Kmflett's Blog

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By 1961 the TUC ahd withdrawn and the paper became part of  the Mirror stable.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

Beard Liberation Front

21st September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that supporters are angry that Rishi Sunak plans to a proposed 10% luxury shaving tax.

The BLF has long campaigned around the point that shaving is an unnecessary activity which damages the environment in respect of the production of razors, blades and shaving foam.

It appears that while Sunak had never formally proposed a shaving tax he is now rowing back on it to appeal to perpetually clean shaven readers of the Mail and Telegraph.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, given that Keir Starmer has never had a beard we expect Labour to fully commit to shaving tax in the Manifesto.

Campaign for Real Conkers

21st September

The Campaign For Real Conkers which backs free for all conker playing has slammed a guide to conkers that has appeared in the S*n newspaper.

The Guide suggests various uses for conkers including using them to keep spiders away for which there is no real scientific basis. It also oddly thinks conkers can be used as a detergent

Only as a last step does it briefly suggest that conkers might be used for playing a game with. Being the S*n it does not of course suggest any rules but it is the priority given to the game, or lack of it, that has provoked campaign fury.

Campaign For Real Conkers organiser Keith Flett said, what the S*n does not say but needs saying is that an excellent way of testing a conker is to bounce it of the follicly challenged head of Rupert Murdoch

The visit of King Charlie and Queen Camilla was postponed earlier in the year due to robust protests at President Macron’s pension ‘reforms’.

They are now in France for several days including a banquet at the Palace of Versailles where presumably the Royals will compare and contrast 1789 and 1649 with the Macrons. They will also visit an organic vineyard in Bordeaux.

The visit is taking place at the same time as the Rugby World Cup in France and the Pope is also due.

All police leave has been cancelled and the Times reports that officials are keen to avoid public order disturbances.

8,000 extra police are on duty for the Palace of Versailles banquet and 10,000 police for a Royal visit to Notre Dame on Thursday.

I would predict a riot, probably one started by the police except you can’t predict a riot

Update. My prediction that you can’t predict a riot was correct….

There were large marches in France on 23rd September against institutional racism and police violence and for civil rights. However Charles and Camilla together with the Royal Bentley were already back in England.

The Banquet at the Palace of Versailles featured such luminaries as Mick Jagger and Arsene Wenger, while Charles and Camilla found crowds (quite how large is unclear) in Bordeaux waving Union Jacks. The Times (Editorial 23rd September) opined that the visit had been a model of Royal diplomacy unlike Tory Government diplomacy.

The anger of earlier in the year on both sides of the Channel remains but for the moment the Royals are not the focus (Macron is). Predicting riots historically and in the present day is as difficult as giving an entirely correct weather forecast

Keith Flett is the Editor of A History of Riots (CSP 2015)

20th September

Queen Camilla is a noted Archers fan and has appeared in the programme in the past.

She sent a message to an Archers gathering in Birmingham recently which was read out by Louiza Patikas otherwise known as Helen.

Part of the message read ‘let’s hope the end of Rob Titchener once and for all’.

The Ambridge Socialist is in favour of getting rid of Titchener and the Royals too.

Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, the Queen might reflect if there any members of the Royal Family who behave in ways similar to Titchener

Liz Truss’s comments on food are perhaps the most interesting part of her political career.

In 2014 her cheese speech to the Tory Conference complained that two-thirds of cheese eaten in the UK is imported even though the country has more cheese varieties than France. Truss named some her favourite cheeses including Stinking Bishop.

In the same year she made a rather more obscure speech about pork markets.

Last year she was trying to grow the pie.

On 18th September she was back on pork. She said in a speech ‘I didnt just to try to fatten the pig on market day, I tried to rear the pig, fatten the pig and slaughter the pig on market day.

Hard work so no surprise Truss made a mess of the economy.

Her political obsession with food is interesting…

Social Media: all that is solid melts into air. The return of the Fletter

Elon Musk’s latest pronouncement on the future of X, that he plans to charge all users a fee in some form reflects the fracturing of social media.

The fact that Musk is on the hard to far right of things doesn’t help but the pronouncement  reflects the likely failure of the current subscription offer, Blue, and the longer standing reality that Twitter/X can’t be made to work as a commercial concern.

Musk hasn’t helped because by his own admission by losing around 50% of the advertising revenue. Given that X has significant debts one wonders if the real aim is to make it bankrupt and allow Musk to walk away.

Meanwhile social media is fracturing. I have accounts on Mastodon, Threads and Blue Sky but still use X mostly at the moment. It still has a vitality with all the issues that the others lack.

The reality is though that with social media, as so often with market capitalism, all that is virtually solid is melting into air.

From this two interim conclusions:

1 It’s a reminder that the letter form still exists, and still appears in print and on-line. A moderated and edited way of seeing a balance of views (at best). The Times (19^th September) has an Editorial on letters, although I don’t write Fletters to the Murdoch press.

2 The potential demise of twitter will pose more issues for archivists, historians and all those who like delving in past tweets. As the historian Evan Smith has argued the fact that in the on-line world all that is solid regularly melts into air is becoming a huge issue for those who seek to capture and understand recent history

Liz Truss has flashback of left-wing past

In her speech on 18^th September Truss had a brief flashback to her left wing past.

There are some who claim that this is a crisis of capitalism, that we’ve had too much of free markets…’ Liz Truss (18th Sept) recalling the politics of her youth

She is sometimes described as eccentric, which may be sexism, but may also be a recognition that those who are competent in one area- Truss is an accountant- may not be in other areas.

I prefer a Sunday Times view that Truss is a pragmatic chameleon, rather like in that sense Johnson who backed both sides on Brexit before deciding Leave was the best career opportunity.

As a youth in Leeds in the 1980s Truss was involved with CND, going on demos and so on. Partly this was family influenced but no amount of cajoling can get someone on a demo they are not interested on being on.

At Oxford the historian and barrister David Renton reports (see @livesrunning) that she was recruited to the Socialist Worker Student Society after a long chat with himself. However she stayed only a couple of weeks before de-camping and becoming  a leading LibDem, campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis (it must be presumed that she did inhale), but also a way of standing out from Tory ex-public schoolboys. Johnson did something similar although more with the SDP.

Renton notes that like himself Truss was elected to the student council but over two years did not distinguish herself in debate. Given that she is a lacklustre public speaker this seems like a missed opportunity to learn the skill of oratory (I did the same myself- I only mumble in private- though obviously not at Oxford)

Truss entered the world of work at the moment New Labour won a landslide in 1997. At that point she joined the Tories. Why? The pragmatic chameleon had worked out that the time had passed for her to make her way in Labour or the LibDems(whose MP numbers only went one way after 1997/2001) but the Tories at a low ebb presented the ideal opportunity for someone to make their way when few others were keen.

The fact however that she remembers left views from her student days perhaps suggests that self-doubt is creeping and the chameleon may appear in another guise

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to the hirsute singer Roger Whittaker who has died at 87.

He was well known for hits such as Durham Town but also for a distinctive beard whose follicles he used to modulate whistling.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said Roger Whittaker had one of the most well known beards in popular music from the late 1960s through to the 1980s. His capacity to use the beard to promote a distinctive and stylish whistle was legendary.

Beard Liberation Front

18th September

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has called on England cricketer Harry Brook before he joins the England team for the 50 over World Cup in India in a few weeks time.

One of the defining feature of the England cricket team for the summer of 2023 has been beard power. Whether its the Test Captain Ben Stokes (who is also in the 50 over squad) or the 50 over captain Jos Buttler facial follicles have led to success for England on the field.

While Brook adds versatility to the team- he can bat in a number of positions, he currently lacks the beard power of other England cricketers and this could be a key issue in India

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the Beard Liberation Front stands ready to provide advice to Harry Brook on how to grow a match winning beard