Kmflett's Blog

Morbid symptoms- the last days of the Johnson regime & Old Corruption

Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister on 7^th July after only narrowly winning a confidence vote of Tory MPs. At that point he could have left Office, appointed a caretaker deputy, and gone on holiday. Instead while Johnson has certainly gone on holiday-several of them- he has remained in post, drawing his Prime Ministerial salary and using the PM’s country house Chequers. About the cost of living crisis he has done precisely nothing. He did however find time to make yet another visit to Kyiv and promise further taxpayers money to continue the war there.

The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci wrote of the morbid symptoms that arise when an old political order is dying but a new one can’t be born. The parallel is not exact. Gramsci was referring to the fascist regime of Mussolini and the current British Government if there is one is certainly not fascist. There is a relation to the final days of Johnson as PM though when it comes to an abundance of morbid symptoms, some more serious than others.

Since he resigned but stayed in Office Johnson has been on holiday to Slovenia and Greece. He held a belated wedding party at the Cotswold mansion of Lord Bamford, Tory donor and owner of JCB. He also held a farewell party at Chequers.

As police investigations into lockdown activities in Downing St discovered Johnson is good at parties and indeed it is the fact that he broke the lockdown law by attending one which is currently being investigated by the House of Commons Privileges Committee. It has the power to suspend Johnson from Parliament which could trigger a By-Election in his Constituency which he might well lose.

Johnson is reported to be looking to write a column for the Daily Mail in return for which its long time editor Paul Dacre will receive a Peerage. The Mail is currently full of drivel about how unfairly Johnson is being treated, in particular by the Privileges Committee.

Johnson’s resignation honours list is one area where a tale of political indolence and farce becomes more serious. His previous lists have featured Tory donors and people who have done personal favours for Johnson

Meanwhile on the right-wing talk radio station LBC Johnson’s sister Rachel has been speaking to Johnson’s father Stanley (who is in Greece) about how hard done by his son and her brother is. She has also lobbied on air for Johnson to return as Tory leader claiming that his removal was unfair.

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 has 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.

Johnson is not accountable for his activities, in the main, and that flows through to the energy companies. They too are part of a political culture of Old Corruption where profit comes before people every time.

This post appeared in the Morning Star

Update

Johnson has appointed Editor of The Oldie and former Bullingdon Club member Harry Mount (Westminster School& Oxford to the Committee reviewing appointments to the House of Lords

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/02/boris-johnson-gives-peerages-job-author-book-wit-wisdom-harry-mount?CMP=share_btn_tw

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Beard Liberation Front

30^th August

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Why has Jeremy Paxman never worn a beard on University Challenge

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it is disappointed that Jeremy Paxman has not started the final series of University Challenge that he will present with his trademark beard.

Paxman caused a furore in 2013 when he presented Newsnight with a beard. He eventually gave into pressure and shaved it off. In more recent times Paxman has been pictured wearing a beard quite frequently. This may well be his personal choice but it is a matter of regret that Paxman refuses to wear a beard while presenting University Challenge, it would clearly add gravitas.

BLF Organiser at least the next University Challenge presenter Amol Rajan has a beard, or at least he does at the moment.

The Campaign for Real Conkers

Media Release. Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

29th August

2022 Conker Season declared open

The Campaign for Real Conkers, that opposes bans on conker playing and unnecessary rules and regulations in games has said that that the season has opened as usual on August Bank Holiday Monday and will run until mid-October.

Early indications are that 2022 will see a good crop of conkers but the warm and dry summer may effect quality.

The campaigners they are maintaining their usual ‘anything goes’ approach to conker games, to encourage people to play without arbitrary rules.

Campaign Organiser Keith Flett said, we anticipate a full and safe conker playing season over the next six weeks or so, until at least the so called World Conker Championships on October 9th which the campaign traditionally boycotts

Guide on how to play real conkers safely in 2022

1] Select your conker. Do this yourself. DO NOT use a conker provided by someone else who may give you a poor specimen.

2] There is no specific kind of conker that makes a good game winner. Large conkers may more easily splinter for example. Some prefer conkers with flat and sharp edges

3] You may use the conker ‘as is’ known as ‘organic’. Alternatively you may seek to harden it by baking it, soaking it in vinegar etc. There is no guarantee that an artificially enhanced conker will perform any better than an organic one.

4] Drill a small hole through the conker. A nail will often achieve this. Again you must do this yourself

5] Thread the conker through the hole you have drilled. A strong chord, perhaps a shoelace is best

6] You are now ready to play.

7] Make sure that the chord is long enough to allow you to stand at least 1 metre plus away from your opponent. This would generally be the case as space is required for the conker swing.

8] Players take alternate turns to try and hit and destroy their opponent’s conker

9] Those with poor aim may hit the knuckles of their opponent more often than the conker so you may wish to wear gloves.

10] The winner is the player who determines their opponents conker unusable in further rounds, usually by causing it to splinter into two or more pieces

Play safely and enjoy!

TUC calls for more Bank Holidays. The anniversary of Cable St? The Chartist Rising in Newport?

The TUC has called for four more Bank Holidays, noting that the August Bank Holiday is the last until Christmas and that Britain is at the bottom of the European League for public holidays:

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tuc-calls-more-bank-holidays-nation-grafters

The first priority is to decide an autumn date. The right want Trafalgar Day but there are possibilities:

4^th October 1936 Battle of Cable St

4^th November 1839 Chartist Rising Newport

22^nd November 1990 Thatcher’s resignation

28^th November 1820 Birth of Manchester businessman Engels

There is a poll at this link to facilitate democratic discussion..

Today is the last public holiday until Xmas. Forget Liz Truss's talk of 'lazy workers, the UK has the fewest holidays in Europe. @The_TUC has called for more. When should the autumn one be?

— keith flett (@kmflett) August 28, 2022

What we did on our holidays: the August Bank Holiday before and after 1965

The August Bank Holiday was set as the first Monday of the month by the 1871 Bank Holidays Act and only changed for an experimental period to the last Monday in 1965. The change was made permanent in 1971 in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act but does not apply to Scotland. It was primarily a result of pressure from the holiday industry who felt that a later holiday would extend the season.

The constant refrain that summer is over at the end of August seems odd in 2026. Astronomical summer does not end until September 23rd While schools return, September into October have been significant holiday periods for those with grown up children or none at all.

Before legislation in 1938 Bank Holidays were the only official paid holidays available to workers and were seen as a significant advance in working class leisure time.

The August Bank Holiday was the most popular of those agreed by the 1871 Act precisely because it was in summer and the weather was likely to be better for a trip out than the Easter holiday.

Railway companies ran excursions and extra trains to seaside destinations.

The nature of holidays, although still strongly influenced by school terms, has changed considerably in the last 50 years with short breaks at home and abroad more popular.

Recent discussion of bank holidays has focused on whether the UK should have more, if May Day should be maintained and if there should be an autumn bank holiday. Yet there is also something of an historical case now for moving the August Bank Holiday in England and Wales back to its original early August date.

The nature of work and of holidays has changed considerably since 1971 and I suspect that while the period around the current Bank Holiday remains a popular time to take a break, peak holiday time remains in the two weeks after schools break up (in many areas) in late July.

The history of Bank Holidays is still being written in practice as it were.

33 years since the death of E.P. Thompson (d 28th August 1993)

Its 33 years since the death of the historian and peace activist EP Thompson (1924-1993).

I didn’t know Thompson well but I did meet and converse with him particularly when I lived in Worcester (where Thompson also lived at Wick Episcopi) in 1978/79.

He is remembered as one of the key figures in the first new left, the author of the Making of the English Working Class (1963/68) and as a peace activist with CND and END.

His work and some of the concepts he pioneered such as the moral economy remains much referenced and quoted in the current day.

Below is reminder of some of the contents of the security service files on Thompson (those that have been published to date that is).

His correspondence is embargoed at the Bodleyn until 2043 but I’m hopeful that much of it which is also in the John Saville archive at Hull will see the light of day before too long

The National Archives have recently released a number of MI5 files relating to Communists up to the early 1960s.

One set relates to E.P Thompson. He left the Communist Party in 1956 but MI5 bureaucracy took time to adjust.

His file for 1958-62 is slim compared to earlier periods (particularly 1956/7) and as far as can be understood (short of any MI5 or police operative speaking out on the matter) the interest in Thompson during this period was residual.

That is, there was a limited interest in anything that he might do that would disrupt or annoy the CP. Much if not of all this would have been to the left of the CP around the New Left, but it was the disruption not the specific political position that probably interested MI5.

On an initial reading there are four specific issues in the 1958-62 file that have some wider interest:

1] On 14th August 1958 a report was filed from Halifax Police HQ with the subject of Magdaleine Marie Fales. It was signed J Stephens Aliens Officer. Apparently ‘recently’ Thompson’s house in Halifax had been ‘feloniously entered’ and Stephens had accompanied the ‘investigating officer’ for the purpose of sniffing around Thompson’s house. He ( and Dorothy) ‘being away on holiday’. He found a telegram dating back to 1953 relating to Fales, a French national, who had stayed with the Thompsons in that year and had been the subject of an MI5 report. He concludes that ‘Several aliens have stayed with THOMPSON from time to time’. Don’t hold the front page..

2] In June 1961 Thompson appeared in a BBC TV programme about the Communist Party. There is an exchange of letters between Thompson and Howard Hill of Sheffield about this. Hill argues that Thompson had appeared in a programme that had attacked the CP. Thompson in reply noted that he had tried to avoid attacking the CP since the 1956 split, even though he disagreed with its line and leadership. He suggests that he had argued on the programme that the BBC underplayed or ignored left politics including the CP.

3] In the same letter 13th June 1961 Thompson notes that ‘last autumn I volunteered to go to work in Cuba for a year and I know that my invitation was quashed by Communist intervention’. This is interesting because it suggests a perhaps hitherto unknown Thompsonian regard for the Cuban Revolution but also because it would have caused further issues with something he mentioned in another letter

4] On 3rd April 1962 he wrote to Maurice that ‘I’m desperately trying to finish a book on the ‘Making of the Working Class, now very much overdue.

The Ambridge Socialist

28^th August

Ben accuses Ruairi of being a gigolo. So what?

Ruairi has re-appeared in Ambridge and has met up with Ben. The discussion about his relationship with Julianne, essentially as a male escort, was repeated again. Eventually Ben determined that Ruairi was a ‘prostitute’ or gigolo as its known to people outside Ambridge. Hopefully this now long running story line iTs going somewhere rather than just repeating itself from time to time, although in that sense it is reassuringly Archers

This week's Ambridge Socialist poll. Who should Ruairi's special friend be?

— keith flett (@kmflett) August 28, 2022

Grundys v Horrobins

For generations the Grundy’s have been the ruling proletarian family in Ambridge, the alternative to the Archers Dynasty. The Horrobins have been a near lumpen alternative, with Clive in prison, and the others err more frequently than not from the countryside proletarian code. That looks set to change with Brad successfully passing his GCSEs while George Grundy appears somewhat feckless by comparison.

William Morris and Ambridge

A few weeks ago the Ambridge Socialist was asked if there had ever been an anarchist in the Archers. Socialists and radicals there have been but not it seems anarchists.

Some progress was made at the village fete on Sunday when visiting celeb Toyah Wilcox quoted William Morris to forelock tugger Will Grundy:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Grundy of course had never heard of the man he called William Morriston. Morris (1834-1896) may variously be described as a socialist, an extra or anti-Parliamentary socialist and an anarchist. In his utopian novel News from Nowhere he describes Parliament as having been replaced by a dungheap, an idea that would surely have an appeal in Ambridge

In other news

Is Denise thinking of a liaison with Alastair the Vet or will she fall asleep while listening to him and Jakob

Oliver is still trying to reclaim his title of Patrician of Ambridge by ingratiating himself with the Horrobins. It hasn’t worked yet but it may do as he hinted Tracy has got the sack from the chicken factory

E P Thompson d 28th August 1993: ‘the working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making’.

These are the words that begin the Preface to E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class published as a hardback by Gollancz in 1963 and then as a Penguin paperback in 1968. It remains in print.

Thompson was born on February 3rd 1924 He died on 28th August 1993 aged 69.

33 years after his death his work remains much referenced, not least perhaps some of the ideas and concepts he was most associated with such as the moral economy and time-work discipline. Both are central to the Making because they were central areas of contention as the world’s first proletariat was in the process of both being made and making itself.

Thompson was a socialist, long term peace campaigner and author of several other important history books such as Whigs and Hunters, and the collection, Customs in Common.

Thompson’s wider position on class and class formation remains an important statement. Class is not a static category, it’s something forged in the heat of the struggle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._P._Thompson

I belong to a later generation of socialist historians to Thompson. While I’ll occasionally had a beer with him or a discussion about history and politics in his later years, I never knew him well.

All the same time I still recall vividly when I heard of his death on that late August day in 1993. I was on holiday in Scarborough. This of course was long before the era of 24 hour news and social media. His death was briefly reported on a Radio4 news bulletin.

Much discussion of his work has taken place since and as the 65th anniversary of the Making of the English Working Class approaches no doubt there will be more.

Eric Hobsbawm’s obituary, Independent 29^th August 1993

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-e-p-thompson-1464256.html

New York Times obituary of E P Thompson (d 28^th August 1993)

I post the below which appeared in the New York Times on 30^th August 1993 not because it’s a particularly insightful obituary but because it appeared in a major US paper shortly after his death. I’m not sure the same would happen now, a world we may have lost but shouldn’t have.

The Marxist historian and peace campaigner E. P. Thompson, author of a celebrated study of the English working class, has died at age 69. Mr. Thompson died Saturday at his home near Worcester, his wife, Dorothy, said. The cause of death was not disclosed, but news reports said he had been ill for four years.

Edward Palmer Thompson was in recent years best known as an activist in the campaign against nuclear arms, but he made his name as a Marxist historian and author of “The Making of the English Working Class.”

Mr. Thompson said his purpose in writing the book, published in 1963, was to rescue the “Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’ hand-loom weaver, the ‘utopian’ artisan from the enormous condescension of posterity.”

Mr. Thompson was born in 1924 to a Methodist missionary and his wife. He commanded a tank troop in Italy in World War II. After the war he attended Cambridge, where he joined the Communist Party. He broke with the party in 1956 after Soviet troops crushed the uprising in Hungary.

Mr. Thompson made his mark as a historian in 1955 with a biography of William Morris, the socialist craftsman and leader of the 19th-century arts and crafts movement.

In 1965 Mr. Thompson began teaching history at Warwick University and he continued to write and lecture until the late 1970’s, when he devoted himself to the antinuclear cause.

Mr. Thompson is survived by his wife and two children.

Their Wars and Ours

I’m not a pacifist but I do think Churchill had a point when he said ‘jaw to jaw is better than war’. In other words talking to find a way to avoid war is better than the death and destruction of war itself.

The point has contemporary relevance as the Tories back war in Europe and war against the poor at home which they clearly believe are connected.

Theodore Anderson’s Seems Like a Long Time which Rod Stewart sang on his 1971 recording Every Picture Tells a Story is also relevant

Nighttime is only the other side of daytime

But if you’ve ever waited for the sun

You know what it’s like to wish daytime would come

And don’t it seem like a long time

Seem like a long time, seem like a long, long time

Hard times are only the other side of good times

But if you ever wished hard times were gone

You know what it’s like to wish good times would come

And don’t it seem like a long time

Seem like a long time, seem like a long, long time

Help me, seems like a long time

Seems like a long time, seems like a long, long time

And don’t it seem like a long time

Seem like a long time, seem like a long, long time

And don’t it seem like a long time

Seem like a long time, seem like a long, long time

And don’t it seems like a long time

Seems like a long time, seems like a long, long time

You know it makes me sad

Seems like a long time, seems like a long time

Seems like a long, long time

Yes it does,long,long,time, yes it does, long,long time

War time is only the other side of peace time

But if you’ve ever seen how wars are won

You know what it’s like to wish peace time would come

And don’t it seem like a long time

Seem like a long time, seems like a long, long time