Kmflett's Blog

Rishi Sunak: one dimensional politics

On 25th October Rishi Sunak became the first person of Asian heritage to become Prime Minister. However as Marcus Ryder pointed out in the Guardian there is no such thing as trickle down diversity any more than there is trickle-down economics.

Sunak is the richest MP in the Commons and while he is not an Old Etonian he went to Winchester an alternative route to the ruling class.

An important issue is the one-dimensional politics of Sunak’s arrival at No.10. He lost an election for Tory leader in the summer to Liz Truss. When she resigned as PM he stood again but this time was elected by no one but appointed by the 1922 Committee. No British Prime Minister has been elected at a General Election and subsequently lost one since Ted Heath (1970-74) so the process, unsatisfactory though it is, is not new.

However Sunak plans to implement a further period of unnecessary austerity and spending cuts. For this he has no conceivable mandate. It is not the programme Johnson was elected on in December 2019.

Keir Starmer has called for a General Election. When Sunak unveiled his five pledges on 4^th January he claimed he was addressing the people’s priorities. For many beset by a cost of living crisis and an incompetent Government the priority is an Election not in late 2024 but now.

The one-dimensional politics that has put the few before the many since 2010 has to end.

A farewell to One Mile End Brewery

It has been reported that One Mile End Brewery has stopped production a victim it seems of the cost of living crisis.

One Mile End started brewing in the basement of the pub and location of that name in 2014. It moved its main operation to Tottenham taking over what had been Redemption Brewery’s original site. Redemption moved just around the corner and is still thriving.

One Mile End particularly in north-east London was known for brewing the occasional beer with a politically inspired name. One celebrated the East End anarchist Rudolf Rocker and another was named Juicy4PM. The beer was as described, a hazy pale, but the name was supportive of Jeremy Corbyn when he was leader of the Labour Party. Corbyn doesn’t drink but no doubt enjoyed the wordplay.

A number of mainly small breweries have ceased production recently. Despite what New Labour claimed and as the 2008 financial crash reminded, capitalism is a system of boom and bust. We are currently in the bust phase. I’m not sure this worries the current Government too much. They are concerned to retain profit, or more accurately the rate of profit at the expense of the many- working people. They aren’t in fact achieving that, hence complaints about productivity.

In the meantime a few breweries and bars are starting up. The bust part of the economic cycle is a good time to start (if finance is available) because it puts businesses in a good position to benefit when trade picks up.

That unfortunately is of no help to One Mile End or those of who enjoyed its beer and pump clip names

Cricket Culture Wars 2023. Eton v Harrow at Lords to be replaced by ‘jolly’ for JP Morgan

The long running culture war about the future of the Eton v Harrow and Oxford v Cambridge matches at Lords has started again.

In 2022 the MCC Cricket Committee which says that Lords can only be used for 60 days during the summer backed down from the plan after 200 members called for a special meeting. Now the members are being balloted and asked to rank the matches they most value at Lords. Eton v Harrow was first played in 1805 and Oxford v Cambridge in 1827 but the Committee want to see finals of a competition open to all schools and Universities instead.

It has also said that three days given over to sponsors can’t be dropped because their financial backing is too important. Old Etonian and well known cricket commentator Henry Blofeld has told the Times (3^rd January) that Eton v Harrow must stay over sponsors jollys.

There will be rounds in this Culture War

Dry January of course doesn’t mean avoiding the pub. Non alcoholic drinks can be found in many bars now.

 I’ve been looking back at the peak period of such brews, late Victorian Britain.

The template was fermented ginger beer which was marketed as an alternative to beer although it may well have been alcoholic.

One well known manufacturer of alternative fermented brews was Wheatley’s of Sheffield.

A brief summary of their production is here, with a link to some more details:

In the latter part of the 19th century they were large-scale producers of “hop bitters”, that is, refreshing, non-alcoholic drinks with a base of hops, dandelion etc. One of the firm’s most popular products a century ago was “Stym”, a form of hop bitters. They evidently produced 200 barrels per day of this “Highly successful non-intoxicating substitute for ordinary ale”, using water from their “own artesian wells”.

https://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/topic/417721-wheatley-amp-bates-mineral-water-manufacturers-etc/

From New to Newer Labour: the Political Slogans of 2023

Rupert Murdoch is not impressed with the performance of some members of the Shadow Cabinet (Times Editorial 2^nd January) and so has ordered a reshuffle. The date for this is not known but the paper has published an article based on the ‘thoughts’ of ‘Senior Labour Source’ on who must be purged.

Who ‘Senior Labour Source’ is we don’t of course know although Lord Mandelson had an article in the Sunday Times (1^st January) where he outlined the tasks for a Labour Government. Essentially this involved making things a little bit better by ‘modernising’ and relying on the same or similar privateering chancers that have done so well out of the present Government. Many might say that a little bit better is an improvement on a Government that is absolutely dedicated to making everything a whole lot worse.

The Times also noted the slogans for Labour in 2023:

From a party of protest to a party of public service

From nostalgists to reformers

From ideological puritans to centre-left patriots

While Mandelson may not be responsible for this they are similar to the dichotomies that he wrote for Blair during the first period of the 1997 Labour Government.

Mandelson did not distinguish himself in that Government and one problem is that slogans and reality don’t always match.

Being for public service at the moment involves protest in support of the NHS. The reference to nostalgists simply reminds us that as with New Labour Newer Labour wants to remain ignorant of history. Finally the centre left patriotism of unwavering support for NATO is of course someone else’s ideological puritanism.

Engels 3^rd January 1864 ‘Christmas drinking sprees…unfitness for business

The many Christmas drinking sprees and consequent unfitness for business have rendered me utterly incapable of replying any  sooner. However the affair is now happily over.

Engels to Marx 3^rd January 1864

Engels was in Manchester and Marx in Zalt Bommel (Holland) at New Year 1864

Extinction Rebellion & Repertoires of Contention

Extinction Rebellion have announced a temporary move away from direct action such as road protests and lock ons and announced a mass protest at Parliament on 23^rd April. Their statement notes that direct action has not shifted things enough. They are looking to a more inclusive protest working together with others such as trade unions who see system failure as a key issue.

Media coverage has presented it as a surprise but in fact a discussion has been underway amongst climate activists and the left. Just Stop Oil which has carried out more direct action protests than ER recently has changed to a tactic of slow moving walking protests in central areas. In the main these are lawful.

Suella Braverman has been ranting at police to crack down on climate protesters for a while. Senior officers seem to be mindful that Home Secretarys come and go and come back but if they exceed their legal powers court cases and damages may follow.

Even so police say they have tens of climate protesters on remand in prison where they are likely to be for months. Where cases have come to trial, while some not guilty verdicts have been returned in higher courts in general prison sentences follow.

Prison is quite purposively not a nice place to be and the experience is designed to dissuade people from protest and stop them doing it again.

The individual against the State doesn’t often end well for the former without a much wider collective campaign.

ER have moved to a different part of what the historical sociologist Charles Tilly called the Repertoire of Contention which runs all the way from letter writing and meetings to General Strikes and beyond.

What works or doesn’t varies over time depending on support, impact and opposition. The ER change will be welcomed by many but direct action can still have its place and the balance may change again depending on what works and what doesn’t.

The Times has kicked off the Tory Culture Wars for 2023 with an Editorial (2nd Jan) that bemoans the lack of shoes which are properly shined as part of a respectable public dress sense.

It notes that a principal purveyor of shoe shine Kiwi has withdrawn from the UK market due to lack of demand.

The problem is that for many, wearers of sharp suits and shiny shoes appear to be not respectable but dodgy. Hence where I work in the City of London neither suits or shiny shoes are seen as much as they were. People may well be dodgy but they dont want to advertise by appearance.

The only pair of shoes I now own that warrant shining are a pair of steel toe capped Doc Martens but they come out only rarely these days.

Checking Raph Samuel’s The Lost World of British Communism for historical perspectives on the footwear of the left I find that CP members were expected to wear sensible shoes and those who wore suede shoes were regarded generally as ‘morally suspect’. No doubt The Times in 2023 would agree

Dry January, Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor on Teetotal Chartism (3^rd April 1841)

In Britain the temperance movement and working-class radical organisation in the form of Chartism appeared during the same period the 1830s and 1840s. There was to an extent a shared aim- to improve the position of working men (and women, although this was not a central position of either).

Temperance aimed to do this by encouraging sobriety and/or making it more difficult to get drunk. Most Chartists had no issue with that. However as Feargus O’Connor argued in the Chartist Northern Star on 3^rd April 1841 it was an issue that divided rather than united. Some did like to drink but that mean they were against working class rights. Equally some middle class supporters of temperance were against political radicalism except to a very limited degree.

O’Connor’s argument was that the Charter united and would bring progress on all fronts including a more sober and a more radical working class

Marx’s New Resolution for 1863 & why he didn’t keep it

I had even decided to become a ‘practical man’  and enter a railway office at the beginning of next year. Luckily-or perhaps I should say unluckily-I did not get the post because of my bad hand writing’

Marx to Kugelmann 28^th December 1862