Kmflett's Blog

Black Boy Lane N15 becomes La Rose Lane N15. A small but important change

I’m a resident of Tottenham and travel up and down Black Boy Lane on the 341 bus regularly. It runs between West Green and St Anns. I also voted in the 2021 consultation on whether the name should be changed.

Obviously not everyone was in favour. There were of course those who saw no issue whatsoever with the original name. Some of those who live on the Lane understandably were unhappy at a practical level- it will mean some hassle for them, although most address details will get updated automatically. Others argued that there were more important things for the Council to be doing. They had a point but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing as well.

A reminder as well that change, even a small one, can be a frustratingly slow process. Black lives matters campaigners put the case to the Council in 2020 that some street names in the area that reflected past imperial ‘glories’ such as Buller Rd and Kitchener Rd should be reviewed. The name change for Black Boy Lane is the only result of that so far, as democratic processes were, rightly, followed.

The name changing ceremony took place on Monday 23^rd January with members of the La Rose family in attendance, almost a year after the change had been agreed.

In that context it can perhaps be understood why protesters decided to topple the Colston statue in Bristol after years of official reviews and tweakings had produced no significant change.

In the world of 2023 Black Boy Lane can be seen to be of racist intent and certainly not the kind of road name that fits well in a place of many ethnicities like Tottenham. The origins of the name remain uncertain though. My view was always that its named after those that scavenged in the massive dust pits at the bottom of the lane (where St Ann’s Hospital now is) and the likely appearance of the homeless who resided there. Its mentioned in Raphael Samuel’s essay about nineteenth century casual labour, Comers and Goers.

The change to (John) La Rose lane seem particularly timely now, as he, amongst other things, was the founder of New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park. Now under threat of closure as a bookshop(not on-line) it was a pioneer of selling Caribbean and African literature in the UK(and it still is)

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

As the leader of Haringey Council Peray Ahmet noted  back in 2022 it’s a small change as part of a much bigger picture. Credit to those who campaigned for it and to the Councillors that made sure it was ultimately done. It will annoy Tories and hopefully make many local Tottenham residents feel a little bit more at ease (in the words of the late Darcus Howe) It wouldn’t have happened in the Tottenham of the 1960s but thankfully as Dylan sang Things Have Changed.

Update

One of the new signs was defaced with spray painted line through the name. The BBC has now reported that another sign has had a large poster ‘Black Boy Lane’ put up behind it. The poster is supported by Save Our Statues the hard right group that was reportedly formed to protest about the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol in 2020 and generally supports efforts to keep statues of slave traders in place.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64456137

Steve Cushion. The Drax Family Dynasty and the Business of Slavery: Reparations for Enslavement as a Trade Union Issue. Seminar Recording

Steve Cushion is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London – Institute of the Americas.

The Drax family pioneered the plantation system in the 17th century and played a major role in the development of sugar and slavery across the Caribbean and the US. They were able to generate extraordinary wealth through the cultivation of sugar by enslaved Africans.

Richard Drax, Member of Parliament for South Dorset, has recently been in the news as the Government of the Republic of Barbados is considering legal action against him to recover the Drax Hall Plantation and seek further reparations for enslavement.

David Comissiong, Barbados’s ambassador to CARICOM, has said of the Drax family:

“You can’t simply walk away from the scene of the crime. They have a responsibility now to make some effort to help repair the damage”.

At the well-attended seminar on Monday 23^rd January Steve Cushion discussed some of the history of slave owning members of the Drax family back to the seventeenth century and drew attention to how many had sat in Parliament.

He noted that the Richard Drax MP refuses to allow historians access to the family archives in Dorset and that similarly visitors are not welcome as his Barbados Estate. Phil Marfleet from Dorset Stand Up To Racism spoke in the discussion about the campaigning work that was being done in the area around Drax and the call for reparations

Link to recording of the seminar

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/eaLhwBu-xRsg_gQTZETNG_-UO-KE6mgE-bkbDqyF7zKFOGVrprzJxGNIqboaQdMU.r9tKpAaEkiWMqJAs

Beard Liberation Front

24th January

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners call on Nicola Sturgeon to officially recognise that Burns had a beard

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has once again called on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to use Burns Night as an occasion to both celebrate the poet’s work and acknowledge that the traditional image of him as clean shaven was manufactured by those who wanted to promote his work to a London elite.

The campaigners say that while Burns had employment for some years as an Exciseman and was likely to have been clean shaven at times in reality he probably shaved at best two or three times a week and wore a beard for the remainder of the time.

It is thought that images and paintings of Burns which show him as clean shaven date to a period when the London based political and culture Establishment was determined to claim Burns as what it saw as a ‘cultured Scot’, a supporter of the Union, rather than the hirsute anti-Establishment rebel he clearly was.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it’s time for Nicola Sturgeon to rectify an historic wrong and recognise that the real Rabbie Burns had a beard. It would be a significant step in reclaiming genuine Scottish culture from the clean shaven focus of Tory Westminster.

Beard Liberation Front

January 26th

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard of Winter 2023 Vote. Eight face voters

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has announced the shortlist for the Beard of Winter 2023 poll.

Mick Whelan and David Tennant won the first Close Shave round with Prince Harry just missing out

The list contains a diverse range of contenders for the annual seasonal accolade.

It is the first of four seasonal awards that lead to the Beard of the Year Award in December 2023.

The Beard of Winter focuses both on fuller organic beards, suitable for winter weather but also on beards that have made an early New Year impact in the public eye.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it is as ever a wide ranging, eclectic, list but one very much focused on the winter season. We have been keen to make sure we don’t miss beards that have been making a significant positive impact in the public eye in the last few weeks.

The poll opens on 24th January and closes on 29th January 2023. There are two preliminary rounds and a final Beard Off vote

Beard of Winter 2023

David Tennant, Actor

Mick Whelan, ASLEF General Secretary

Andy Murray, tennis player

Michael Rosen, author

Prince Harry, media personality

Adil Rashid, cricketer

Kevin Courtney, NEU Joint General Secretary

Lula, President, Brazil

23rd January is National Hand Writing Day. Like all traditions its invented. In this case in 1977 by the US based .Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, presumably to promote the sales of pens.

Judging by social media it has much wider currency than the US in 2023

Above is an example of Karl Marx’s handwriting which was barely readable. My handwriting is similar although that and the beard are the only direct links with the great North Londoner.

115th anniversary of the Tottenham Outrage (23rd Jan 1909)

This week is the 115th anniversary of the Tottenham Outrage (23rd Jan 1909).Two Latvian anarchists robbed the weekly wages at a factory by Tottenham police station. In the ensuing chase a young boy & a PC were killed (the latter on the N17 road where I live today). There was an armed chase across Tottenham Marsh into Walthamstow

The Wiki entry reads rather like a deadly game of cops & robbers but there were complex pre-1914 revolutionary politics behind it as well, although what the two anarchists (both in employment) wanted their £80 wages haul for remains unclear as both also died

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

Dry January, temperance & the left

It’s Dry January an annual campaign that suggests people should abstain from alcohol during the month to recover from possible festive excesses and just generally to cut down on drinking. Drinking in moderation is certainly prudent, abstention, and what from (spirits, beer, the whole lot) has been historically contentious.

Temperance was once an important part of working-class and labour politics and the tradition is far from dead, even if the commercial weight of the promotion of mass market beers and lagers somewhat obscures it. Keir Hardie was a temperance supporter and while current Labour leader Keir Starmer is known to like a glass of beer he doesn’t make a thing of it.

It is an honourable tradition rooted in dislike of giving money to (Tory) drinks manufacturers and a realisation that unsober people rarely get to change the world for the better.

We might however also be reminded what the Labour MP Victor Grayson had to say about efforts to promote temperance in law in the House of Commons over a hundred years ago:

In October 1908 he tried to adjourn a Licensing Debate in the Commons so the question of unemployment could be considered. The next day he underlined the point: ‘there are thousands of people dying in the streets while you are trifling with this Bill’.

Drink or not this January, it’s a matter of personal choice. If you want to campaign there might be more urgent matters just now.

Johnson, the £800,000 loan facility & Old Corruption

The Sunday Times has reported that a guarantor of the previously reported £800,000 loan facility Boris Johnson took up in late 2020 was Richard Sharp. Sharp was Johnson’s appointee as Chair of the BBC. He was not Chair at the time he guaranteed the loan but Cabinet Secretary Simon Case warned Johnson not to pursue any links with him. Sharpe did not declare his link to Johnson when appointed as BBC Chair in early 2021, although he had previous links with Johnson and Sunak.

The Sunday Times reports that the arrangement appears to have been agreed at a dinner at Chequers (chop suey & wine) where Johnson was joined by Sharp and the Canadian businessman Sam Blyth who made the loan. None of this was reported or registered.

There is a term for all this: Old Corruption. It describes the pre-democratic politics of England before the 1832 Reform Act where positions and titles were often handed out not on the basis of merit or work done but as personal favours. They were sinecures. Any actual work was done by others. It is not a new development in British politics but with Johnson it reached new levels of depravity.

It stands comparison with the lack of democratic accountability seen in the behaviour of ex-President Trump and some other political leaders around the world.

Democracy can be seen as a rather abstract concept to those struggling to pay energy bills. However just as the demand for the vote at Peterloo in 1819 was linked to pressure for affordable bread prices so too with the current cost of living crisis.

The Ambridge Socialist

22^nd January

The World Goes On Much The Same

It’s not true that nothing ever happens in Ambridge but the reality of village life can be quite low key, at least as reported by the BBC

Erik

Erik remained living at his brother Jakob’s place and was joined by Rex whose canal boat was temporarily without heating. Eric split some Malbec and caused a stain which will certainly annoy the fastidious Jakob on his return. Much work has gone into removing the stain. Erik has now departed his short term contract concluding.

The Village Shop

Justin is now volunteering at the village shop and has taught Jim how to upsell. That is to persuade customers to buy more than they really want. Erik has been in and bought several bottles of wine(see above) and some chocolates for Kirsty. Both Justin and Jim are pleased with themselves.

Lee, Helen and children

Lee’s former partner has informed him that she has a job in the US and plans to relocate with their daughters. Lee is understandably upset and concerned. Has anyone asked the young persons in question for their preference? Even Tony has had the thought

Cost of Living Crisis

Food price inflation currently stands at 16.8%. That is the case in Ambridge and everywhere else..

In Other News

The guitar is back. Leonard has mended it. Tony still doesn’t want it

Stella has been to a farming tech show and wants Brian to acquire some new equipment. The alternative is surely to employ more workers, but are they available at Home Farm rates?

Tom Nairn: An Exceptional Man of the Left

Tom Nairn who has died at 90 has been an important figure on the left since the early 1960s when he authored with Perry Anderson, Origins of the Present Crisis (New Left Review 1964). I touch on the Nairn-Anderson thesis below. He was also notable for writing the Break Up of Britain (1977) primarily on Scottish independence and The Enchanted Glass (1988) on the monarchy.

While I certainly didn’t concur with his specific analysis on many occasions his persistence as an opponent of the current British State was and is important. One wonders if this will be reflected in (any) media coverage of Nairn’s life and ideas.

In the case of Britain the idea that the British left and working-class are uniquely useless has been around for 60 years or so. This point is a sort of offshoot of declinist theories of British history that sees the country as never really becoming a modern industrial power, still stuck firmly in an aristocratic past.

Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn, writing in New Left Review in the mid-1960s declared themselves to be profoundly disappointed with the ‘labourist’ traditions of the British working class, compared to more exciting developments elsewhere in Europe.

While it’s true that TUC General Secretaries and Labour leaders are rarely radical firebrands leading militant action- so Anderson and Nairn had a point- the general thrust of their argument that Britain was exceptional was answered by the historian EP Thompson.

He noted that while it was true that the British working class had perhaps not developed a sustained and sophisticated marxist analysis of capitalism, this might have been because it was too busy opposing the activities of British imperialism and its numerous foreign interventions and wars. It still is.

For the historian the claim that something is exceptional always needs to be viewed with care. Comparative history is one of the most difficult aspects of the historians art because comparing like with like is so tricky.

But it is better history to explain what has or has not happened by careful reference to objective circumstances rather than simply noting things are better or worse elsewhere.

That said, it is true that the British labour movement does have one claim to exceptionality.

It genuinely was the first in the world.

When the Chartists formed the National Charter Association in 1841 it was the world’s first working-class party, although the development of working class political organisation in France and Germany, along similar but slightly different lines followed closely on.

An alternative way of understanding Anderson/Nairn is that the British labour movement paid a price for being first. It developed into forms of organisation that have been sustained but might have been different if they had been formed later…

Either way the writings and ideas of Tom Nairn have contributed a good deal to the ideas of the left since the 1960s. They still have something to offer, even if alternative conclusions may be reached

Update

it says something about the insularity of British politics and culture that while tributes have now come from Nicola Sturgeon and Gordon Brown nothing appears to have been said in the environs of Westminster

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23268206.tributes-paid-professor-tom-nairn/