Full marks to journalist James Beeson for reporting on the story that Breal have taken control of Brick the Sarf London craft brewer. The good news is that brewery and jobs appear safe although creditors may feel less happy, usually the case in such matters.
Beeson is right that its hard to discover who Breal actually are. They certainly have a central London base but are a Group of companies that also seem to operate elsewhere around the globe. Their record of investments in things such as steel and yarn doesn’t suggest an interest in beer.
However that is not the point. They have capital that they are looking to invest for a decent return in the medium term (typically 5 years). It might be argued that craft beer is at the bottom of the market currently and so an investment now could be a nice little earner as the market grows again.
Venture capital in beer is far from new either, with Brewdog having a significant interest from a different company.
Not Big Beer, but along with a return on investments a search for ‘efficiencies’ will usually be a feature. It will be interesting to see where that leads
Johnson’s School Reports at Eton reveal the Politician of 2023
Sonia Purnell’s 2012 biography of Boris Johnson which is generally sympathetic to him was no doubt not written with the reality that 7 years later he would take the Tory Party into a General Election. I doubt she could have for seen then that he would also win it which makes her account of his Eton years even more interesting
It contains some interesting extracts from his school reports at Eton which suggest that he learnt what he could get away with there and has not changed since.
His personal tutor Andrew Hobson wrote a report which says in part ‘I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else’.
In a report of 5th April 1981 his Master in College Martin Hammond raises concerns about ‘lateness, non-appearance of work and a lack of organisation’.
In 1982 Hobson noted ‘Boris seems affronted when confronted with what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility’.
In July 1982 Hammond wrote, ‘Boris has something of a tendency to assume that success and honours will drop into his lap’. He went on to note that ‘efficiency and organisation have been constant problems’
None of the above of course prevented Boris Johnson from shining at Eton or, on occasion, since, but the juggling trick between bluster and substance can’t work for ever, as Johnson found out on 15th June 2023
The Times has published a second Editorial on Just Stop Oil slow walking protests in London in a fortnight (3rd June, 14th June). It might be concluded that it is one indication that protests are working.
The Times however, as often, needs to be better informed. It correctly notes that the Tories have introduced five pieces of legislation to stop the protests and all have failed. It also correctly reports that in a Commons debate on Monday that Yvette Cooper pointed out that existing legislation allows the police to effectively deal with protests.
If The Times Editorial writer could manage to check the Met Police’s social media they would see that police attend Just Stop Oil protests in London within minutes of them being reported and using Section 12 of existing Public Order law clear the protesters on to the pavement in minutes as well.
The protests themselves may have an element of the performative but nothing like Suella Braverman who does law as Culture War.
The official inquiry into how the Government did and did not deal with the COVID pandemic from 2020 has started. Its good that,at last, the matter will be thoroughly reviewed. How long this may take and whether actually will result from it is quite another matter.
Government inquiries do tend to go on interminably.
A couple of examples:
The inquiry into the Iraq War headed by the late Sir John Chilcott ran from 2009-2011. The report did not appear until 2016. While criticisms were made very little came from it, despite the reality that the events being reviewed were of the utmost significance for many.
The inquiry into SpyCops originally authorised by Theresa May started in 2020. It plans to produce an interim report on the first tranche of hearings on 29th June 2023. The next hearings are planned for 2024. When,if ever, it will conclude is unclear.
There is a strategy at work here and its not designed to be helpful
Beard Campaigners back trimming as heatwave is forecast by Met Office
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has backed beard trimming, as a heatwave with temperatures up to the high twenties centigrade forecast for some parts of the UK this week. Some areas have already met the conditions for a heatwave laid down by the Met Office.
The campaigners say that while facial hair can protect against the sun, a full organic beard is likely to be uncomfortable particularly, as it typically the case in urban areas, high humidity accompanies high air temperatures.
It is possible to cool the beard by using hand held fans, visiting air-conditioned offices and shops and also by briefly immersing it in chilled beer or lager but during a heatwave a prudent trim of the beard may be the best way for the hirsute to cope
There is precedent for beard trimming.
While in Algiers in 1882 ,towards the end of his life, Marx wrote to Engels that he’d had his ‘prophet’s beard’ shaved. A photo of a comparatively clean-shaven Marx however is believed to be a mock-up rather than an actual picture.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course we’re not the beard police and some may prefer to keep their beards ‘as is’. However in very hot weather it is certainly permissible to trim the beard a little.
Notes
National Beard Week 2023 starts on Monday 19th June with the announcement of the Hirsute Personality of the Year
Wages & Inflation: we’re not hearing the whole conversation*
Despite the Bank of England’s continuing obsession that wage rises cause inflation in reality no pay offer to a significant group of workers is anywhere near 10%. Meanwhile food price inflation with basic things like milk, bread and cheese, continues to soar. Food price inflation is currently as high as 18.3% in some areas. Far from supermarkets doing all they can to cap prices they are hiking what were their lower priced ‘value’ ranges. Their profits remain excellent.
In reality a key cause of inflation is Greedflation, the making of unchecked excess profits by energy companies,banks and supermarkets.
You may see some discussion of this in the media but what you won’t see alongside is coverage of why workers wage demands are therefore fully justified. Greedflation goes hand in hand with real term wage cuts.
*As the historian E P Thompson once noted in another context, we’re not hearing the whole conversation here
Unlike wine and whisky he argues that beer while it may certainly have local roots in terms of hops and malt is essentially an agricultural industrial product that is made by the skill of the brewer.
There are perhaps limited exceptions. Historically beer brewed in Burton was one and soft or hard water can make a difference to the beer that is brewed.
A related argument is that while there is at best a limited case for beer having terroir it can have provenance. That is local beers for local people. This rests on an argument that there are local and regional palates, which prefer one kind of beer to another.
Certainly before the Beer Orders in 1989 which opened up the tied house pub system it was likely that at least as far as cask ale went, what you drank was brewed regionally if no
There was a great tradition of London ordinary bitters which despite the name were anything but ordinary.
In my younger days I regularly drank Youngs Ordinary in the Spread Eagle in Camden Town- a rare north of the river outlet for the then Wandsworth brewery. Working in Vauxhall from 1980 the team of professionals I was with for reasons I never fully discovered had links with Youngs and on special occasions a cask of ordinary would appear in the office sometimes accompanied by John Young himself. I don’t recall too much about those occasions except that not all of my colleagues, being lager drinkers, were persuaded of the delights of cask beer.
To my taste however Youngs Ordinary was a highly drinkable bitter beer, what would now be called a session bitter. Of course it was nowhere near as bitter as Holts bitter was at least then, but compared to the Youngs Special it was much less strong and rather less sweet.
It was indeed boring brown beer and to a degree went out of fashion with the rise of craft beer ten and more years ago now. Benchmark pale ales were the craft equivalent but they were more hoppy and less brown than a beer like Youngs Ordinary.
Youngs Ordinary is no longer brewed in London which means it doesn’t qualify as a London bitter anymore because it lacks the vital ingredient of Thames water.
However other bitters historically certainly felt within the remit of London bitters including Morrells (Oxford) Brakspears (Henley) and Wethereds (Marlow).
What got rid of this London beer provenance? Firstly, Big Beer which shut the breweries concerned in takeovers and moved production elsewhere. Secondly, Thatcherism. That was part of the philosophy of the Beer Orders. The ability to try beers from wherever which might or might not be to your taste but the market provided access to them
Were the Chartists frustrated by bad weather in 1848?
Most historians (there are obviously notable exceptions) have no experience of organising a demonstration and that is true of many of those who have opined about the Chartist rally for the vote on Kennington Common 175 years ago on Monday 10th April 1848.
In his book on London Chartism 1838-1848 David Goodway suggests that one reason for the famous photograph of the rally looking the way it does (with an empty space near the main Chartist platform) is that people stayed at the edge of the Common where it was drier. The Times report on 11th April 1848 noted that the ground while wet was firm.
After the rally finished many of those present sought to return to the more pleasant vistas of North and East London by going over Blackfriars Bridge where they were met, for a time, by police and soldiers who refused to let them cross. Some traditional histories have it that the crowd dispersed due to heavy April showers. Yet neither the reports of the Times or the Illustrated London News (let alone the Northern Star) mentions rain. Dispersal of demonstrators in so far as that happened related to the deployment of police truncheons and other weaponry.
On 12th June 1848 the Chartists gathered again on Bishop Bonner’s Fields in East London (part of Victoria Park). The meeting was banned but many Chartists still gathered as did over 4,000 police and special constables (not all present at the Fields)with the military in reserve.
The Chartist organiser on the day noted that matters concluded when a thunderstorm forced not the Chartists but the police to disperse.
The cost of living crisis with a long forecast reduction on food prices just not happening.
Many face a financial crisis but the Tory Party does not.
It raised £12m in the first three months of 2023. Labour raised £4.4m and the LibDems £1.3m
The £12m includes £5m from Mohamed Mansour, the senior Tory Treasurer and a former Minister in an earlier autocratic Egyptian Government. Amit Lohair gave £2m, he’s a textile businessman as did Graham Edwards another Tory Treasurer and commercial property owner.
It’s a reminder if one is needed that sections of capital still back the Tories with funding and the difficulty in breaking the power of capital expressed politically
On Monday 10th April 1848 the Chartists held a meeting for the vote on Kennington Common. At least 100,000 attended. 1848 was a year of revolution in Europe. The police and military mobilised to make sure the Chartists didn’t reach Parliament.
On Monday 12th June at Bishop Bonners Fields in East London the Chartists rallied again. The State took it just as seriously. Over 4,300 police were mobilised with the military in reserve.
Why Mondays? In 1848 Monday was an informal part of a two day weekend with Sunday. Not perhaps in the factories and mills of the North but London was largely still small scale craft production.
Hence in 1848 the Chartists did like Mondays and the Government didn’t
