This is not about the left but whether a Starmer Government will make the world a slightly better place.
Writing in the Financial Times (2nd August paywalled) right-wing Labour figure John McTernan argues that Starmer needs a distinctive selling point for his project,
Biden has Bidenomics which ties policy into the US Labour movement which has its issues but is still better than Starmer has done, even if Rachel Reeves says she supports it
McTernan argues that Starmer needs to look to the 1980s project of Marxism Today which talked of Post-Fordism and New Times and Gransci’s words that the old is dying but the new can’t be born
As Stuart Hall later reflected while New Labour was influenced by this it failed to grasp that what was needed was a new project on the left not just chasing a Thatcherite one
McTernan argues that to do this Starmer must make it clear that the era of neoliberalism and marketisation of everything will end. He claims this is already implicit in Starmer’s policy.
The latest charges against Donald Trump allege criminality in respect of his role in the January 6th 2020 assault on the US Congress. Of course he is innocent until proven guilty although regardless of the outcome Trump will always see himself as innocent .
It does however beg the question of when if ever the UK justice system will catch up with Trump’s fellow populist Boris Johnson.
Rishi Sunak was at the trade session of the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia on Tuesday. He was there to promote changes in alcohol duty. The Tories claim these are a Brexit benefit. They are traditionally the party of brewers the Beerage. On the duty changes there is clearly a split though, quite normal for the Tories now.
Sunak was mildly heckled but that is traditional as cask beer particularly when figures of authority are involved. Both Osborne and Johnson were regularly booed.
The Times managed an Editorial frowning on heckling on Monday, particularly at concerts, but its never in favour of protest except in other countries
Bridlington was a favourite resort of Engels and while there on July 29th 1881 he wrote to Marx about the excellence of the beer to be found on a little cafe on the pier. The bitter he noted had a head on it like German beer.
What better way to mark Yorkshire Day on August 1st?
The domestic Test cricket year finishing on 31st July its straight into The Hundred from August 1st. It apparently ends on 27th August.
The ECB appear to have determined to change the format in some way possibly to an extended T20 competition. That was always what was intended before management consultants got to work. However that can’t happen for a while due to contractual commitments. We have several more years of a failed format.
Of course its far from entirely failed. The Women’s Hundred has been a great success with high quality cricket. This was not the intention but the ECB should now grasp the nettle and put women’s matches on in the evening (when more watch)and relegate the mostly dire men’s matches to the afternoon.
The men’s games are dire because most players of note have found a way to avoid them. Compared to the franchise leagues around the world there is not enough money in it
I began to wonder if my partner Megan and myself were the only person to watch the US Major League Cricket which ran for three weeks and ended on 30th July. It was shown on TNT Sport and played in Texas and North Carolina. It had some good international players and the games did improve in terms of competitiveness. The main audience TV wise was in the Sub Continent.
In 2024 the plan is to extend it into August which will directly clash with the Hundred.
The ECB have created the problem for themselves but its one UK based cricket fans pay the price for it in terms of decent cricket in August. Of course there is the 50 over contest and no doubt coverage of that will be found on the TMS web. Don’t expect Sky to bother even though its audience for the Hundred is minimal. The football Premiership starts on 11th August..
Its reported by the way that Hundred ticket sales are better than ever. Perhaps attracted by the women’s games or/as well as cut price or give away tickets, of just because it’s a night out where the cricket is not really the main attraction.
Press TAB five times to redirect to the Accessibility page.
As Sunak says Just Start Oil, Political Sentencing for Protest underlined in Court
Two Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker were denied the right to appeal against lengthy prison sentences at the Appeal Court on Monday.
Trowland had been given 3 years and Decker 31 months for a protest that closed the Queen Elizabeth 11 bridge for a day and a half. As the Court noted the protest had caused significant disruption.
It was the length of the sentences that caused the issue. The original judge argued they were designed to deter protest. The Appeal judges noted that Parliament had passed a law on protest which provided for sentences up to 10 years for protests.
Lawyers representing Trowland and Decker argued that the sentences had a chilling effect on protest. The judges noted that the scale and impact of the protest was different to others.
The point of protest of course is to have an impact and change things. In the case of climate and oil many might suggest that this is important.
Laws are of course political and the one in use here was inspired by the current Home Secretary Suella Braverman who seems intent on banning as much protest as she can.
Britain has a long history of political sentencing. At Peterloo in 1819 the speaker Henry Hunt and others went to jail. The Magistrate who sent the Yeomanry in to cut down protesters for the vote William Hulton was commended and went on to form the Tory Party in West Lancashire.
Much more recently Shrewsbury building workers involved in a strike in the early 1970s. Those who have survived were recently pardoned. The trial and sentences were entirely political.
Rishi Sunak seems to have relaunched the Tories as the Motorists Party- challenging LTN 20mph speed limits and ULEZ. These are policies promoted by the Tory Government but now the Motorists Party sets policy.
As a lifelong pedestrian and public transport user I won’t be voting for the Motorists Party, but then I never vote Tory either.
However the new Motorists Party has work to do. A priority must be to launch a new Cones Hotline. Its predecessor was promoted by John Major after the 1992 Election. The plan was to allow motorists to report areas of roads coned off for no obvious reasons. My journeys in cars and buses as a passenger suggest that this remains an issue.
However the Cones Hotline was an expensive failure. It wasnt well used and resulted in hardly changes to cones.
Still given the Tories last year a relaunch as the Motorists Party under the slogan, there’s no success like failure may be the best Sunak can do.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that England all rounder Moeen Ali has been voted Beard of the Ashes 2023.
In a snap poll held on the last day of the series Moeen got 70% of the poll with England captain Ben Stokes second on 18%. Chris Woakes and Mark Wood also featured. The highest placed Australian Travis Head failed to make the final list due to a reported shaving incident during the series
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, its likely to be Moeen’s last Ashes Test and his Beard Power has been a key feature of the England side.
The Ashes: the contradictions of cricket & capitalism
The final Ashes Test of the summer starts today at the Oval. According to the Telegraph the Five Test Ashes series has been played over the shortest number of days ever.
Certainly the toll of nearly back to back five day games has taken its toll on the players and many others who support the matches. Back in the day an Ashes summer would include Tests and a number of County games for the tourists, ending with a final game at the Oval not in late July but in late August.
The Ashes is a Test series that is commercially successful. In a world of short form cricket that is unusual. You might think the ECB would want to maximise that. However it has a contract to maximise The Hundred which runs in August. Its an unwanted tournament (for the men’s game) that has however hugely boosted the women’s game (that was not the intention). Ticket sales are apparently the best ever. I suspect mostly to watch the women.
The ECB are no good at capitalism but if they were they’d run the women’s game in the evenings and relegate the mostly dull to dreadful men’s games to the afternoons
Marx, Engels & Lenin in London: the Camden v Islington divide
Marx and Engels were long term residents of North London both living in what is now the London Borough of Camden. Both frequented Hampstead Heath.
When Lenin lived in London much more briefly, he lived off Pentonville Rd which is in the London Borough of Islington.
Whether there was any ideological basis to this geographical divide is unknown.
The extracts below are from a guide the then Communist Party of Great Britain produced sixty years ago in 1963
During the time Marx was living at Maitland Park Road, Engels lived (from September, 1870 to October 1894) at 122 Regents Park Road, opposite Primrose Hill. From October 1894, until his death in August 1895, he lived at № 41 in the same road, near St. Mark’s Church, which is only a stone’s throw away from the Zoological Gardens in Regents Park
Lenin and Krupskaya set up house in two rooms situated on the first floor of № 30, Holford Square, and stayed there until the beginning of May 1903. This Square is situated in the borough of Finsbury, about 10 minutes’ walk from King’s Cross Station. The house where Lenin lived was destroyed in the early bombing raids during the Second World War. Opposite the house, a Memorial to Lenin erected by the Finsbury Borough Council was unveiled by the Soviet Ambassador Mr. Maisky, on Lenin’s birthday, April 22 1943. On the house itself, Mr. Maisky unveiled a plaque of commemoration to Lenin, which was placed there by the London County Council in 1942. It is now placed in the Finsbury Town Hall.
