Kmflett's Blog

Beyond Braverman. Macron bans kitchen utensils from pensions protests

The current Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been keen to outlaw as much protest as she possibly can. This has included protesters making a noise. However she has missed out on a detail which Macron’s French Government is reportedly cracking down on.

Following Macron’s persistence with raising the State pension age to 64 protests are continuing. He has called for 100 days of unity which ends on 14^th July, Bastille Day. This may not be the most helpful of anniversaries.

Protesters have met Macron with a concert de casseroles, the banging of kitchen pots. Police have responded by confiscating them under a law that bans ‘portable sound devices’ which does sound Braverman-esque.

The use of cooking pots to protest is traditional in France (and South America) but not so far in Britain… Perhaps it is time to Casserolade the Tories

The death of Len Goodman at 78, the original head judge of Strictly Come Dancing 2004=2016 perhaps reminds that the image of ballroom dancing is rather different to what it was 50 years ago. Indeed Strictly’s predecessor Come Dancing which ran from 1950 to 2008 did look, certainly in the 1950s and 1960s like it was a gathering of members of the Tory Party (when the Tories actually had a mass membership of sorts).

Even then the image of dancing may have had some element of mild cultural subversion. The late socialist historian Raphael Samuel notes in the Lost World of British Communism that ballroom dancing was strongly discouraged by the Communist Party as being the sort of thing respectable working people got involved in. The same went for jazz music although Eric Hobsbawm evidently ignored the diktat (see Francis Newton- the Jazz Scene)

Len Goodman: A world we have lost, a world we have gained

I’m not the most obvious fan of Strictly Come Dancing. Not only am I a lifelong confirmed non-dancer I’m not keen on the traditional format of ballroom dancing either. I would say that as there is no reference to dancing in the Collected Works of Marx and Engels that socialism and dancing don’t go together. However I am well aware that’s not correct.

I do remember watching Come Dancing on the BBC which ran from 1950 to 1998 and had comperes such as Peter West and Brian Johnston. It was the world I grew up in and I found it stifling boring and conservative.

Clearly the world had moved on and the series ended. A note on the BBC website where there are tributes to the original Strictly Head Judge Len Goodman who has sadly died at 78, explains what happened next:

In April 2004, the BBC took a huge gamble. Desperate to find a new show with mass appeal, it came up with a seemingly bizarre solution.

Ballroom dancing was deeply unfashionable. The quickstep and jive hailed from an era of Brylcreem and Butlin’s holidays. Now, the corporation was attempting to make the nostalgic preserve of a few elderly enthusiasts the centrepiece of its Saturday nights.

Over time Strictly made ballroom dancing entertaining to a modern audience and it also made it representative of the modern world(which Come Dancing certainly was not). Not only did it feature Celebs who really couldn’t dance- to the annoyance of the judges- but with the help of professional dancers it helped them to become, sometimes, modest dancers.

It also mirrored the world as it now- eventually- with same sex,LGBTQ and disabled dancers, often stealing the show. A balance between entertainment and professional dancing skills initiated and promoted by the BBC a public sector broadcasting organisation.

In this Len Goodman from 2006 to 2014 was a central figure. Someone from the old disciplines of ballroom dancing who also embraced what dancing had and needed to become

London Socialist Historians Summer Term Seminars 2023

Monday 15^th May 5.30pm Keith Flett: The Coronation. Inventing and Reinventing Royal Traditions.

Free on Zoom. Link to book https://www.history.ac.uk/events/coronation-inventing-and-reinventing-royal-traditions

Monday 22^nd May 5.30pm Duncan Stone: Gentlemen v Players 60 years on. Deconstructing the Gentleman Amateur

Free on Zoom Link to Book https://www.history.ac.uk/events/60-years-gentlemen-v-players-deconstructing-gentleman-amateur

Monday 5^th June 5.30pm Ralph Darlington, Labour Revolt in Britain 1910-1914. In person seminar only Room 301. Institute of Historical Research

Check the London Socialist Historians website for updates

https://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2023/04/london-socialist-historians-summer-term.html

Extinction Rebellion, The Big One. Protest and Survive

The weekend saw a mass protest by Extinction Rebellion in central London backed by 60 or so organisations including the PCS trade union.

It differed from previous ER tactics and was signalled as such. No one glued themselves to anything and neither were temporary structures erected to block roads. These tactics were effective both in terms of publicity and in annoying the State enough that Suella Braverman introduced lots of new laws to try and ban them.

On this occasion XR focused on a mass demonstration around Parliament. I wasn’t in London at the weekend but would have been on the protest if I was there. Climate Change is a key, probably the key, issue of our times.

XR’s own estimate of the Saturday demo seems to have been 60,000 which is impressive but not huge. Large demos in recent decades in central London tend to start at the 100,000 mark. It is not of course a numbers game but really huge demos can’t be ignored.

This wasn’t ignored either but media coverage was limited. The BBC did cover it but not with the prominence it should have done. The Guardian ran several articles but nothing on the composition and mood of the march. The Mail ran a piece on ‘eco-zealots’.

Alongside this were a series of what might be called performative protests- a die-in, a cricket match in Parliament Square etc. These are quite familiar XR tactics but also effective- one made the front page of The Times in picture format.

The protest which did make headlines was the disruption of the Scottish Grand National (not an XR protest) a reminder that direct action troubles the State. If we needed a reminder that is, after the draconian sentences given to two protesters at the Dartford Rd Bridge, designed the judge said to discourage others. That is not a new tactic of the State but a reminder of how seriously they view protests.

They know climate change is a huge issue and on their agenda. It can seriously disrupt profit making. Yet tackling it also requires money and eats into profits. That is their dilemma not ours.

How to proceed? XR will no doubt debate further. I’d suggest however that while direct action and performative protests are effective there is a need to go further on the often too slow and frustrating work of engaging trade unions and the labour movement. A strike on the question of climate change would have the potential to really take things forward. No easy matter of course but whoever said effective protest was easy?

The Battle of Wood Green 48 years on: fighting fascism is not just history

Wednesday 23rd April marks 48 years to the day since the Battle of Wood Green. On that sunny(in 1977) Saturday afternoon in North London, the fascist National Front assembled over a 1,000 supporters with the aim of marching down one of the busiest shopping streets in the area, Wood Green High Rd, packed with shoppers. Their aim was to stir hatred and create division and most of all to underline that they controlled the streets.

A counter demonstration was organised. A young Haringey Councillor Jeremy Corbyn was the spokesperson and he proved adept at marshalling Councillors from across the political spectrum who had a peaceful protest and also those who wanted to stop the fascist march, very much in the tradition of those who had opposed Mosely in the 1930s and early 1960s.

When the Front march turned out of Duckett’s Common, Turnpike Lane and into Wood Green High Rd, anti-fascists confronted it and partly broke it. Some fascists straggled on to a rally in Arnos School in neighbouring Enfield. The anti-fascist attack was organised but in reality what broke the march were ordinary North London shoppers surging forwards and joining in

The National Front in London in 1977 were a serious political force. They came 4th with 119,000 votes in the May 5th Election for the old Greater London Council. They were also a street fighting force, regularly attacking socialists campaigning on high streets and breaking up violently left-wing and trade union meetings.

After 23rd April they never attempted to march again in North London.

I’ve told and written about this event many times both as an active participant in it and as an historian. At 48 years distance it is now history and people like myself can sound rather like the Chartists who survived to be active in the socialist movement in the 1880s, looked on as interesting if tiresome relics of a time now passed.

Except the time has not passed. Fascism- genuine fascist ideas and organisation beyond just right-wing and authoritarian politics, is growing again in numbers of countries including Britain. It still needs opposing as it did on the Saturday afternoon 48 years ago

The Battle of Wood Green is history, but not just history..

Beard Liberation Front

25th April

Shakespeare at 462: playwright of hirsute subversion

The Beard Liberation Front, the Informal network of beard wearers, has said that William Shakespeare, who was born on or around 23rd April 1564 was an early beard liberationist in the way his plays acknowledged the possibility of hirsute subversion.

Shakespeare whose popular image suggests he favoured beards himself wrote complex but ultimately popular plays for a sixteenth century audience.

The campaigners say that Shakespeare’s plays are full both of beards and the possibility of beards to subvert the existing order.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, popular culture has failed to celebrate the importance of Shakespeare’s beard. Now is the time.

Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.2

Bottom

I will discharge it in either your straw-colour

beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain

beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your

perfect yellow

Macbeth Act One Scene Three

Banquo

That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,

And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me,

By each at once her choppy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

46 years ago today anti-fascists opposed a National Front march in North London: statement of the protest organiser

On 23rd April 1977 several thousand fascists from the National Front tried to stage a provocative march on a Saturday afternoon down Wood Green High Rd in North London. They were met by a united protest of local people, including local Councillors, socialist and trade unionists.

Below is what march organiser and local Haringey Councillor Jeremy Corbyn had to say:

From Haringey Councillor Jeremy Corbyn on behalf of the organisers of the counter-demonstrations ‘Why did the police allow the National Front to march through the busiest shopping area of North London, an area populated by several of London’s largest immigrant communities? It must be clear from Saturday’s demonstration that there is the widest possible opposition to these modern day fascists. How much longer must it be before fascism is banned from our streets?’

St George’s Day, Cromwell & Public Holidays

St George’s Day, celebrated on 23rd April, has a very mixed place in British history.

From the time of the crusades until the 17th century, the celebration of St George’s Day was a popular tradition in most periods. The Reformation caused some issues but the day was still marked until in 1645 the Long Parliament banned it. It re-appeared in 1660 with the Restoration.

Cromwell obviously was not keen, to put it mildly, on celebrating any Saints Days. Yet he was keen to appropriate the St George’s ‘cross’ flag known to this day as the English flag. The cross or ‘bloody cross’ was held to represent the Crusades and in Cromwell’s usage his imperial adventures (and massacres) in Scotland and Ireland.

It has frequently been suggested that St George’s Day, and other Saints Days should be a national holiday. Irrespective of where you stand on the above, why not? Britain has few public holidays and it’s difficult to see that more would do any harm.

The Ambridge Socialist

23rd April

We back Freddie Pargetter. Reparations now for Lower Loxley’s slavery painting

The Trustees of Lower Loxley have turned down a request to remove and sell a painting related to the slave trade and use the money for reparations. They have backed Elizabeth’s plan to retain and explain the picture in this latest round of Ambridge Culture Wars.

The Ambridge Socialist backs Freddie Pargetter. As he told Daveed not only does he think selling the painting and paying reparations is the right thing to do he also sees the link with modern slavery and the Ambridge residency of Blake, exploited by Philip Moss. The rest of Ambridge seems to have either forgotten or prefers not to remember

Less Den more Skysy

Tracey’s former partner Den has reappeared. The Ambridge Socialist wants to hear less from him and more from Skysy, aka Jasper Carrott

Jazzer Comes Out

Football is rarely mentioned in Ambridge but Jazzer to his credit has come out as a Celtic supporter. Next we need to know who the Arsenal and Spurs fans are

In Other News

Adam is in touch with his half-sister Erin

Rob Titchener remains at large.