Kmflett's Blog

The Times (6th March) has reported that the long delayed Resignation Honours list of Boris Johnson contains over 100 names. Dave Cameron managed a list of 62 people and Theresa May 60

In the case of Johnson it appears that the proposed honours include a Knighthood for his father Stanley and 20 Peerages including four for sitting MPs such as Nadine Dorries who leads the Boris fan club.

The Times (Editorial 6th March) does not approve suggesting that the list falls someway short of the standards expected in public life.

It really should be called what it is: Old Corruption. A list of Johnson’s cronies and those who have done him favours. The honours are sinecures not based on any real merit, just as they were in the pre-democratic days before the 1832 Reform Act started Britain on the road to something like a Parliamentary Democracy

Beard Liberation Front

5^th March

Klopp Beard Crisis resolved after Beard Liberation Front advice. Ten Hag under investigation

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has announced a successful conclusion to the Beard Power crisis of Liverpool FCs manager Jurgen Klopp.

Klopp returned to full Beard Power at Anfield on Sunday after Liverpool beat Manchester United by a record 7-0

The Klopp crisis came after Liverpool lost 5.2 to Real Madrid in a Champions League game against Real Madrid at Anfield.

The campaigners say that the Klopp beard crisis was deep rooted and attention focused on whether the follicles had lost direction after the World Cup break.

BLF Beard specialists looked in detail at the performance of Klopp’s beard in recent games to see if there was a pattern of declining beard power and advised a back to the roots strategy

For Ten Hag a different strategy is required as his Beard Power crisis is most likely to be due to over trimming.

BLF specialists have advised a ‘hands off’ strategy for Ten Hag

1 Leave the beard alone, removing split ends and washing aside

2 Allow the beard to flourish in line with Beard Liberation Front, no trimming, Lent guidelines*

3 Check for growth and monitor on a daily basis

• BLF Lent advice is secular and based on the time of year

The BLF Beard Advisory Team will keep the Klopp beard crisis under review and report further

Stalin. d.5^th Match 1953 Intellectual or gravedigger?

J V Stalin died on 5^th March 1953 aged 74. The anniversary passed unremarked for many years aside from hardline pro-Stalinists. Nowadays there is a certain fashion for Stalin if not Stalinism amongst a new layer of activists.

As a lifelong anti-Stalinist I struggle with any view of Stalin that doesn’t begin with him as the gravedigger of the Russian Revolution.

In that sense Geoffrey Roberts recent book on Stalin’s Library is challenging (the Guardian review below reaches a broadly similar conclusion). I heard the author speak at a Socialist History Society launch of the book and without question it was interesting. It is based on archival research and focused on looking at the marginal notes and comments Stalin made in books which were part of his extensive library.

These books form a minority of the library-itself incomplete as it was partly broken up after 1956- and as Roberts notes there have been previous studies of them. He seeks to use them to see if it’s possible to grasp Stalin’s perspective on the world. I’m not sure he reaches a conclusion beyond the point that Stalin was in his view an ‘intellectual’

I’m not sure Lenin agreed on that but it’s certainly true that Stalin came out of a Bolshevik culture that prized learning and study. How that related to his lengthy period in charge of the USSR seems problematic. One recalls for example that Harold Shipman was a Guardian reader..

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/16/stalins-library-by-geoffrey-roberts-review-the-marks-of-a-leader

Rosa Luxemburg b. 5th March 1871: scourge of bureaucrats, cynics & empty rhetoricians*

It’s the 153rd anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg. She was murdered by German Freikorps on 15th January 1919. Luxemburg was a leading member of the socialist Second International but unusual in the grouping in opposing the First World War.

On the 50th anniversary of her death on 15th January 1969 The Guardian published an appreciation by its then European Editor John Palmer* the first couple of paragraphs I repeat below:

Rosa Luxemburg is a strangely unsung martyr in the official Socialist pantheon. An outstanding leader of the Second International, she has been quietly forgotten by the official Social-Democratic Labour parties. A Marxist theorist and revolutionary on a par with Lenin, she has alternatively been regarded with suspicion and indifference by official Communist historians.

Yet her ideas, along with those of Trotsky, are having a renaissance among the young revolutionary New Left which is making itself felt both west and east of the Iron Curtain. This is no coincidence. In her lifetime Luxemburg was the scourge of bureaucrats, cynics and empty rhetoricians..

Fortunately the complete works of Rosa Luxemburg are now being published in English by Verso and Partners

The Ambridge Socialist

5th March

Is Ambridge Woke?

It seems unlikely that readers of the Ambridge Socialist pay attention to the far right social media site GBNews but our reporters keep a close on eye on Ambridge related discussions. This week June Slater styling herself the Chief Gammon was to be found complaining that the Archers is woke. In actuality Ms Slater is a climate denier who complained about Net Zero being mentioned. There wasn’t in truth much evidence that she is a regular Archers listener but if she had have been she might have concluded that Ambridge was woke before its time (see appreciation for Jennifer Aldridge below)

Jennifer Aldridge: tribute to a young rebel with a cause

The Ambridge Socialist has paid tribute to Jennifer Aldridge whose funeral takes place today.

Latterly Jennifer was a key member of the Ambridge ruling class, as the partner of Brian Aldridge. Here she was known for her cooking and for her remarkable tolerance of the philandering of her husband.

In her younger years though she was a rebel. Her son Adam was born out of wedlock, the father farm worker Paddy Redmond. This was the 1960s and an young unmarried woman having a child in conservative Ambridge was a big two fingers up at convention.

Jennifer didn’t give in but brought Adam up later with Brian as stepfather.

It has also been revealed that in her younger years she had a poster of Che Guevara on her bedroom wall. No doubt there was a certain sexual appeal but the key point was that Guevara was, until murdered by Bolivian soldiers, a key figure in peasant revolutions. What might have been in Ambridge if Jennifer had not met Brian.

Syksesy

The appearance of Sykesy at the Laurels is hopefully something that will reoccur regularly. After all Jasper Carrot is Archers family.

King Charles Coronation Oil: A Constitutional Monarch not a ruler by Divine Right

The oil with which King Charles and Camilla will be coronated in May has been selected and prepared. An extract from a Guardian report (4^th March) is below.

Thanks to events that took place in England between 1649 and 1660 King Charles will rule as a constitutional monarchy rather than with a divine right.

The remarks (from Justin Welby) below stray rather uncomfortably close to the latter. Expect more of this.

“Since beginning the planning for the coronation, my desire has been for a new coronation oil to be produced using olive oil from the Mount of Olives. This demonstrates the deep historic link between the coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land.

“From ancient kings through to the present day, monarchs have been anointed with oil from this sacred place. As we prepare to anoint the king and the queen consort, I pray that they would be guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.”

The oil is based on that used at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953, with a formula that dates back hundreds of years.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/03/king-charles-coronation-oil-is-consecrated-in-jerusalem

While the constituents of the oil reportedly date back centuries in fact the tradition lapsed and was reinvented in 1902

Histories of the present: Boris Johnson’s dissembling

Boris Johnson is not someone given to veracity. It no doubt goes back to his Eton days when it was noted that he felt that rules that applied to everyone else did not apply to him.

This clearly applied to his job as Prime Minister. Pressed by Keir Starmer and others to resign after Sue Gray’s initial report into Downing St’s numerous lockdown parties, Johnson evaded the issue, blamed others and claimed he was just the person to sort matters out. Now a preliminary report of a Committee of MPs into the issue has concluded that Johnson may have misled Parliament.

Johnson departed from several journalistic jobs at the Times and the Telegraph on both cases because he had made stories up

In 2004 when Michael Howard was leader of the Opposition, Johnson was Shadow Arts Minister and Tory Vice-Chair. He had an affair with Petronella Wyatt and she became pregnant. She decided to have an abortion and Johnson tried to keep the matter out of the public domain.

However news of it started to appear in the tabloid press. Johnson tried unsuccessfully to lie his way out of it. Howard decided that Johnson would have to go not over the affair or the abortion but because he had lied about it. He instructed his spokesman Guy Black to speak to Johnson and get him to resign. Johnson refused. After watching a Liverpool football match Howard then spoke directly to Johnson at 6.30pm and sacked him. It was November 13th 2004.

Johnson’s view was that only by being sacked would get sympathy, a resignation would not do it.

Johnson’s lengthy career of dissembling may be about to conclude its Parliamentary focus. He still however has his book on Shakespeare and his biography to work on…

Source Sonia Purnell, Just Boris

Inventing uncomfortable traditions: King Charles Coronation & the Gold State Coach

In the bourgeois media that is concerned about such things- the Telegraph and the Times- discussion has started about which coach the King and Queen (Consort) will use for the Coronation.

The Gold State Coach was commissioned by George 111 in 1760 and has been used at every Coronation since 1821.

The problem is that it is only sprung on leather and somewhat uncomfortable given the Royal Personages a bumpy ride. Queen Victoria refused to use it and the late Queen Elizabeth was not a fan.

Even so its tradition. It appears that the King and Camilla may use another coach to travel from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey (there is no shortage of them in the Royal Mews) and use the Gold Coach for the journey back.

Alternatively they could get the bus of course. A reasonably comfortable ride and rather less public expense.

Beard Liberation Front

3^rd March

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Tory Minister Cleverly will not feature on Beard of Spring 2023 Shortlist

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Tory Minister James Cleverly will not feature on the Beard of Spring 2023 shortlist.

Cleverly who has long been vaguely hirsute has now developed a fuller and impressive beard. However the campaigners say that because of the Minister’s close association with the very un-beard friendly policies of the current Government he will not feature on the Beard of Spring 2023 shortlist due to be announced on 25^th March

The Beard of Spring is the second of four seasonal awards, the winners of which go through to the annual Beard of the Year contest in December. The Beard of Spring is traditionally announced on Easter Saturday.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course James Cleverly now has an excellent beard. However the Beard Liberation Front is about promoting positive images of the hirsute and here the Minister has a significant issue.

Sue Gray, the Tottenham angle

Sue Gray the senior civil servant who was charged with investigating Downing St’s lockdown parties and has now been offered the job of Chief of Staff for the Labour Party was born and brought up in Tottenham.

This has nothing to do with her past or present roles and neither does the history of her family.

However it is not without some interest. She lived initially in West Green Rd N15 and then in Philip Lane N15. Subsequently it seems the family moved to Hermitage Rd N4 (a long road that runs between St Ann’s Hospital and Green Lanes in South Tottenham) and her mother worked at the Oakdale Arms pub.

The Oakdale I’m afraid is no more though I (as the then Secretary of Haringey TUC) and many others were involved in a long running campaign to save it. Of course Ms Gray’s mother was no longer working there- this was in the years before 2010,she died in 2003. In fact the pub had passed into the hands of Milton a Cambridge micro-brewery and was known for good cask beer and food. The pub was overseen by Steve Early who also ran the Pembury Tavern in Hackney-now Five Points brewery tap.

The pub was owned by North London property developers C and S Shah whose aim was to build flats on it. The pub was a profitable going concern but flats were more profitable. They got planning permission after an appeal to a planning inspector claimed that there was an alternative pub nearby, the Woodberry on Seven Sisters Rd. It has not been a pub for a good while and last time I checked flats had not been built on the Oakdale site. An all too familiar story of C21st Britain.

All that being said Ms Gray due to family circumstances did not do a degree but entered the civil service direct from school and based on her ability rose to a senior level. I’m not sufficiently familiar with the 2022 Civil Service to know if it’s still possible to do that-but in the private sector where I work, there are management apprentice schemes designed to facilitate it. It’s world of which old Etonian Tories have no conception.