Kmflett's Blog

Fletters to the Guardian 2022 & the first of 2023

Each year around this time a correspondent e-mails me details of those who have most letters published in the Guardian in the year just gone.

An edited summary is below. The correspondent tells me that as recently as 2020 22 Fletters were published. That of course was a time of lockdowns so perhaps more time was available.

Anyway I continue to write letters to the Guardian which are sometimes published. This may come as a surprise to those who tell me they used to read my letters. I still write, but do they still read.

Finally once again its mostly if not entirely men, with or without beards. Progress in history can sometimes be very slow

I take particular note of your “frequent flyers”, namely, correspondents who have multiple letters published. The winner this year (Letters Page 2022) is a bright spark from Devon with 12 letters*. The runner-up with 11 is the UK’s most epistolary narrowboat “Gordon Bennett”. In third place with 10 letters each come a Liverpudlian and a bearded regular (who has been ill this year and is now hopefully fully recovered. In 2020 you published 22 of his letters). A Fr comes next with 9 followed by three frequent flyers with 8 apiece – a figure equal to this year’s entire output from Hebden Bridge.

*Toby Wood points out that he also had 12 letters published in 2022

First Fletter of 2023 (10^th January 2023)

Jonathan Freedland is right that the debacle of the 15 rounds of voting it took US Republicans to elect one of their own number to preside over the House of Representatives underlined that they are a party not of political power but of disruption. Just like the Liz Truss interregnum here, however, the disruption has a purpose. It is certainly not to govern in the interests of ordinary people. Rather it is to secure political and financial benefits for their friends and allies.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/10/todays-rightwing-populists-aim-to-disrupt-not-to-govern

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

11^th January

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Friendly Bar, Pub, Tap of the Year. Final Follicle Friendly Vote due

The Beard Liberation Front has said that the final vote for Beard Friendly Bar, Pub and Tap of the Year will feature the winners and runners up of the London and Out of London votes

The on-line poll featured two rounds each consisting of four of the most beard friendly pubs. Four were from London and four from elsewhere in the country.

Tom’s Tap and Brew won the Outside of London vote with the Evening Star in Brighton second

The Shirkers Rest won the London vote with perennial Beard Friendly favourite, the Cock Tavern E8 second

The Final Vote will open on Thursday and run for 48 hours

The aim of the vote is to promote pubs that are friendly and welcoming to all, and also sell good beer

The Beard Friendly Pub of the Year is an annual feature in January each year, although the pandemic years have disrupted the process.

The last full  vote in January 2020 saw the decisive winner in the Beard Friendly Pub of the Year as the Bumble Inn micropub in Peterborough. The runner up was the Cock Tavern in Hackney

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it is a hugely difficult time for pubs and those who enjoy a drink in them. As usual we have selected an eclectic list and there are many others that could have been included. Our suggestion is to visit a favourite bar, pub and tap room in the next few weeks to see if it meets the beard friendly criteria. If it does then make sure people here about it through word of mouth and on social media, using the hashtag #beardfriendlypub

The criteria for the Award include:

A safe environment for all.

Beard Friendly Pub: a pub that welcomes the hirsute and often has a  number of hirsute customers, including but certainly not confined to those with modern styles of beards.

Beard Friendly Ambience: a pub that may have fewer hirsute customers but is welcoming to the hirsute through some bearded bar staff and beard friendly beers, plus has a generally relaxed atmosphere for all.

The campaign group says it welcomes diversity in both appearance and drinking. The truly beard friendly pub will have a genuine mix of customers not just a load of old blokes grumbling about life.

Beard Friendly Bar,Pub, Tap of the Year. The Follicle Frenzy Final

— keith flett (@kmflett) January 11, 2023

Beard Friendly Pub of the Year 2023

London

Cock Tavern, Hackney

Pembury, Hackney

Shirkers Rest, New Cross

Redemption Tap Room, Tottenham

Outside London

Bundobust, Manchester

Evening Star, Brighton

Stoneworks, Peterborough

Tom’s Tap & Brew, Crewe

Beard Liberation Front

11^th January

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Prince Harry to feature on Beard of Winter Shortlist

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Prince Harry will feature on the Beard of the Year shortlist announced on 15^th January. An on-line vote will see a winner declared at the end of January.

Prince Harry’s beard has become a subject of controversy following the publication of a volume of his Prince’s memoirs. He reveals that the Queen gave him permission to wear the beard at his wedding with Meghan. This annoyed Prince William, who at an earlier point had to shave his beard off.

The specific point at issue was whether Harry could wear a beard while in military uniform. The campaigners say that there is an historic tradition of beards in the British forces dating back to the Crimean War in the 1850s. The more recent tradition of being clean shaven was invented in the early twentieth century.

The campaigners say the King wore a beard in his younger years as did his late father and that facial hair can add gravitas to Royal appearances and pronouncements.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Prince Harry is a controversial person currently but his beard is presenting a positive image of the hirsute in the public eye. He has been a contender for Beard of the Year in previous years. Can he shave the opposition to be crowned Beard of Winter?

Sunak wants to ban protests as well as strikes

The shambolic Government Bill to ban workers in some sectors of the economy from striking was unveiled in the Commons today. It was rightly attacked by Labour as nonsensical, understandably as Government research had already noted that it will not work.

Its not just strikes that Rishi Sunak wants to ban its protests as well. He has written a piece on the Conservative Home Website. He argues that the right to protest in a democratic society must be protected. However the right is only theoretical. If is exercised it must be banned.

There is yet another Public Order Bill in the Commons currently. It focuses on Suella Braverman’s plans to make it illegal to even think about protesting let along doing it. Its all a bit vague, like the anti-strike Bill, vague but potentially far reaching in its impact.

Sunak moans that recent Just Stop Oil protests which have involved marching in the road as protests often do, are disrupting things. Not nearly as much as 44 day Truss disrupted the entire country it might be suggested. How exactly such protests will be banned, which involve small numbers and as the police have noted hardly disrupt already slow moving traffic is not revealed.

Is Boris Johnson being airbrushed out of history

Stalin was well known for airbrushing Trotsky and others from photographs as he purged and had bumped off old Bolshevik leaders. The bumping off worked but the airbrushing didn’t because invariably there were still original copies of the photos around.

The same fate now appears to have befallen Boris Johnson. In June 2021 he paid a visit with Grant Schapps to meet Virgin Orbit and a photograph was taken. In the wake of the unfortunately failed launch of a space rocket in Cornwall on 9^th January the photo reappeared on Schapps twitter with a space where Johnson had been. The tweet has been deleted and Schapps denies all knowledge but the method is clear enough.

It would be nice in some ways if the Conservative Party could be airbrushed out of history but as an historian I couldn’t possibly support that

January 12^th is Plough Monday: the start of a year of revolt

In the traditional calendar the first Monday after Epiphany is Plough Monday.

This is the ritual start of the agricultural year when land is ploughed ready for the sowing of crops.

Poorer land holders didn’t usually own a plough and a communal one was held by the local church( the source of authority in pre-industrial times).

As often with such rituals rebellion was never far away.

George Ewart Evans in The Pattern Under the Plough (1965) noted:

The ploughman dragged a gaily decorated plough from door to door asking for money to buy drink…if any householder refused to contribute to this foolery,the mummers put their shoulders to the plough, and ploughed up the greensward in front of his door. There was also a lot of dancing and high stepping antics performed by the mummers

Jo Draper on Plough Monday in Dorchester

In Dorchester, Freddie James, Agricultural Trades Union worker and Mayor of the town from 1934 to 1936, had decided that this was a festival worth reviving because it marked the beginning of the farming year. He said, ‘When we cease to recognise the importance of the plough, it will be a bad day for this country. This Festival will help agriculture, for the more people think about its real meaning, the more honourable will they find the profession. There is a greater skill required in handling a plough than in some of the leading crafts of the day.’ He managed to coincide Plough Monday with a visit by the Minister of Agriculture, who addressed a large meeting of Conservatives at Weymouth and then came up to Dorchester to ‘toast the plough’.

But the great event of the day was when they came before some house which bore signs that the owner was well-to-do in the world, and nothing was given to them. Bossy rattled his box and the ploughmen danced, while the country lads blew their bullocks’ horns, or shouted with all their might; but if there was still no sign, no coming forth of either bread-and-cheese or ale, then the word was given, the ploughshare driven into the ground before the door or window, the whole twenty men yoked pulling like one, and in a minute or two the ground before the house was as brown, barren, and ridgy as a newly-ploughed field. But this was rarely done, for everybody gave something, and were it but little the men never murmured, though they might talk about the stinginess of the giver afterwards amongst themselves, more especially if the party was what they called ” well off in the world.” We are not aware that the ploughmen were ever summoned to answer for such a breach of the law, for they believe, to use their own expressive language, ” they can stand by it, and no law in the world can touch ’em,’ cause it’s an old charter;” and we are sure it would spoil their ” folly to be wise.”

Chambers Book of Days (11th Jan 1864)

Living Marxism: the Great Moving Right Show continues

I first came across Frank Furedi when he was using the pseudonym Frank Richards as part of the Revolutionary Communist Group in the 1970s. The RCG had split from the International Socialists(SWP) and in due course became the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Richards/Furedi spent time publishing interminable pieces on (not unimportant Marxist theory) things like productive and unproductive labour.

At some point they became fed up with that and started as the RCP publishing a glossy magazine Living Marxism. The speciality was contrarian positions- support for a ballot in the 1984/5 miners strike, opposition to no platform for fascists.

This might be seen as simply building the brand but in fact the contrarianism started them on a long and continuing journey to the right. Living Marxism stopped publication after losing a libel case but in due course Spiked OnLine with many of the same cast appeared.

It has moved steadily to the right. Its Editor Brendan O’Neil can be found writing in the Spectator supporting whatever the latest Tory Culture War is. Another well known figure is now Lady Fox sitting in the Lords after a brief period as Faragist MEP.

Furedi himself is now a Professor Emeritus at Kent and makes regular appearances on GB News. I regret to say he is a Spurs fan.

Private Eye(1589) reports that Furedi is now heading up the Brussels operation of the Hungarian ‘think tank’ Mathias Corvinus Collegium. It is funded by the hard right Hungarian Government of Viktor Orban. As the Eye notes the MCC ‘wages a culture war for right-wing nationalism’. Furedi is promoting its activities on his twitter account.

It will be interesting to see what its impact on the hard to far right in the UK is and a reminder that it and the views it espouses need opposing by the left every bit as much as Living Marxism did in the 1980s

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

9^th January

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Friendly Bar, Pub, Tap of the Year. London

The Beard Liberation Front has said that the vote for Beard Friendly Bar, Pub and Tap of the Year is now open.

The on-line poll will feature two rounds each consisting of four of the most beard friendly pubs. Four are from London and four from elsewhere in the country.

Tom’s Tap and Brew won the Outside of London vote with the Evening Star in Brighton second

The aim of the vote is to promote pubs that are friendly and welcoming to all, and also sell good beer

The Beard Friendly Pub of the Year is an annual feature in January each year, although the pandemic years have disrupted the process.

The last full  vote in January 2020 saw the decisive winner in the Beard Friendly Pub of the Year as the Bumble Inn micropub in Peterborough. The runner up was the Cock Tavern in Hackney

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it is a hugely difficult time for pubs and those who enjoy a drink in them. As usual we have selected an eclectic list and there are many others that could have been included. Our suggestion is to visit a favourite bar, pub and tap room in the next few weeks to see if it meets the beard friendly criteria. If it does then make sure people here about it through word of mouth and on social media, using the hashtag #beardfriendlypub

The criteria for the Award include:

A safe environment for all.

Beard Friendly Pub: a pub that welcomes the hirsute and often has a  number of hirsute customers, including but certainly not confined to those with modern styles of beards.

Beard Friendly Ambience: a pub that may have fewer hirsute customers but is welcoming to the hirsute through some bearded bar staff and beard friendly beers, plus has a generally relaxed atmosphere for all.

The campaign group says it welcomes diversity in both appearance and drinking. The truly beard friendly pub will have a genuine mix of customers not just a load of old blokes grumbling about life.

Beard Friendly Pub of the Year 2023

Beard Friendly Bar, Pub, Tap of the Year. London

— keith flett (@kmflett) January 9, 2023

London

Cock Tavern, Hackney

Pembury, Hackney

Shirkers Rest, New Cross

Redemption Tap Room, Tottenham

Outside London

Bundobust, Manchester

Evening Star, Brighton

Stoneworks, Peterborough

Tom’s Tap & Brew, Crewe

Beard Liberation Front

9^th January

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners defend Prince Harry’s Beard

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has defended Prince Harry’s beard.

The beard has become a subject of controversy following the publication of a volume of the Prince’s memoirs. He reveals that the Queen gave him permission to wear the beard at his wedding with Meghan. This annoyed Prince William, who at an earlier point had to shave his beard off.

The specific point at issue was whether Harry could wear a beard while in military uniform. The campaigners say that there is an historic tradition of beards in the British forces dating back to the Crimean War in the 1850s. The more recent tradition of being clean shaven was invented in the early twentieth century.

The campaigners say the King wore a beard in his younger years as did his late father and that facial hair can add gravitas to Royal appearances and pronouncements.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Prince Harry is a controversial person currently but his beard is presenting a positive image of the hirsute in the public eye

The politics of protest: the ‘mob’ versus the ‘crowd’. 6^th January 2021 to 8^th January 2023

The attempt by far right supporters of former Brazilian leader Bolsonaro on 8^th October to storm Government buildings mirrors that of Trump supporters on 6^th October 2021 to attack the US Capitol building. In both cases there was a riot and a mob or crowd was involved

Of course one person’s mob is another person’s crowd

For example protesting outside the house of someone who has transgressed many people’s understanding of what might be termed a ‘moral economy’ is a British tradition stretching back over many centuries. It was not however by any means always politically progressive, so controversy over it is also something not recent.

The use of the term mob to characterise popular protest dates back at least to Edmund Burke’s view of the French Revolution. As the great historian of nineteenth century protest George Rude underlined what reactionaries thought was a mob was in many cases simply a peaceful crowd making reasonable points. If one wants to look for a mob, the activities of the Bullingdon Club are a good place to start.

Events in the US on January 6th 2021 provided a much wider canvass to issues of the politics of protest but a summary of the mob v crowd debate, now history itself, is here:

While George Rude saw in a protest up to a riot the work of the crowd, and broadly progressive intentions and outcomes, E.P. Thompson was less happy with this formulation. He suggested that riots could also contain reactionary elements and the crowd involved in the Gordon Riots would be an obvious example.

I would take Thompson’s side in that debate (if only just) but underline the point above that while we may accept that there may be reactionary elements in crowds which can get involved in riots this doesn’t alter the fact that they happen and need to be understood

E.P. Thompson’s work on food riots points to the reality that the threat of a riot was often more effective than an actual riot. It could cause a reduction in the price of bread or the distribution of hoarded food. When riots did occur very much the same impact was to be found. Hidden food was seized and distributed at low price.

There were other, more obviously political riots, often associated with the Chartists. The Chartists were an organised political force that most certainly did not support riots. It was rather the wider Chartist crowd that participated in such activities, often after provocation from the authorities.

There has been a lot more research and wider perspectives on the crowd since Thompson and Rude looked at the matter in the 1960s and 1970s. Crowds are looked at from the perspective of safety risk management and from psychology as well as history.

Historical research however can provide useful context by looking at who the individuals were involved in mob or crowd protests, what their intention was, how this turned out and what the reaction of authority was. Perhaps needless to say such research is limited because often the only people who can be identified are those who are arrested and any who make public statements about their activities. We now know a good deal about the organised fascist groupings behind the 6^th January attack and may well find out in due course about those involved on January 8^th Brazil  and if they were links.

Of course the democratic crowd will usually make it clear what it’s about so a lack of clarity may suggest a mob with less clear intent.