Kmflett's Blog

From Hugh Gaitskell to Keir Starmer. Labour’s Man With a Plan

Keir Starmer has announced Labour’s plan to address the energy crisis by freezing prices. How this is to be achieved is academic as he isn’t yet PM. The point is to underline that Labour has a specific plan, rather than vague Tory ‘promises’ and to put pressure on the next Tory PM to do something similar.

It would of course have been cheaper and more efficient as Starmer’s French co-thinker President Macron grasped when he nationalised EDF energy recently, to bring the energy companies back into public ownership. Starmer won’t say this however because some chap with a beard he doesn’t get on with does.

Starmer is not however Labour’s first Man With a Plan.

Hugh Gaitskell (Labour leader 1955-1963) had one at the 1959 Election. Like Starmer Gaitskell was a figure of the Labour right (although more socially liberal than the current leader). However times were different and Gaitskell though far from a fan of nationalisation saw a reason for it when appropriate.

Labour lost the 1959 as the British economy boomed under the Tories. Starmer will not face the same issue and perhaps his plan will in some form work

Hugh Gaitskell’s plan in 1959

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7647952.stm

Introduction to 1959 Labour Manifesto

Britain Belongs to You: The Labour Party’s Policy for Consideration by the British People

We welcome this Election; it gives us, at last, the chance to end eight years of Tory rule. In a television chat with President Eisenhower, Mr. Macmillan told us that the old division of Britain into the two nations, the Haves and the Have Nots, has disappeared. Tory prosperity, he suggested, is shared by all. In fact, the contrast between the extremes of wealth and poverty is sharper today than eight years ago. The business man with a tax-free expense account, the speculator with tax-free capital gains, and the retiring company director with a tax-free redundancy payment due to a take-over bid-these people have indeed ‘never had it so good’.

It is not so good for the widowed mother with children, the chronic sick, the 400,000 unemployed, and the millions of old age pensioners who have no adequate superannuation. While many of those at work have been able to maintain and even improve their standard of living by collective bargaining, the sick, the disabled and the old have continually seen the value of state benefits and small savings whittled away by rising prices. Instead of recognising this problem as the greatest social challenge of our time, the Prime Minister blandly denies it exists.

The behaviour of Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte at today’s Chelsea v Spurs game ,which saw both get a red card was of course unprofessional,but behind it lay a battle of class, wealth and power.

As Karl Marx noted in Capital Volume One

capital is constantly compelled to wrestle with the insubordination of the workmen

As for the 2-2 result like the French Revolution its too early to say what it will mean and anyway the cricket season is in full swing

Peterloo: 1819-2022 Enough is Enough: Democracy is more than the vote

There is a march and rally on Sunday afternoon backed by Oldham Trades Council in central Manchester*. On 16^th August the Peterloo Memorial Campaign will gather at the Peterloo memorial from 5.30pm

We are approaching the 203^rd anniversary of Peterloo. It was a protest about the right to vote but rather more than that. People were living in a system where they had no representation and no say. In addition but also centrally they struggled in many cases to afford enough to eat. Democracy became focused on the right to vote with the Chartists in the late 1830s but Peterloo was a much wider expression of what a democratic society should be. Its one we have still to achieve

In the Making of the English Working Class E P Thompson argued that the cost of living crisis was about wider issues than just that. He quoted a cotton spinner from 1818

The rise of a master class without traditional authority or obligations; the growing distance between master and man.. the loss of status and above all independence of the worker.. the partiality of the law, the discipline, monotony, hours and conditions of work, loss of leisure and amenities.

Thompson argued that for many it was also about justice, independence, family-economy. The demand for the vote was underwritten by wider concerns, a point echoed by George Monbiot.

George Monbiot 9^th August 2022

It’s not a cost of living crisis so much as a rip-off crisis.

People are being ripped off by energy companies, ripped off by landlords, ripped off by a government that channels benefits to the rich while watching the poor slide into destitution.

*PETERLOO MARCH FOR DEMOCRACY The march will start from Piccadilly Gardens at 12:30 Main event starts at 1pm in St Peters Square Followed by Q & A on Democracy at the friends meeting house at 4pm Confirmed speakers include: SPEAKERS INCLUDE. JEREMY CORBYN KEN LOACH STELLA ASSANGE

Beard Liberation Front

14^th August

Beard Wearers urged to avoid using hosepipes to cool beards

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has urged beard wearers to avoid using hosepipes to cool their beards, as drought conditions prevail across much of the UK.

The campaigners say that there is no need to use a hosepipe if follicles became overheated. Placing a few ice cubes in the beard or immersing it in a glass of chilled craft lager will work perfectly well.

The BLF says that while the use of hosepipes to cool follicles is not thought to be widespread it is still wasteful.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course the actual answer is to nationalise the water companies. However since that decision rests with clean shaven suit wearers interim measures are needed

The Ambridge Socialist

14^th August

We back Chelsea’s act of revenge against class enemy Gemma

Chelsea has scratched the car of chicken factory nark and supervisor Gemma after leaving the Bull with Tracey. It was a minor but justified act of revenge against a class enemy. Chelsea has been questioned by Knacker Burns but she has little to worry about there. Of more concern is her job at the Orangery where she faces the sack over errors despite the intervention of Call Me Russ.

Call Me Russ has however revealed his true nature and made Chelsea confess to Borchester Knacker as a quid pro quo for saving her job. Sgt Burns didn’t seem bothered it was quite low on his long list of unsolved crimes.

Ambridge ruling class in crisis as Godmother Peggy Woolley takes a back seat

Peggy Woolley (aka June Spencer) has announced that she will no longer take a part in BBC broadcasts from Ambridge after 70 years.

She was married to publican Jack Archer and then to the owner of Grey Gables Jack Woolley. In recent years she has been the ruling matriarch of Ambridge with a battle going on as to who would be  her eventual successor.

David Archer pushed Nigel Pargetter off the roof of Lower Loxley in 2011 in a bid to secure the succession when he was married to Elizabeth Archer. More recently however he has come to an accord with her new partner abattoir owner Vince Casey

Other contenders include model railway fan Tony Archer, trainee vicar Shula Archer and publican Kenton Archer. In a surprising move Peggy appears to have forgiven and indeed even praised Pat for her CND years in the 1980s.

Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, as the Godmother Peggy has had a huge influence in Ambridge most recently positive with the rewilding project. Her succession will lead to tensions in the ruling Archers dynasty

Tory leadership hustings due at the Village Hall

There will be an Ambridge Socialist protest. Details to follow

In other news

Adil is trying to swerve a role at the fete as is Knacker Burns

Caitlin has returned to Wales leading to a general crisis at Bridge Farm

Water Companies, Profits, Leaks & Ownership

The graph above appeared in the Financial Times (13^th August).

It looks at privatised water companies in mainland UK . As can be seen most make large profits and most also waste a lot of water through ageing infrastructure that they don’t invest in. Their legal duty is to shareholders although corporate governance should dictate a much more robust approach to investment.

Their failure to invest has led not only to persistent issues with burst water mains but also the current sewage crisis where raw sewage has been pumped into the sea around the UK with Tory Government connivance.

The answer to this is to bring these companies back into public control. Given their poor stewardship they don’t deserve compensation but allowing that this is paid, it still represents not just a sensible but an essential policy in the era of climate change.

No doubt a new Tory leader will focus on so far entirely ineffective regulation. Labour should be pressing for and committing to public ownership

The Sacred Month. The 1842 General Strike & how it was organised

August marks the 183rd anniversary of the 1839 Grand National Holiday or Sacred Month.

Ignored or derided as a failure by many historians it was an early attempt at a General Strike- its aim being to bring down capitalism.

The ‘Holiday’ was the idea of William Benbow. Like many radical activists in the nineteenth century he ranged across a variety of occupations, from pornographer to coffee house keeper to grocer and journalist, to survive.

e had been pushing the idea of a Sacred Month for decades in radical circles with no great immediate impact. He did however publish it as a pamphlet in the early 1830s and this can be freely accessed on the internet today!

Benbow’s plan might well have stayed simply an interesting idea were it not for the fact that the Chartist Convention of summer 1839 adopted it as policy and determined to put it into operation in August of that year, starting on the 12th of the month.

It is very much a view of the early labour movement. We are familiar with General Strikes around the world which are in protest at something or which are demanding specific things. The Grand National Holiday was neither of these. It simply planned to disengage from capitalism until the system stopped working.

This meant that not only was no work to be done, but that supporters of the Sacred Month should withdraw any savings they had in banks or other institutions. They were also required to abstain from all excisable articles such as drink and tobacco. On 12th August 1839 in many, mainly northern areas, the pubs were shut.

It was argued that aside from anything else this prevented any disorder and drunkenness as the month got underway.

How was the call for the Sacred Month implemented?

Again as with more recent General Strikes it was not and could not be a matter of trade unions issuing instructions to members to stop work, mounting picket lines and so on. The labour movement infrastructure for this did not exist in 1839.

The weekly Chartist newspaper The Northern Star for the 17th and 24th August 1839 reports meetings across the north, often with very large turnouts comprising a majority of the working population of particular areas, which then proceeded to march to surrounding locations to pull others out in support of the Sacred Month.

Perhaps the best way of describing it is a mass flying picket, but before the motor vehicle, the only way to do this was to march on foot.

There is not a uniform picture of how long people stayed out for- some days in a number of areas- but not the whole month. Again the logistics were complicated. With so many out, and long before any kind of welfare system, people had to balance support for the holiday with the need to survive in terms of eating and providing for those unable to work.

Perhaps some had small holdings that allowed them to survive without wage labour, possibly being only recently agricultural workers. This was part of the project that became in the later 1840s the Chartist Land Plan, but for the Sacred Month itself detail on this remains, as yet, scarce.

Even in areas where the strike did not take hold there was at least symbolic support. In London on 12th August there was a mass Chartist meeting on Kennington Common for example.

Why did the strike fail?

Firstly because many leading Chartists were preoccupied with State persecution, arrests and trials, relating to the 1839 Convention. Some meetings on the GNH also dealt with the Chartist ‘victims’, in essence political prisoners.

Secondly because the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act had seen the introduction of new police forces in some areas. For example in Manchester the police, known as the ‘bludgeon men’ attacked and arrested strikers. Many involved in the Holiday were concerned about its legality and the potential consequences. It was something the State and newspapers of the day focused on, as they would now.

Yet this was not the last of the Chartist Challenge. The Sacred Month was just part of a repertoire of strategies that were being tried, mostly for the first time anywhere in the world, to see which might succeed in bringing an end to capitalism.

In November 1839 in Newport South Wales there was an attempt at armed revolution. It almost succeeded.

The Battle of Lewisham 13th August 1977, 49 years on

13th August marks the 49th anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham, when the
fascist National Front were stopped by anti-fascists from marching in the area
of London around New Cross.

The NF’s provocative march came just months after the Battle of Wood Green
when the fascists attempt to march had resulted in it being split in two by
anti-fascists.

It was part of a strategy of tension by the fascists designed to whip up
racist sentiment and show that they controlled the streets.

As events at Lewisham 49 years ago underlined, they did not.

A coach load of anti-fascists left Wood Green tube station in North London
on the morning of Saturday 13th August and I was one of them.

Memory is a doubtful thing and I’ve been at many anti-fascist protests over
the years so one tends to blur into another.

The only real abiding memory I have of Lewisham is of at one point being in
a group that had ended up on the wrong side of police lines. These days we’d
probably have been arrested. In 1977 the police loaded us on to a London bus
and told the driver to take us back over to the anti-fascist protest.

As often on such occasions there was a division between those who wanted to
protest at the fascists and those who wanted to stop them. I would invariably
be on the latter side (and still would) but the emphasis on a divided strategy
was important.

At the Battle of Wood Green there had likewise been those who wished just to
make a peaceful protest against racism and fascism and those who wanted to
confront the fascists. The two were successfully combined in the umbrella of a
united protest.

The Anti Nazi League was formed from the confrontation with the NF at
Lewisham and it was certainly one of the motors for it.

The Observer published a good account of what took place on the day:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/13/battle-of-lewisham-national-front-1977-far-right-london-police

It underlines that the NF chose to march in the area because they had been
gathering local support in some quarters. It also points to the use by police
of riot shields for the first time and the hardline tactics used against
anti-fascists. In part these were likely to have been developed after the
earlier Battle of Wood Green on 23rd April 1977.

There is one gap in the report. It notes that 4,000 protesters ‘turned up’.
Of course they did not just turn up any more than the NF did. They were
organised. Local churches and the Communist Party organised the morning march.
The confrontation was certainly rooted in the local community but organised by
the left, the Socialist Worker, the Labour Party and anti-racists and community
activists

49 years on what took place at Lewisham and what came out of it remain
important for the continuing fight against racism and fascism. Physical
confrontation of fascist marches to make sure they are stopped is important but
that is an occasional part of a much wider strategy, to build active campaigns
in each community and workplace to make sure that racism and racist ideas don’t
flourish..

That work needs to be done again and again in each generation. The racists
and fascists have not gone away

Tory ruling class education crisis as Eton students opt for liberal education in the US over Oxbridge

Eton has provided numbers of British Prime Ministers but it seems the latest ruling class generation is less keen on the traditional route to power and influence via Oxbridge.

According to a report in the Murdoch Times Eton students are put off applying for Oxbridge because both Universities are letting in more of the great unwashed from State schools. This makes it harder to get in underlining that being born to rule and having academic capacity are not the same thing/

A Times source at Eton said 50-75 students were looking at US Universities. Of course this is expensive (so is Oxbridge) but it appears some scholarships are available.

The Universities looked at include Harvard, Yale and Princeton where the students value the breadth of education on offer and because of a liberal arts curriculum.

According to current Tory policy and Rishi Sunak only subjects that lead to well paid jobs should be taught at University and liberal arts doesn’t fall into that category. One sense Tory leadership succession planning may be in crisis.

12th August 1839: Grand National Holiday against the smooth faced men

On 12th August 1839 the Chartists called a Grand National Holiday, a month long general strike to bring down capitalism. It had a good deal of popular support, it did actually happen but ultimately could not be sustained.

A key populariser of the idea was the veteran radical William Benbow 1787-1864. He had toured industrial districts in 1838 and 1839 speaking at meetings.

The Northern Star for 1st June 1839 captured part of a ‘spirited and excellent speech’ he made at a packed meeting at the Stanley Arms Inn in Stockport.

Benbow directed his speech ‘exclusively to the industrious classes and not to those middle-men, those smooth faced..men who had sold the people to the Aristocracy and would sell God himself if he could be personified on earth’.

Clearly Benbow had in mind not just the exploitation of employers but also their appearance.

Appearance was important to the Chartists. Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor often addressed supporters as those wearing fustian jackets and having unshorn chins. Surviving drawings of Benbow suggest he as clean shaven but evidently not smooth faced.