Kmflett's Blog

Bridlington Quay 1872

What Marx and Engels did on their summer holidays: Bridlington

I’ve posted on Marx and Engels at the Victorian seaside. Their visits to Margate, Ramsgate and Eastbourne are quite well known. However the north of England also featured.

Bridlington is a Yorkshire seaside resort known at least by labour movement veterans as the location of the 1939 Bridlington Agreement which aimed to stop  trade unions ‘poaching’ members from each other.

Well before that it had become a favoured summer holiday destination for Engels, his partner and others.

He appears to have first visited in 1868(perhaps before however). He was still visiting in the early 1880s.

He wrote to Kugelmann from York on 31st July 1868 that he was on his way to Bridlington with his spouse, Lizzie Burns.  He added in brackets ‘I bet you couldn’t guess how the name is pronounced’.

By 6th August, Engels was back in Manchester writing that he had been to Bridlington for the weekend and planned to return and take a holiday. Unfortunately an employee at the Manchester mill where Engels worked had gout and he had to stand in for him.

Engels wrote again to Marx from Manchester on 12th August noting that he had been again in Bridlington from 7th to 10th August 1868 and had made some ‘quite interesting’ geological studies. He now planned to return for 10 days from 14th August, the employee with gout being on the road to recovery. He gave Marx the address of Mr Burns, 3 Burlington Place, Bridlington Quay, Yorkshire.

In fact the stay was rather longer as Engels wrote to Marx from Bridlington Quay on 22nd August that he planned to return to Manchester on 26th or 27th August.

Unlike some of the resorts in the South of England visited by Marx or Engels or both of them in the 1850s,60s, 70s and 80s, Bridlington doesn’t appear to have recognised Engels visits there.

Perhaps this is the moment for a statue of Engels on Bridlington Quay?

Who is winning the Woke Ashes?

The Women’s team drew the Ashes series against Australia but in the Men’s series England are 2-1 down with the final Test at the Oval underway.

The Men’s Ashes is a battle of the Woke though you will struggle to discern this from cricket commentators

The England team play Bazball, a form of cricket in progress, but involving a more aggressive approach to both bowling and batting. It is not liked by conservative elements in the game who you may hear going on about the ‘spirit of cricket’. Historically this was promulgated by the MCC and dictates what is and is not cricket. Suffice to say that the innovations of Bazball are not that well received. A search for the approach being modified- that is returning to a more traditional game is constant amongst many commentators.

The Australian team under the leadership of Pat Cummins is also criticised by conservatives for being Woke. Under Cummins Australia have taken the knee and he has spoken out on climate change. Leading Australian batter Steve Smith has launched his own oat milk brand OMG.

The Woke battle of the Men’s Ashes concludes on Monday if not before in South London

Beard Liberation Front

27^th July

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Liberation Front backs Travis Head’s beard

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that concern that Australian player Travis Head has re-appeared with a beard for the Final Test at the Oval, after earlier losing his facial hair due to a shaving accident, is misplaced.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, if our guidelines are followed a beard can be grown in a few days

The BLF has provided the following guidelines to starting a beard:

Step 1: do not shave

Step 2: by early afternoon, wash the face and comb through the developing stubble

Step 3: during the afternoon rub some craft beer, or if you must, lemon juice, into the developing facial hair to nourish it and promote growth

Step 4: In the evening you can begin to trim and style the proto-beard

An Editorial in the Times (27th July) criticises workplace ‘warriors of woke’ who are apparently engaged in ‘woke washing’. By this the paper means companies that have policies on climate and diversity and inclusion.

Of course it can be argued that these policies are windowdressing for annual reports. Actually however large companies,unlike the Times, know that they make economic sense and can add to the bottom line of profit. A focus on green policies can save money and the environment. Diversity and inclusion means companies look to hire the most talented workers not just white men in suits (though they will still get hired too).

The Times ideological point here is that legally companies have a duty above anything else to shareholders. They do. Going back to 1997 New Labour thought differently. It said it would seek a balance between shareholders, employees and consumers.

Unfortunately as with reform of the House of Lords there was resistance and not much progress was made. Progress is needed even more now and if the Times with a hard right culture war agenda wants to call it woke, so what.

There is nothing revolutionary about this btw. Widening the legal responsibilities of companies is a mild social democratic tweak to the market. Skinning the tiger claw by claw remains difficult though..

With Nigel Farage headline ‘news’ and Keir Starmer’s Great Moving Right Show gathering pace one can wonder if there is any good political news.

There is albeit in a minor key. Far right US Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis who has been running an Anti-Woke campaign of increasing incoherence has slashed his staff because its faltering. Going on snooze in fact, The cloud to the silver lining is that lunatic Trump is doing well

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/02/ron-desantis-campaign-2024-republicans

Beard Liberation Front

26^th July

Beard, Shorts & Sandals Season: Farage Shorts Warning issued

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it hopes to re-open  Beard, Shorts and Sandals Season, currently suspended due to inclement weather, in early August

Prior to the re-opening it has issued a renewed ban on wearing shorts above the knee.

The ban was introduced after notoriously clean shaven publicity seeker Nigel Farage was photographed lounging in shorts above the knee

The campaigners say that anyone wearing such shorts with a beard and sandals would risk bringing the hirsute into serious disrepute.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, August is a time to enjoy the Beard, Shorts and Sandals Season and we regret placing a new restriction on it, but we cannot risk the hirsute being brought into disrepute. August is a high risk period for the appearance of Farage shorts and we want to make it clear that these are NOT acceptable

1] Shorts should ideally be three-quarter length-‘culottes’ for the  2023 season. The length of shorts is particularly important as climate change may mean that unprotected legs get sunburnt.

1a) Shorts of the length worn by Nigel Farage are strictly forbidden

2] Footwear should be casual. There is a considerable range of sandal type footwear now available. Some leaves parts of the feet and toes open to public view, while some does not. The BLF is not prescriptive about the matter.

3] Socks should generally not be worn. However if the beard, shorts and sandals are to be displayed in relatively busier urban areas it is likely to be prudent to wear closed rather than open casual footwear and ankle socks, not visible to others may be worn.

4] There is no prescription or definition on what type of beard may be worn, or how this may match with the shorts and sandals. This is left up to the individual.

Coutts & a Marxist in the City of London

I appreciate that some people may think that trade unions and trade union organisation don’t exist in the City of London but they do. I’m a trade union officer who represents managers and professionals in the City and in particular (but not only)at the HQ of one of the UK’s largest companies there.

According to my Twitter Avatar I’m a Marxist trade unionist although that is a quote from the Guardian.

Even so I was intrigued to note the latest Culture War story which suggests (Times Editorial 20^th July) that institutions like Coutts the bankers use Wokery to avoid scrutiny and accountability.

Coutts London HQ is in the Strand which is just outside the boundaries of the City of London but such matters of detail rarely have a place in Culture Wars.

Coutts stand accused of cancelling Nigel Farage’s bank account for reasons other than that of financial probity. In respect of the actual case I have no interest. However in my role as a Marxist trade unionist I have over the years tried to open bank accounts for left-wing campaigns with a good deal of difficulty. Banks are not a public service but companies focused on profit.

Are banks in the City or elsewhere Woke? Woke enough in most cases to recognise trade unions (I don’t represent workers in the banking sector) but that’s about it

Penny Corfield interview with EPT 1993

Making a fun book, light on scholarly apparatus
Tilt at orthodox economics & orthodox Marxism
History from below but with wider structure
Looked at self activity & intellectual traditions going back into C18th
No shortage of women in the Making but male structures & consciousness dominated the history
Theoretical empiricism

Beard Liberation Front

25th July

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has confirmed the exclusion of several beard wearers in the public eye from the Beard of the Year longlist which appears in November each year.

In all cases the exclusions are for bringing the hirsute into disrepute. However they are subject to further review.

The names are:

Jonathan Gullis MP

Neil Oliver

Dan Wootton

Soap is part of the sub-text of E P Thompson’s Making of the Working Class,whose 60th anniversary falls this year.

The debate has moved on a good way since but right-wing economists were keen to argue that the development of industrial capitalism led to increased living standards for the working class. Thompson looking at levels of poverty argued that the evidence for this was patchy in terms of occupation and geographical area. Fundamentally however his way of looking at living standards was not the same as the right-wing economists.

His concern was whether workers could live without the fear of destitution and few or no means and the impact this had on them intellectually and political. One benchmark of this was whether soap was affordable. Thompson does not focus on the point but cleanliness was a key part of being a respectable member of the working class.

Its interesting to note that in the current cost of living crisis the price of soap has gone up and sales of it have gone down. Demand for soap has fallen by 48% in the first six months of 2023 (Times July 22nd) The cost of a bar of soap has risen by 50% in the last 12 months.

There appears to be hygiene poverty, although sales of soap are down elsewhere too, in Australia for example. An interesting and perhaps concerning sign of the times