaving reports cannot and should not be used to determine someone’s age.

Socialist History Seminars Autumn 2023: London: Chartism in 1848; Lenin in 1900s

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

Free on Zoom. Book here: https://www.history.ac.uk/events/chartism-london-1848

Rugby: William Webb Ellis, his role in the class struggle Tony Collins Monday 23rd October 5.30pm

In person. Room 301 Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, WC!

The Spark That Lit the Flame. Lenin in London Robert Henderson Monday 6th November 5.30pm. Free on Zoom

The Making of the English Working Class at 60. Roundtable discussion  Logie Barrow, Keith Flett  Monday 20th November Time:              5.30pm. Free on Zoom

Organised by the London Socialist Historians Group. More details contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

Chris Packham, Breaking the Law & Repertoires of Contention

Chris Packham fronted a programme on climate protest on Channel 4 this week.

The first thing that needs to be said is solidarity with those who are protesting in a range of ways. Protest on climate is essential.

The question Packham raised rightly is whether protest is being effective and what kind of protest might work.

There was and should be no definitive answer. It’s a question of democratic discussion and decision.

Packham looked at whether protests from Just Stop Oil, essentially protest as stunts, requiring a good deal of bravery from protesters, really work. He talked to those who felt protest was better focused at the power of capital and sabotage. There was also a nod to non-violent mass protest.

He talked to a couple of Tory Peers one sceptical on climate change, the other not. Neither were fans of protest.

It was in short a bit one dimensional. Charles Tilly’s Repertoire of Protest sees an escalating hierarchy of protest from petition to riot and revolution. In reality though various strategies can co-exist and have differential impacts dependant on context.

While there may not be much hope in serious Parliamentary action on climate a discussion with Labour and Green Party persons would have been useful and a recognition that Labour’s Green New Deal was a coherent policy and might still be.

There was also a focus on individual protest and civil disobedience. Both realistic and potentially effective but what of collective action, of union organisation and strikes on climate issues. What about a recognition that several unions in the UK both represent workers in areas which focus on climate and regularly promote action around them?

Good on Chris Packham for raising questions. What is to be done is an urgent question

When Diane Abbott was elected along with the late Bernie Grant for two adjoining North London Constituencies, my own of Tottenham and Hackney North and Stoke Newington, at the 1987 Election then Labour leader Neil Kinnock welcomed it as a significant advance for Labour’s ability to represent all sections of the electorate. The apparent decision to deselect Diane Abbott as a Labour candidate by Executive diktat reflects a Party not going forward in its approach to diversity and equality but back to the bad old days when such matters were deliberately consigned to the margins.

The battles of the 1980s need to be fought again in the 2020s.

Meanwhile, the thought occurs, does changed Labour hate North London?

Rupert Murdoch took a paper born in the Great labour Unrest of 1910-14 & turned it into the S*n

Rupert Murdoch who is 92 has announced his retirement. Before we raise a celebratory glass his media empire will of course continue and it would be surprising if his thoughts did not influence the Editorial positions of the Times and the S*n

Murdoch has a considerable degree of complicity for the democratic deficits that characterise Britain in 2023

He brought the S*n from the owners of the Daily Mirror in 1969. It was then a Labour supporting paper and the first interview was with Labour PM Harold Wilson. Murdoch turned it into Tory gutter press.

It reflects issues which still maintain on the British left today. Namely beyond papers like the Morning Star and Socialist Worker an inability to have a mass media presence of its own.

The S*n has only become the paper of that name in 1964 when a study by Mark Abrams, a forerunner of New Labour, decided that its working-class image and readership needing modernising.

Before then the paper had been called the Daily Herald. Born as part of the Great Unrest in 1912 a period of huge working class militancy, it became weekly during the First World War, edited by George Lansbury, later to be Labour leader.

By 1922 the paper was owned by the TUC as the daily paper of the labour movement and a supporter of the Labour Party. In 1930 the TUC sold a 51% stake to the publisher Odhams seeking to professionalise the paper and indeed before World War Two it had sales of two million.

By 1961 the TUC ahd withdrawn and the paper became part of  the Mirror stable.

Its readership was overwhelming working class although its best not to romanticise. A clear majority were men as in the ‘trade unionists and their wives’ genre.

Even so Murdoch’s ability to take the paper and its history and turn it into the precise opposite of everything it stood for should not be forgotten or forgiven