Kmflett's Blog

Beyond the question of captain: the crisis in English cricket

The resoundingly lacklustre (at best) of the England cricket team in the just finished three Test series against the West Indies has again raised the issue of the future of captain Joe Root. He has achieved just one victory in the last seventeen matches. Yet while it is an issue the crisis in English cricket and the changes needed go much deeper (and they wont be sorted by Sir Dave Brailsford).

At the end of February the London Socialist Historians seminar heard from Duncan Stone on his new book Different Class, cricket from below

His book on the history of English cricket will not be popular with the cricket Establishment. A discussion on Test Match Special seems unlikely, although there have now been some reviews in papers and journals.

Stone did a PhD at Huddersfield and is a keen cricketer. We are talking here about grassroots cricket not the County structures let alone England. Yet without the former the latter struggle as the recent Ashes series underlined, again.

The book looks at his early attempts to become a league cricketer in Surrey where, compared to the North of England, the cricket was organised on a relatively exclusive class focused basis. He looks at class discrimination in cricket from the bottom up and how this has to an extent, but only to an extent, changed over time. After all the majority of the current England red ball team attended public school  as did the England Under-19 squad.

Of course this point reflects the reality that facilities to learn the skills of cricket for teenagers are often only to be found at public schools now, so attendance, as for example in the case of Joe Root, was a matter of necessity, rather than privilege. The disappearance of school playing fields and the lack of cricket played in State schools, as well as the decline of company cricket facilities in recent decades underlines the point.

Stone then rightly overlays this with the rise of cricket competitions and leagues played by ethnic minority cricketers. These are separate to the existing leagues again no doubt with discrimination being a key issue. Official efforts to integrate and promote players into the upper professional structures of English cricket, for example Chance to Shine, have perhaps been well intentioned but had relatively little impact. The recent revelations about Yorkshire cricket underline the point and one of the key reasons for it: racism.

Stone’s conclusion argues that the ECB which runs English and Welsh cricket cannot be reformed. It has to be replaced and a body with different assumptions about cricket brought into being. Here Stone sees the dominant, conservative, history of cricket as a key issue. The assumption cricket is about fair play and gentlemanly conduct reflects a game with origins in the ruling class. Cricket’s future lies with the grassroots, where it is played between equals and which school someone went to or club they belong to is not a relevant issue.

Stone’s book is an important historical intervention into an sporting debate that is touching on some of the key issues facing British society.

Recording of Duncan Stone speaking at a London Socialist Historians seminar on 28th February 2022

London Socialist Historians Group

Media Release 28th March

Contact LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

Socialist Historians back further UCU strike action. Conditions for teaching & research are being destroyed

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has backed further strike action by members of the University and College Union (UCU). There is strike action at 29 Universities from 28^th March-1^st April.

The academics and professional support staff are taking strike action over further planned cuts to pensions, and continuing attacks on pay and conditions.

The historians say that a continuing supply of historical research is at risk as academics are made redundant or look for jobs elsewhere in the face of a relentless attack by employers on their pay and pensions.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett, this dispute is about whether or not academic life and the important teaching and research that is central to it, can continue in any form beyond a marketized race to the bottom type of education which seems to be the model many University Vice Chancellors seem to prefer. The liberal education that Universities should be providing is under real and sustained threat. UCU members are right to strike and we hope they win.

Full details

https://www.ucu.org.uk/HE-dispute-institutions

The Royal Family & the Caribbean Slave Trade. No future in England’s Dreaming

The Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge have been in the Caribbean on a visit which tied in with the Queen’s Jubilee year. In the context of 2022 there was controversy and some protests.

The Sunday Times has published a summary of the visit (27^th March). It notes there were cheering crowds but also considerable criticism. The Royals didn’t get too far in Belize where there were protests. They did better in Jamaica but the decision to use the Land Rover also used by the Queen and Prince Philip in 1962 provoked criticism that the Royals were living in the past.

The Duke did note in a speech that he understood that those islands where the Queen is still Head of State were unlikely to continue with the arrangement.

The Caribbean islands are of course independent but in some cases the Queen remains the Head of State. Barbados dropped HM last year and Jamaica appears to be in the process of doing so.

In a speech (extract and link to BBC report below) the Duke acknowledged the appalling history of slavery and the slave trade- going one suspects rather farther than Boris Johnson would. However as a BBC analysis underlines ‘sorrow’ is not the same as an apology, since that would raise the question of reparations. This indeed was the demand made during the Royals visit.

The Royal African Company(founded 1660)was responsible for transporting 187,000 slaves from Africa to English colonies including the Caribbean islands between 1672 and 1720. Many were branded with the initials of the Royal who founded the Company, the Duke of York ‘DY’. How this translates into the wealth of the Royal Family remains open to question. The BBC suggest that this is a matter for the Government not the Royals but there is surely nothing to stop the Royal Family from signalling that they believe reparations in some form should be forthcoming.

The Duke of Cambridge has spoken of his “profound sorrow” over slavery during a speech at a dinner in Jamaica.

Prince William said slavery was abhorrent, “should never have happened” and “forever stains our history”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60856763

Their traditions and ours: Mothering Sunday

Given the movable date of Easter, Lent invariably contains within it a number of religious festivals which have to be marked and indeed celebrated. Probably the most well-known of these is Mothering Sunday which takes place in the middle of Lent.

Traditionally it is not about mothers, that was of course a twentieth century commercial invention. Rather it was about communities and families coming together during Lent . It was marked with a spicy fruit cake- simnel cake- and in some areas such as Lancashire a spiced ale- braggert. In any case drinking was ok after sunset.

So if you are feeling the privations of Lent, Sunday may be a good time to relax them a little and all in the best of traditions, and what better time to come together as a community.

The Ambridge Socialist

27^th March

Berrow Farm: All Out to save *every job*

A new front on the class war in Ambridge has been definitively opened this week with the fight to save Berrow Farm escalating. Borchester Land meet next week to take a decision on whether the farm will be closed or not. Justin Elliott remains confident that the BL Board will back his plans and has found himself sacked from the Veterans cricket team by captain Tracey as a result.

The jobs of just three people Neil (the manager) Hannah(asst manager) and Jazzer, the operative, are at stake in what was always designed to be an industrial operation rather than a traditional pig farm. After some disagreements the three appear united in efforts to save Berrow and ALL the jobs.

A defeat for Justin Elliott would be a victory of a people’s Ambridge

The Ambridge Socialist is supporting a protest at the Borsetshire Land Board meeing this. Meet outside The Bull at 8.30am on Tuesday 29th March for transport. Bring placards

Who is the Lower Loxley Easter Bunny?

Plans to get Call Me Russ (Jones) to don the costume and reprise his 2021 role as an Easter Bunny have floundered due to Russ’s refusal. Yet someone was spotted wearing the costume? Who was it? Lily has discussed the matter with Beth over cocktails after they bumped into each other in a Felpersham chocolate shop(??). Lily doesn’t know who it was but Freddie seems likely.

Alice, Amy and Chris too

No major developments this week, angst continues all round. Ambridge Socialist readers in a poll backed the side of proletarian Chris (Horrabin) but a significant number wanted to keep clear of both sides.

E P Thompson on the clocks going forward

Clocks have gone forward or back in Britain to mark summer or winter time for around a century. There are debates about how daylight is lost or gained as a result and the impact of this and these continue.

Behind that however lies an industrial obsession with time and the market capitalist idea that time is money.

A common theme of the clocks going forward for summer is that those who are not working overnight will get one less hour in bed. The subtext there is perhaps whether an hour lost is necessarily such a bad idea.

After all from the 1880s the labour movement campaigned for the 8 hour working day, which is also meant 8 hours for recreation and 8 hours for rest.

EP Thompson’s Time, Work Discipline which appeared in Past and Present in 1967, remains a foundation text.

To give a brief flavour, he writes of ‘Smilesian snippets about humble men who by rising early and diligence, made good’. He continues that as workers secured reductions in working hours moralists became concerned that ‘manual workers after concluding their work were left with several hours in the day to be spent nearly as they please’.

So that one hour lost means that pub opening time is in fact one hour nearer on a Sunday.

Guardian Editorial on William Morris doesn’t mention his beard

The Guardian has published an Editorial on William Morris:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/25/the-guardian-view-on-william-morris-a-man-for-all-seasons

It was the anniversary of Morris’s birth earlier in the week(24^th March 1834) but the reason for the Editorial is to mark the re-opening after a refurbishment of his Oxfordshire house, Kelmscott.

The Guardian is not unsympathetic to Morris- after all he died a long time ago and is not currently opposing Keir Starmer’s Great Moving Right Show for that reason.

It does however have some lacuna. For a start off it has no mention of Morris’s trademark beard. As seriously it rather misrepresents his politics. Morris was a revolutionary and at times anti-Parliamentary socialist. He did not as the Guardian suggests want to abolish Parliament however. In his Utopian novel News from Nowhere Parliament has been replaced by a dungheap. That is an environmentally positive use of the space. Morris saw democracy as being enhanced by a series of people’s assemblies based where they lived, allowing them greater say and more democratic control over their lives. It might seem like a modest measure but over a century after Morris’s death Britain is nowhere near achieving such an extension of democratic practice. Socialist beards are flourishing however.

Starmer ‘out of order’ to let Gary Neville’s Spurs phobic comment pass

Gary Neville appeared with Keir Starmer at a Labour fundraised in Manchester on 24^th March.

During a Q&A Neville compared hapless Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s performance to that of Spurs. While Starmer is a well-known Arsenal fan he has been circumspect about it since becoming Labour leader.

Both Haringey and Islington where Spurs and Arsenal are based are strong Labour areas and Starmer is a North London MP. Gary Neville attacking Sunak was fine but Starmer should have pulled him up on his Spurs jibe, perhaps by mentioning Manchester United’s less than sparkling form this season as an alternative subject for comparison.

For a North London Labour MP to promote division between Spurs and Arsenal is ok as a joke but deserved a jokey response too.

The straight-talking former Manchester United captain is said to have blasted Johnson’s record in Government and likened the Chancellor’s performance to that of Tottenham.

“If Rishi Sunak was a footballer he’d be playing for Tottenham. He looks good but when the going gets tough he does one”, Neville told Labour members – who were packed in the Grand Suite of the Vermillion restaurant.

The Royal Family & the Caribbean Slave Trade: ‘sorrow’ is not enough

The Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge are in the Caribbean on a visit which ties in with the Queen’s Jubilee year. In the context of 2022 there has been controversy and some protests.

The Caribbean islands are of course independent but in some cases the Queen remains the Head of State. Barbados dropped HM last year and Jamaica appears to be in the process of doing so.

In a speech (extract and link to BBC report below) the Duke acknowledged the appalling history of slavery and the slave trade- going one suspects rather farther than Boris Johnson would. However as a BBC analysis underlines ‘sorrow’ is not the same as an apology, since that would raise the question of reparations.

The Royal African Company(founded 1660)was responsible for transporting 187,000 slaves from Africa to English colonies including the Caribbean islands. Many were branded with the initials of the Royal who founded the Company, the Duke of York ‘DY’. How this translates into the wealth of the Royal Family remains open to question. The BBC suggest that this is a matter for the Government not the Royals but there is surely nothing to stop the Royal Family from signalling that they believe reparations in some form should be forthcoming.

The Duke of Cambridge has spoken of his “profound sorrow” over slavery during a speech at a dinner in Jamaica.

Prince William said slavery was abhorrent, “should never have happened” and “forever stains our history”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60856763

Beard Liberation Front

25th March

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Poll finds Michael Rosen is preferred choice for the next Dr Who

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has called for the next Dr Who to be a beard wearer.

The campaigners say that hirsuteness has rarely been a feature of the Doctor over the years. Dr Who’s Nos 4 and 11 were briefly seen with beards and the late John Hurt who appeared in an earlier transformation episode in 2013 did wear a beard. He was later named joint Beard of the Year 2013 for that role.

The BLF identified four contenders who could potentially be a hirsute Dr Who and ran an on-line poll to see who would have the most public impact.

Author and current Beard of the Year Michael Rosen secured just over 50% of the vote, with Idris Elba second and David Tennant third.

BLF Organiser Dr Keith Flett said, of course we are not demanding that the next Dr Who must have a beard. We do think however that there have been far too few hirsute Doctors and its time to redress the balance. We’d be equally happy with a non-beard wearing Doctor provided it widens the diversity of image. However Michael Rosen would be an excellent choice for the new Doctor bringing entirely new dimensions to the long running series.

Michael Rosen on Twitter has welcomed the poll result and tweeted:

I’d love to be a Dr Who (or Dr Who character) who only spoke in spoonerisms and various other kinds of mixed up language: back slangs, and language-play…maybe ‘I’ come from a planet that has garbled English…Why not? Someone talk to Russell T Davies, please.