Kmflett's Blog

This letter appears in The Times (11th July). It is of course about stereotypes but they only work (hence the letter got printed) if they contain an element of reality. I’m sure there are beer and lager drinkers at Wimbledon and there will be champagne drinkers in the hospitality boxes at Old Trafford but the letter does suggest a rudimentary class politics of drink and sport

Beard Liberation Front

11th July

Wimbledon faces hirsute times

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.

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 ballpersons 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 the winners of the Men’s Singles and Doubles to be hirsute underlining the importance of beards to modern tennis

From the Chartists to the Shrewsbury Pickets & Just Stop Oil, the State is determined to break protest

The Times (10^th July) has reported that the Government is considering representations to the Sentencing Council to give judges new guidelines in cases involving climate cases. The benchmark is the two years seven months sentences to two protesters who stopped the M25 by climbing the Dartford Bridge. The sentences were regarded as draconian and the judge underlined that they were political. The aim was to deter protest.

In a week which has seen the hottest temperatures ever recorded one might think that the priority for any sane Government would be to tackle climate change. In fact its to work out how to punish climate protesters more severely.

The State has a long a history of this.

In May 1840 the Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor was sentenced to 18 months in York Castle for his role in Chartist campaigns for the vote. In 1848 the left Chartist leader Ernest Jones suffered the same fate. So did numbers of Chartist activists. The aim was not only to punish them but anyone who relied on them for support. The vote for women and men was finally conceded in 1928.

In 1972 building workers fighting for decent terms and conditions in Shrewsbury were arrested and jailed, again for political reasons. The aim was to break the strike.

History suggests that the State’s determination to break protests has not worked but solidarity is essential to make sure this continues to be the case.

Posting from our comrades at the Socialist History Society.

The London Socialist Historians is opposed to job cuts in the Business University and specifically here redundancies in humanities and history. The Government has been clear that it believes history is best taught only at Russell Group Universities. We believe history and an understanding of history is for all

Following two victories by the Women’s team against Australia in the current Ashes series, the Men’s team has now followed on and beaten Australia by three wickets at Leeds.

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.

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 resumes at Old Trafford a week on Wednesday

George Osborne: Beyond e-mails & Just Stop Oil he’s still pushing austerity

George Osborne, the former Tory Chancellor, and architect of austerity, got married on 8^th July. Beforehand an email circulated to guests and the media. I have no idea what was in it but whatever Osborne’s personal life may or may not consist of the real issue is his time as Chancellor.

There was also a protest by Just Stop Oil who peacefully scattered some orange confetti. Rather appropriate one might think. While the wedding was a private matter the appearance of photos of it in the media underlines that it was only notionally so.

Protests at the impact of climate change and political inaction on it is important. As important is that Osborne is still promoting austerity economics.

He is involved with a podcast which features Ed Balls(a guest at the wedding obviously along with the more frontline political figure of Yvette Cooper). Balls is meant to oppose his austerity politics but the difference between the two often seems to be marginal

Since the departure of Truss Osborne has reappeared as an advisor to Jeremy Hunt. However he is also reportedly friendly with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Osborne quit as an MP after falling out with Theresa May. He subsequently became Editor of the Evening Standard, picked up various roles in the City which involved doing not much for lots of money. Latterly he also fronts up the British Museum.

Osborne is an historian and heir to a wallpaper business and has no particular qualifications in respect of running the economy. His 2012 Budget for example was a disaster. He still claims that after the 2008 financial crash there was no alternative to his austerity policies. No alternative that is if the policy was to promote the wealth of the rich by bashing the poor.

Commentators seem to think that while Hunt may be inclined to Austerity 2 history won’t be able to repeat itself quite in the same way. Rather as a piece in the London Review of Books pointed out Osborne’s talent is not really in economics but in political manoeuvres. His ability to find measures which the opposition struggle to deal with is his strength, and with an opponent like Keir Starmer that could prove very useful.

*Just Stop Oil have said they did not organise the protest although they support it

P

The Ambridge Socialist

July 9th

When will Helen twig that Henry listens to the Archers?

Helen is concerned that Henry has not only whacked someone at school, pace Lee, but that he knows that Titchener is back. It appears that Jack also knows. Helen has yet to twig that Henry listens to the Archers it seems

(Not Yet) The proletarian wedding of the decade

Tracy’s wedding to Jazzer will be without doubt the proletarian wedding of the decade when it takes place. The so far happy couple missed their slot at the Registry Office on Thursday because they were locked in the bathroom.

This was preceded by some slightly absurd Archers scenes. The Professor revealed to Jazzer that he was in fact born in England and hence was not really Scots. Fortunately this was a blip and Jazzer resumed his Scottish persona.

Jazzer also sang Scarborough Fayre to Tracy which was more the actor that plays Jazzer than the man himself.

Now the happy couple are off to Scotland (in the Professor’s car) for a honeymoon leaving Brad, George and Mia to work it all out

The Professor sells out

The Professor has sold out on the charging station and given up campaigning against Big Capital on the basis that the people of Ambridge, after a public meeting, want it. The Professor is a man of principles but he is a useless campaigner. He now plans to get an electric car.

He has also revealed to Susan that he doesn’t like salad cream

George Osborne: Never mind the e-mail, it’s the Austerity

George Osborne, the former Tory Chancellor, and architect of austerity, got married on 8^th July. Beforehand an email circulated to guests and the media. I have no idea what was in it but whatever Osborne’s personal life may or may not consist of the real issue is his time as Chancellor.

Osborne is now involved with a podcast which features Ed Balls. Balls is meant to oppose his austerity politics but the difference between the two often seems to be marginal

Since the departure of Truss Osborne has reappeared as an advisor to Jeremy Hunt. However he is also reportedly friendly with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Osborne quit as an MP after falling out with Theresa May. He subsequently became Editor of the Evening Standard, picked up various roles in the City which involved doing not much for lots of money. Latterly he also fronts up the British Museum.

Osborne is an historian and heir to a wallpaper business and has no particular qualifications in respect of running the economy. His 2012 Budget for example was a disaster. He still claims that after the 2008 financial crash there was no alternative to his austerity policies. No alternative that is if the policy was to promote the wealth of the rich by bashing the poor.

Commentators seem to think that while Hunt may be inclined to Austerity 2 history won’t be able to repeat itself quite in the same way. Rather as a piece in the London Review of Books pointed out Osborne’s talent is not really in economics but in political manoeuvres. His ability to find measures which the opposition struggle to deal with is his strength, and with an opponent like Keir Starmer that could prove very useful.

The Durham Miners Gala and Labour leaders

Saturday 13^th July sees one of the great events of the labour movement calendar, the Durham Miners Big Meeting held in the centre of the City. Hundreds of thousands will attend in what these days is a community focused occasion. It is the 40th anniversary of the 1984/5 miners strike

Labour leader Keir Starmer will not be there (he appeared at the virtual Gala in 2020). He wrote on the Gala in the Northern Echo in 2023 and has done the same again this year. A tradition is being invented.

The tradition of Labour leaders and senior figures attending is a long one dating back to Keir Hardie, but it was broken in the aftermath of the 1984/5 miners strike. Neil Kinnock did speak but subsequently Tony Blair (who was a Durham MP) Gordon Brown and John Smith did not attend. The tradition was resumed with Ed Miliband in 2012 and followed by Jeremy Corbyn.

Certainly until the 1984/5 strike Durham NUM had been a bastion of right-wing or perhaps more specifically anti-Communist trade unionism. The attendance of post-1945 of leaders such as Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan and Foot reflected the fact that until Mrs Thatcher got to work the miners were a powerful voice both in the labour movement and the Labour Party.

It’s a world that we haven’t quite lost as the continuation of the Gala underlines. The pits have gone but the spirit of solidarity continues.

The Durham Miners Gala. Solidarity, fun, beer (and sometimes rain)

They seem to do celebrations and festivals better in other Labour movements in other countries, or at least that is the mythology that has grown up around the British labour movement.

It isn’t true as this weekend the Durham miners gala, in the ex-mining but still very much university and cathedral city of Durham, will demonstrate.

The pits of County Durham saw struggles for trade union organisation, but unions were often short lived as battles with employers were fought and lost. However by the 1860s there was a stable union structure and in 1871 the first ‘big meeting’ of Durham miners, the miners gala was held.

It has continued ever since with breaks for the World Wars the 1926 General Strike and the 1984/5 miner’s strike as well as the pandemic period in 2020 & 21.

Several things characterise the gala. Firstly the parade of banners from individual pits, many famously political, depicting figures such as Lenin and Keir Hardie. Secondly the presence of brass bands, a traditional form of music associated with collieries. Thirdly the speakers; down the years the Durham Miners Gala has been the key place for Labour and trade union leaders to speak. Every Labour leader bar one has spoken. The exception of course was Blair who never bothered despite being an MP local to the area. The famous names of British labour have spoken from Nye Bevan a former miner’s leader and founder of the NHS to Tony Benn, and, as importantly international speakers from struggles around world from South Africa to Chile.

The gala attracted as many as 300,000 people in the 1950s and it might seem to be an event dominated by men but the reality is rather different, There was also a tradition of a separate women’s gala and there was a crèche from 1937. Despite the fact that the actions of Mrs Thatcher means there are no working pits left in Durham the tradition of the gala continues. Attendances are on the increase and new banners are appearing reinventing the festival as one of a celebration of community solidarity.

In the age of neo-liberalism to remember and celebrate the Durham miners who stood up very publicly for what is right and decent in public life- the dignity of organisation and the fight against repression-is itself an act of resistance.

Its a festival of the left and also a place for the left to argue it’s politics, but it’s also about fun. There is a lot of respectability involved with the public culture of the British left but there are some unrespectable bits as well. Not only the music and dancing, but also in many cases the beer. We find in 1960 complaints that Durham pub owners were putting up the price of a pint on gala days such was the demand.

I should add though that historically some of the time it did rain