Titchener has returned, every bit as nasty as he previously was. Were it not for his terminal illness he would surely be the Tory candidate for South Borsetshire at the next Election
Titchener was NOT the hero of the Great Flood of Ambridge
Titchener told Henry that he was a hero of the Great Flood. He was not. He blocked culverts which led directly to the death of Freda Fry and Lynda Snell’s dog Scruff
Hiring for the new Grey Gables
Meet the new staff: same as the old staff.
Ian has been hired as Head of Food (not chef)while Ardil and Oliver grapple over whether Lynda will be on brand. Tracy prefers the Bull
The Brookfield B&B Ben is off to Uni again so Pip has volunteered to manage it. A long term let to Hannah is the way forward and a life ban for George from entering the premises
Skating
Stella, Pip, Ben etc have been skating. Who is the scriptwriter that has a skating hobby the Ambridge Socialist asks?
In Other News
Brad has got good A Level results. He may become a dangerous intellectual
Those who follow Michael Rosen’s twitter account (@michaelrosenyes) for more than his thoughts on Arsenal may have seen some of the details he occasionally posts about family camping holidays he went on when he was younger. His parents were Communist Party members and clearly the camping, often I think in France, had an element of political austerity about it.
The literature on Communism and the left and camping seems sparse (though I haven’t done an exhaustive search). Raph Samuel mentions going camping as a youth a couple of times in the Lost World of British Communism although he also suggests that Communists were often too busy politically for holidays.
Richard Evans biography of Eric Hobsbawm has him as a student in the 1930s camping and youth hostelling around France as well as Snowdonia and Surrey.
This may have been a generational CP thing. My late father was a CP member but never once suggested going camping. By contrast as a heterodox Trotskyist I found myself camping at the Lutte Ouvriere fete in Paris and in more recent years(more union officer in this case) camping at the annual Tolpuddle Festival. I also on one occasion recall going on an actual camping holiday in a field outside Scarborough. I think we lasted until the tent floated away in the rain and we retreated to self- catering in the town.
It may be taken that even when younger I was at best agnostic about camping. Basic hotels these days are in many places affordable for a few nights stay and you’ll only get wet in the shower.
Of course camping and protest still has its place. I note that many of the XR rebels who protest in central London on occasion camp overnight in South London.
In this respect its concerning to read that Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been on a Safari Glamping holiday in Southern England this week (Times 19th August). No details are available but such holidays often involve staying in Yurts of Glamping Pods. Its rather more upmarket than the historic left camping tradition but it still sounds rather Woke. Perhaps Ms Braverman is a fifth columnist…
Can England win the World Cup without a Labour Government?
As England play Spain in the Football World Cup final on Sunday will Harold Wilson’s 1966 record remain safe? Namely that England only win football finals under a Labour Government
The only time England have won the World Cup was in 1966 just months after Harold Wilson had led Labour to a 97 seat majority in the March Election of that year, Wilson noted:
Have you noticed how we only win the World Cup under a Labour government”
He may well have got the line from comedian Mike Yarwood
Wilson was also privately, and correctly, concerned about the impact England’s failure in the 1970 World Cup would have on Labour’s chances in the June General Election of that year. Labour lost.
The Lionesses are in a broader win-win situation on Sunday. If they win, as one hopes, it will surely mean Keir Starmer is on his way to No.10. If they lose Rishi Sunak’s days are numbered.
Michael Parkinson will be remembered for many things (Obituary, 17 August), but being one of the founding signatories of the Anti-Nazi League in the late 1970s reminds us that he stood on the right side of history. Keith Flett Tottenham, London
A good piece by Peter Hain details Michael Parkinson’s links with the anti-apartheid movement and the Anti-Nazi League
Following the publication of the 2023 A level results the focus has been rightly on a marking regime designed to regulate the numbers going to University.
But in the era of Culture Wars the top ten A Level subjects is also of interest. Neither English literature or Geography feature but there is a balance between Woke and not Woke subjects Top 10
Maths, not Woke
Psychology, Woke
Biology, not Woke
Chemistry, not Woke
History, Woke
Sociology, Woke
Business Studies, Asleep
Art & Design, Woke
Economics, Indeterminate unless PPE related
Physics, not Woke
Aside from Business Studies the study of any of the above subjects will add to the sum of human knowledge. Culture Wars achieve the reverse
Halfway there is the title of a seminal book about the progress of comprehensive education after 1965 written by Caroline Benn and Brian Simon.
On a much less weighty note The Hundred has reached the halfway point.
Have you noticed?
Possibly not. The decision by a previous regime to purge the concluding period of the cricket season of Test matches means media attention on the game has disappeared. I flicked through the Sunday Times Sports supplement on 13th August. It contained not one mention of cricket. To be fair there was an article on the pros and cons of the Hundred 2023 on 14th August.
Anyway I have been watching, not avidly, and the main thing I take from this year is that thanks to an extended draft Welsh Fire women and men are no longer dire so its more competitive in general.
The standard also seems better with rather fewer players (particularly in the mens) to which the response is ‘who?’
I still think the women’s game is more interesting than the men’s and I’d like to see more women’s matches in the evening slots. There have reportedly been record crowds for women’s matches. Attendance generally has looked reasonable although not I think really a sell out whatever is claimed.
In terms of broadcasting I’m afraid the BBC coverage on radio and TV is often just too lightweight treating it as light entertainment rather than sport. Sky by contrast do mostly focus on the cricket and treat the matches much as they might a T20.
In fact if the ECB hadn’t called in consultants that’s what it would be and hopefully after this year some configuration can be found to transition the Hundred to T20. Making sure the women’s game is fully profiled in that is key. It’s the one real positive of The Hundred
Nadine Dorries & the politics of the Rotten Borough
Rotten Boroughs were Parliamentary Constituencies that existed before the 1832 Reform Act. They mostly returned two MPs and many had at some point been centres of population. However by the late eighteenth century they (there were around 56 of them) had few electors and in effect were the property of the MPs who had their Parliamentary seats there.
William Cobbett in Rural Rides referred to Boroughmongers and a politics of Old Corruption where MPs sat not to represent constituents but for their own personal gain.
When applying the historical term to Nadine Dorries and her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency we need to be careful in making the translation.
Mid-Bedfordshire is not a Rotten Borough in the pre-1832 sense. In fact in 2018 it had 82,000 electors. Dorries has been the MP for the seat since 2005 and her vote in 2019 was around 60%
The issue of course is that she appears to have done little or no work as an MP since Boris Johnson was deposed as Tory leader in July 2022. When she was not on Johnson’s resignation honours list she said she was resigning with immediate effect.
She didnt and continued to draw her Parliamentary salary and allowances at least until another resignation statement on 26th August.
It is a political rather than a personal corruption that is involved here but one that has brought democratic politics into disrepute every bit as much as the Rotten Boroughs did before 1832
Both Keir Starmer and the TUC have called for a Bank Holiday if the Lionesses win the football World Cup on Sunday. The Government of course is unimpressed. The Tories have a mindset that Bank Holidays are bad for business although Royal occasions are an exception.
Neo-Liberals don’t like people having holidays when they should be working (they take holidays themselves obviously)
Britain does not have enough Bank Holidays. That doesn’t mean that May Day should be abolished and replaced with Trafalgar Day or Margaret Thatcher Day in the autumn. It does mean that we need to have at least one more public holiday between August and the end of December and the same between January and Easter. Ive always favoured 30th January but I appreciate that is a touchy subject even 374 years on
Thomas Gradgrind, performance management & A Levels
Thomas Gradgrind was a fictional school owner assisted by a teacher McChokumchild featured in Charles Dickens 1854 novel Hard Times. He saw no room for emotion in teaching. What was needed were facts that could be measured and lead to profitable endeavour.
Capital has worked out different ways to exploit workers and make profits since 1854 just as workers have found new ways to fight back. However as RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch has noted the Tories are engaged in class war and workers need to organise and engage.
To discover what the more naked enthusiasts for class war are saying a perusal of the Daily Telegraph is useful.
One might think that an A Level exam is or should be out whether a student has reached a certain agreed standard of understanding, knowledge etc. If they have they pass. It’s not that simple. In fact there is a strong similarity with performance management systems used in the workplace. The worst of these use a bell curve where a certain number do less well or fail irrespective of whether they are good performers or not. Comparisons are made across a cohort and marks are levelled- meaning some are reduced to fit an expectation of what the range of performance should be.
This of course is just a massive distraction from actually doing the job people are meant to be doing. Its purpose is usually to manage pay and bonus budgets.
With A Levels the purpose of grade management is to manage who goes to University and which one.
A Daily Telegraph Editorial on 19th August 2022 noted the ‘race’ to get to University. Why is it a race? Shouldn’t those who reach an agreed A Level standard be able to go if they want? The Telegraph however thinks that A Level are about determining ‘comparative academic ability’.
Turning to 2023 we find the Times on 18th August Editorialising on A Level results. They are apparently designed to sift out ‘those pupils best qualified to attend the most competitive universities’
Who knew that knowledge and learning is a competitive experience rather than something that benefits the individual and collective society equally
On Monday 16th August 1819 in central Manchester around 60,000 people gathered to protest for the vote which few if any of them had.
The Yeomanry, local businessmen on horseback, rode into the protesters, on the order of Tory Magistrate William Hulton and cut them down with sabres. Tens were killed and thousands injured.
The reason for the attack remains unclear. It may be that the Government had ordered it. It might be that the Magistrates acted on their own- they were certainly supported by the Government afterwards.
The demonstration posed a new threat to the ruling order as the start of the age of mass democracy. The authorities were unsure how to deal with such a gathering- having only a shoestring police force- and feared violence.
In fact the protesters were peaceful and the violence came from the authorities.
An issue is whether such an event could happen again
The socialist historian E P Thompson argued that such was the reaction to Peterloo that the authorities determined not to violently attack peaceful democratic protest again. Industrial disputes were another matter.
In fact during the Chartist period there were some attacks with deaths and injuries on protests, but nothing on the scale of Peterloo.
More recently however in Derry in 1972 at a protest for democracy, known as Bloody Sunday, the army did shoot and kill and injure protesters. Again the claim was the violence was planned.
50 years on with an increasingly authoritarian State could Peterloo happen again?
Most protest in 2024 in Britain whether on climate or against racism or for better conditions at work relies on mass peaceful mobilisation. Civil disobedience is also a strategy used for example by Just Stop Oil but again peacefully.
Where violence does occur at protests it is often provoked by police tactics.
However if the State perceives a protest threatens the interests of capital the use of the army certainly can’t be ruled out. The 1984/5 miners strike gave a glimpse of that. It was an industrial dispute but also a political one.
That said if demonstrations are large enough the capacity of the State to stop them in any way can be limited- see the 2003 protest against the Iraq War and the mass demonstrations on Gaza from October 2023.
