Kmflett's Blog

Under Sunak’s ‘low value’ education diktat E PThompson’s Making of the English Working Class would never have been written

2023 marks the 60^th anniversary of one of the landmark books of socialist history E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. It remains in print today.

Under Rishi Sunak’s plans to defund ‘low value’ education including many of the ways that mature and under privileged students find their way into higher education that book would probably have never been written.

From 1948 until 1965 Thompson was an extra-mural lecture at the University of Leeds. He would travel across the West and North Ridings of Yorkshire to teach working class students at evening classes. In the preface to the Making he notes ‘I have learned a great deal from members of my tutorial classes with whom I have discussed many of the themes treated here’.

During the day Thompson would research in archives the material that makes the Making such a rich source as a history book covering the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to the 1830s.

It is a salutary thought that under Sunak’s diktat the University Extension classes he taught, and their modern equivalents would not exist and the framework for the Making of the English Working Class likewise would be absent

Paul Foot d. 18th July 2004

The campaigning journalist and socialist Paul Foot sadly died twenty two years ago today. He left a considerable legacy both in terms of a journalistic tradition that challenged the rich and powerful and a socialist tradition that offered an alternative to the grey temporising of Labourism.

A footnote as it were is that Paul Foot was also largely responsible for the term Fletters. My English teacher at Alexandra Park School in Muswell Hill did use variants such as Leaflett and Pamphlett.

Michael Rosen uses an alternative variant of Fletty which may be dialectically related to Fletters

There is a biography of Paul Foot out written by Margaret Renn which is an excellent record of his life, politics and impact.

It should unfortunately be noted however that he never knowingly wore a beard. His one weakness…

Robbins Report 1963. Universities should produce not ‘mere specialists’. Sunak 2023. Universities are about ‘earnings potential’

Rishi Sunak has said again that Universities should focus on degrees with earnings potential. So farewell then English literature, humanities, history and indeed Sunak’s own degree in PPE.

It begs the question of what the modern Tory Party is.

In 1961 a Tory Government commissioned the Robbins Report into higher education. It reported in 1963 and the proposals were accepted leading to a significant expansion in those going to University.

A key part of Robbins noted:

The report also concluded that university places “should be available to all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment” (the so-called Robbins principle) and that such institutions should have four main “objectives essential to any properly balanced system: instruction in skills; the promotion of the general powers of the mind so as to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women; to maintain research in balance with teaching, since teaching should not be separated from the advancement of learning and the search for truth; and to transmit a common culture and common standards of citizenship.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_Report

In 1963 British capitalism was expanding and looking for a broadly educated workforce. In 2023 the Tories with less than 200,000 members are no longer a national party but a clique focused on short term profit (often for themselves). Who needs rounded citizens with a liberal education in that context?

Raymond Williams & Starmer ‘make hope possible, rather than despair convincing’

I don’t always agree with Guardian columnist John Harris but his article in the paper on 17^th July, which is on Keir Starmer’s latest refusals to commit a future Labour Government to anything of practical note at all is to the point.

Socialism, even a mild social democracy is about the hope of making capitalism a little bit more equal and a bit better particularly for those at the bottom of society. For a start off those who have more than two children have now been excluded from that hope.

The concluding paragraph to Harris’s piece is below together with a link. The line from Raymond Williams in particular speaks to our times

Right now, Labour is emphasising two contradictory ideas. With one voice, it tells us that we cannot go on like this; but it then changes register, and suggests that is exactly what we are going to have to do. The howling tension between the two brings to mind a celebrated quotation from the Welsh thinker and writer Raymond Williams: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.” If Starmer and his team fail that test, they will only deserve all the noise and disruption that will thereby be let loose. So far, it has to be said, the signs are not good.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/16/labour-changes-little-power-social-forces-councillors-climate

After Tolpuddle, the left and rain

This year’s Tolpuddle festival was unfortunately cancelled at the last moment due to heavy rain and strong winds. We can of course point to the impact of climate change and rightly so, although bad summer weather is not entirely unknown in Britain.

The Chartist Ancestors site has posted an interesting piece on how wet the Chartists got in the 1830s and 1840s

https://chartist-ancestors.blogspot.com/2016/08/and-rain-came-down-in-torrents-chartism.html

The Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common on Monday 10^th April 1848 concluded with some Chartists trying to cross Blackfriars Bridge to march to Parliament and fighting with police and soldiers. Then there were April showers..

Before the 1860s working class radicals tended to favour outdoor meetings for several reasons. Firstly it was more difficult for the authorities to keep an intrusive eye on them (though not impossible). Secondly because the meetings were often too large for an indoor venue. Thirdly because the tradition of indoor ticketed meetings where who was allowed in could be controlled was not favoured by the open democratic politics of the Chartists. Ticketed indoor meetings became more common from the 1860s as radical politics changed.

The Chartists of course wore hats as did many others to keep the rain off, where in the modern day umbrellas might be flourished.

That said rain and protests and demonstrations don’t go all that well together in 2023 even with modern water proof clothing.

The late Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson might remind us that they do things differently in Other Countries. After all the Bolsheviks managed a revolution amidst cold and snow in late 1917

Beard Liberation Front

16th July

Wimbledon: Djokovic & Alcaraz will be splitting hairs in Battle of the Beards

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that while many mainly clean shaven sports such as football, cricket and even golf now have some fine beard wearers amongst the leading players men’s tennis is now also facing hirsute times if the men’s championship at Wimbledon is anything to go by.

Djokovic faces Alcaraz in the Men’s Final on Sunday and it is truly a Battle of the Beards. Djokovic has the more mature and seasoned follicles but Alcaraz’s more youthful facial hair may bring more ability to manipulate air currents when serving and returning the ball

The BLF ably assisted by several beard watchers has been able to identify a significant number of decently hirsute players in London SW19.

Match officials, line judges and ball-persons remain, where appropriate, very largely clean shaven but on the tennis Courts, Beard Power is making winning serves

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we expect Djokovic and Alcaraz to be a close shave

The Ambridge Socialist

16^th July

Titchener is on his way out

Titchener has been found to be suffering from chronic Archers Syndrome. As a condition it can linger on however

We back George Grundy, critically

George Grundy has been sacked from Berrow Farm because it was alleged by the manager Hannah that he had brought a sausage roll on site which was gross misconduct. George denied this but then called Hannah a liar. In the Ambridge Socialist poll opinion was evenly divided as to whether George was fairly dismissed or not but a majority agreed he should have a right of appeal. The Ambridge Socialist thinks George needs a union rep who can kick him when he says something that is stupid or inappropriate, which is frequently.

Fallon and the Future

Fallon wants an 8 year lease on the tea shop to effectively fight opposition from the new charging station’s facilities. Tom is not sure such a long lease is sensible. It’s important to remember that Tom is the Ambridge Village Idiot

Lynda is trying to undermine the Grundy Fete

The Ambridge Socialist supports the Grundy Fete. Its time for a festival of proletarian pastimes in Ambridge

In Other News

Pip doesn’t think growing cherries is prudent

Stella and Pip have been drinking wine

Brian thinks going down to the pub is preferable to swimming

Beard Liberation Front

15th July

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett                                 07803 167266

A BEARD GROWN OR REFOCUSED ON ST SWITHIN’S DAY WILL FLOURISH FOR 40 DAYS

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that a beard grown or refocused on St Swithin’s Day, 15 July, is guaranteed by tradition to flourish unimpeded for 40 days. Rain on the day will refresh the follicles for sustained growth.

St Swithin is depicted in surviving relics as hirsute and while his ‘Day’ is more traditionally associated with concerns about rain, there is also an important impact on beards, which has been largely hidden from history due to pogonophobic prejudice.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said If it rains on 15th July, then a beard started or refocused and realigned on this day, according to the principles of St Swithin, is set to flourish for 40 days by which time it will be well on the way to the organic style apparently favoured by the Saint himself

Engels revealed as a Woke, North London, Negroni swiller

Comedian Mark Dolan who also doubles as a commentator on the hard to far right social media site GBNews has added ‘Negroni-swilling’ to the range of epithets used to claim someone is ‘Woke’. These often include living in North London, eating tofu and reading the Guardian.

Mr Dolan was born and brought up in Kentish Town, North London and his father was a pub landlord so on this occasion it is possible that he some idea of what he is going on about.

What he clearly doesn’t know is that his inclusion of ‘Negroni-willing’ means that Engels was Woke.

Engels lived in Regents Park Rd, North London and he certainly read the (then) Manchester Guardian. Its unclear if he ate tofu related food but he certainly drank a Negroni variant on occasion

The May Day demonstration in Hyde Park on 3rd May 1891 was a landmark as it marked the first united march (the first May Day in 1890 had seen two marches). Engels writing to Laura Lafargue about the day noted how he, the Bernsteins and Tussys had celebrated in the evening at his Regents Park Rd residence:

When we came home last night, we wound up with a Maibowle, the Maikrauth of which Percy had sent us from Ryde. We put in 4 bottles Moselle, 2 claret, 1 Champagne, and finished it — we, Bernsteins and the Tussy’s. Late in the evening Cunninghame Graham came in and actually had two or three glasses of it — he seems to have left his teetotalism at Tangiers. There is a slight but rather agreeable Kater,J kept in proper bounds this morning by a bottle of Pilsener.

A Maibowle is a punch and Maikrauth is Woodruff used to make the punch. Kater is a hangover.

In 2023 there are Negroni’s based on the Maibowle but of courses adding gin (Engels was a brandy drinker). The drink is an aperitif to be sipped though Engels may have been more of a swiller…

Oaths: on the wrong side of history

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were jailed for forming a trade union which, based on a highly selective reading of the law, was illegal. At the centre of this however was the taking of a simply oath

As E.P Thompson noted in the Making of the English Working Class oaths had a long history in British society, fundamentally they were part of traditions of secrecy, keeping authority out of the business of private individuals, for one reason or another.

Thompson noted of trade union oaths in the early nineteenth century:

Such oaths had a long ancestry, owing something to freemasonry, something to old guild traditions, and something to commonplace civil ceremonies, such as the burgess oath.

Under conditions of illegality trade unions used oaths to maintain membership and discipline.

The authorities were distinctly unhappy about the lower orders taking oaths. Indeed the matter was central to the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

The Tolpuddle men were prosecuted under the 1797 Unlawful Oaths Act- aimed at the Navy after the French Revolution- which made it an offence to take an oath that was not required by law. It provided for a maximum sentence of 7 years transportation. It had in fact been overtaken by several other pieces of legislation not least the Combination Acts of 1824/5 which provided for lesser penalties. The decision to use the more draconian 1797 Act was of course a political one.

The taking of oaths was an important part of how ruling class society was ordered. Doctors and lawyers took them and the oath, formulated at least partly in religious terms, was designed to keep Catholics and Jews out

Thompson argues that the tradition declined rapidly after the Martyrs conviction but in reality those in favour of openly organised democratic trade union organisation, necessary if unions were to become mass organisations, were already ditching oaths.

The oath remained important in official society- for example the swearing in of MPs- until the atheist MP Charles Bradlaugh successfully campaigned for the right to affirm rather than swear an oath.