The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said the first Close Shave round for the Beard of the Year 2021 is now open.
Railway broadcaster Tim Dunn faces off against Test Match Special’s Dan Norcross, poet Benjamin Zephaniah and musician Brian Eno. The Top Two will go through to the final Beard Off rounds in December.
Beard of the Year 2021. First close shave round. Top 2 go through
Author and broadcaster Michael Rosen and England football manager Gareth Southgate are among four beard wearers guaranteed a place in the final Beard Off rounds from 15th December. They have won hirsute accolades during the year.
Eight others will go into two preliminary rounds to determine a further four follicle fashionistas who will also feature in the December Beard Off rounds.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Beard of the Year is the hairiest and most hotly anticipated event of the beard wearers year. Michael Rosen was joint winner in 2020 but competition will bristle again this year.
Insulate Britain protesters jailed, but as with the battle for a free press in the 1820s, more will appear
Nine Insulate Britain protesters were jailed on 17th November for breaking an injunction not to block roads in climate change protests.
It might seem odd that a Government committed on paper to take action on climate change has determined that the key action to be taken after COP26 is to jail those who pressed for action.
One of those in Court made the point that if protesters were jailed more would come forward. This seems likely and there is a well known precedent in British history.
Around the period of Peterloo in 1819 the (Tory) Government was determined to crack down on radical opinion and calls for democratic rights. Prosecutions for seditious libel were common and the taxes on knowledge(levied on papers) saw the rise of an unstamped, illegal press. Many who published it went to jail, but that didn’t stop publication.
One of the best known was the radical Richard Carlile. In the early 1820s he ran a radical bookshop in Fleet Street known as the Temple of Reason. Carlile was frequently jailed but he had an important principle: THE SHOP IN FLEET STREET WILL NOT BE CLOSED AS A MATTER OF COURSE’
It wasn’t. Before the Government gave in 150 volunteers, shopmen, printers, newsvendors, had been jailed and served over 200 years of imprisonment between them.
Whose were these people? E P Thompson noted in the Making of the English Working Class:
The men and women who came forward were, in nearly every case, entirely unknown to Carlile. They simply came out of London; or arrived on the coach from Lincolnshire, Dorset, Liverpool and Leeds. They came out of a culture
The London Socialist Historians seminars for the autumn term at the Institute of Historical Research concluded on Monday with a well-attended and highly relevant paper from Merilyn Moos on Anti-Nazi German socialists in Britain 1933-45. A link to the recording is below.
Seminars for the Spring term 2022 are likely to remain on Zoom, subject to a review meeting with the IHR on December 1st.
The first Spring 2022 seminar will be on Monday 31st January 2022
Speakers and dates are in the process of being agreed. We will certainly have John Newsinger on Ethel Mannin, novelist and supporter of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War. Duncan Stone author of the forthcoming Different Class, the untold story of English cricket will also be speaking during the term.
From Reclaiming Our History to 1917 & the Black Atlantic, Cato St 1820 & Anti-Nazi Exiles 1933-1945
Monday Oct 4th 5.30pm Marika Sherwood George Orwell told us that ‘the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their own history’. What has been obliterated from ‘our’ history here in the UK and in what used to be our colonies?
Monday Oct 18th 5.30pm Christian Hogsbjerg Red and Black. The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic. Book launch
Monday Nov 1st 5.30pm Judy Meewezen Turtle Soup and Cato Street 1820
Monday Nov 15th 5.30pm Merilyn Moos Anti-Nazi Exiles 1933-1945
London Living Wage Week. A lot done, a lot still to do
The real living wage in London rose to £11.05 an hour on Monday. Its higher than the national minimum wage and is progress in the right direction. Even so with inflation at 4.2% more is needed. Many are campaigning for £15 an hour which would still make living in London a struggle for many
Still marking progress is always worth doing and the Pembury Tavern in Hackney is doing just that. They and the brewery that owns them are London Living Wage employers. Far too many have not yet even reached that basic standard.
Pembury Tavern, E8 London Living Wage festival 15-21 November
Below are the details the Pembury has posted
We are proud to be a part of and support London Living Wage Week. Which is why we dedicate a whole week to pouring our favourite Living Wage Breweries on the taps.
This year marks the 20th year of the Living Wage movement, which we think is cause for celebration. 20 years ago, the idea started at a meeting in a church hall in our very own heartlands, East London. Two decades later, we can celebrate that there are now over 8,000 accredited employers.
We will have a variety of beers across both cask and keg from breweries across the county, so we hope to see you for a pint or two!
Our favourite Living Wage Breweries. Come and try a pint or two from Hackney Brewery, Orbit, Signature and Gipsy Hill. See less
Racism & Institutional Racism in cricket: what is being done?
After a year when action on racism in cricket at the top has amounted to official statements and (sometimes) taking the knee (better than nothing but not a motor to change in itself)at last things are beginning to happen.
I pointed out in the Guardian on 8th November that the issue had been raised in the Commons in the Spring. Nothing is usually expected to come directly from Early Day Motions but they do signal issues that need to be addressed. They weren’t, until the last few days:
On 8 March 2021 a small number of MPs including Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn supported an early day motion in the Commons raising the issue of racism in domestic cricket and the lack of senior black and minority ethnic people at all levels of the game. Nothing was done, and Yorkshire CCC continued to cover up an investigation into racism at the club. That has now caused a reputational crisis for English cricket. What many anti-racist cricket fans, myself included, want to know, is what is actually going to be done about the matter beyond just words and gestures.
Azeem Rafiq appeared before a Commons Select Committee on 16th November and gave a disturbing testimony about racism and institutional in Yorkshire cricket, in the wider game and in the media.
Yorkshire cricket has a new Chair Lord Patel who has pledged to take action. Action however is the one thing that remains missing.
Azeem Rafiq was clearly on several things that should be done:
A whistleblowing hotline to allow players to call out racism
Accountability of senior figures where racist behaviour and incidents have taken place, and resignations where appropriate.
A focus on the ability of the Professional Cricketers Association, in effect the cricket trade union, to take up and grapple with issues of racism and institutional racism in the game.
Merilyn Moos introduced her 3 e-books celebrating the lives and struggles of left-wing Germans who opposed the Nazis from exile. These may be freely downloaded at this link:
Anti-Nazi Exiles German Socialists in Britain and their Shifting Alliances 1933-1945
by Merilyn Moos
Hans Jahn Biography of an Anti-Nazi Trade Unionist
by Merilyn Moos
German Anti-Nazis and the British Empire The Special Operations Executive, Deserters from the German Army and Partisan Movements in Occupied Europe
by Merilyn Moos
The refugees Merilyn discussed almost all fled Germany as political activists, most from a working class background. They risked their lives again and again in Germany, often escaped arrest and probable death without knowing where they would end up.
Most survived. But, once in Britain, organising an anti-Nazi struggle became very difficult and there was much disagreement as to the best means. Merilyn examined the details of a few of these refugees. One example is Hans Jahn, President of the German Railway Union. Faced with the Nazis’ attempt to break working class organisations, he tried to organise anti-Nazi resistance amongst railway workers, even when, later, he was exiled here. He was to say that “one of the greatest tragedies is that German unions did not fight to prevent Hitler taking power in 1933”.
More ferociously anti-Nazi than many at the time in the UK, some anti-Nazi German exiles risked their lives all over again in an often uneasy alliance with sections of the British military. Some worked with SOE. A small group, almost all of whom had fought in Spain, fled to France and then were sent by the French Government to camps in Algeria. They also ‘volunteered’ to fight with the British. Thousands of Germans were conscripted into the 999 ‘Death battalions’, a sub-section of the Wehrmacht, made up largely of political prisoners. Many of them either deserted to the partisans in Greece or clandestinely supported them. Upon the partisans’ defeat, a few of the German deserters escaped to Albania and supported their partisans. The tensions within British policy between being anti-fascist and pro-imperialist, are sharply exposed during the Greek civil war when the German deserters who first were fighting with the partisans alongside the British against the Nazi forces, then fought with the partisans against the British.
It is a good time for such stories of courage and resistance to be heard.
Shortlist for Parliamentary Beard of the Year announced
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has announced the shortlist for Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2021.
Eight candidates will attempt to shave each other for the coveted annual accolade. Last years winner Stuart Anderson MP has mislaid his beard during the year and does not feature.
The winner of Parliamentary Beard of the Year will be announced on 14th December
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, as usual it’s not about whether the politics of a particular MP are approved of or not. It is about the positive impact their beard has had in the public eye during the year, or not as the case may be. There are no whips or block votes involved so it’s entirely down to public support.
Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2021 shortlist
Jeremy Corbyn, (Independent, Islington North)
Andy McDonald (Labour, Middlesbrough)
Jon Trickett (Labour, Hemsworth)
Stephen Crabb (Tory, Preseli)
Stephen Kinnock (Labour, Aberavon)
Colum Eastwood (SDLP, Foyle)
Stewart McDonald (SNP, Glasgow South)
Simon Fell (Tory, Barrow & Furness)
Voting will start on 1st December. Two preliminary close shave rounds will provide four finalists for a Beard Off round with the result announced on 14th December
Campaigners congratulate Harry Kane on record England goals scored by a beard wearer in a season
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers has congratulated Harry Kane (Spurs & England) on the most goals scored by an England player with a beard in a season.
4 goals for Kane in England’s World Cup qualifier against San Marino took his tally for the season to 16 goals.
Previously the record had been held by George Hilsdon (West Ham) and Dixie Dean (Everton) both of whom scored 12 England goals in a season but were resolutely clean shaven.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, two words: Beard Power.
Historians call on Boris Johnson to make sure histories of World War Two include the work of anti-Nazi German refugees in Britain.
The London Socialist Historians Group that organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has called on Boris Johnson to make sure that the details of anti-Nazi refugees who fled to Britain and continued to oppose and undermine the fascist war effort, are included in British histories of the war and post-war period.
The refugees were socialists, communists and Trotskyists who sometimes worked with the British Government and sometimes acted independently. Once the post-1945 Cold War started their heroic activities were left out of histories of the period and are only slowly being recovered by researchers.
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, one of the most persistent right-wing myths about World War Two was that all Germans were Nazis. It has become a persistent caricature and often a joke in popular culture. The reality was very different and its time British histories reflected that.
On Monday 15th November Merilyn Moos spoke to the socialist history seminar on ‘German Socialists in Britain and their Shifting Alliances 1933-1945’
Merilyn Moos introduced her 3 e-books celebrating the lives and struggles of left-wing Germans who opposed the Nazis from exile. These may be freely downloaded at this link:
Anti-Nazi Exiles German Socialists in Britain and their Shifting Alliances 1933-1945
by Merilyn Moos
Hans Jahn Biography of an Anti-Nazi Trade Unionist
by Merilyn Moos
German Anti-Nazis and the British Empire The Special Operations Executive, Deserters from the German Army and Partisan Movements in Occupied Europe
by Merilyn Moos
The refugees Merilyn discusses almost all fled Germany as political activists, most from a working class background. They risked their lives again and again in Germany, often escaped arrest and probable death without knowing where they would end up.
Most survived. But, once in Britain, organising an anti-Nazi struggle became very difficult and there was much disagreement as to the best means. Merilyn examines the details of a few of these refugees. One example is Hans Jahn, President of the German Railway Union. Faced with the Nazis’ attempt to break working class organisations, he tried to organise anti-Nazi resistance amongst railway workers, even when, later, he was exiled here. He was to say that “one of the greatest tragedies is that German unions did not fight to prevent Hitler taking power in 1933”.
More ferociously anti-Nazi than many at the time in the UK, some anti-Nazi German exiles risked their lives all over again in an often uneasy alliance with sections of the British military. Some worked with SOE. A small group, almost all of whom had fought in Spain, fled to France and then were sent by the French Government to camps in Algeria. They also ‘volunteered’ to fight with the British. Thousands of Germans were conscripted into the 999 ‘Death battalions’, a sub-section of the Wehrmacht, made up largely of political prisoners. Many of them either deserted to the partisans in Greece or clandestinely supported them. Upon the partisans’ defeat, a few of the German deserters escaped to Albania and supported their partisans. The tensions within British policy between being anti-fascist and pro-imperialist, are sharply exposed during the Greek civil war when the German deserters who first were fighting with the partisans alongside the British against the Nazi forces, then fought with the partisans against the British.
It is a good time for such stories of courage and resistance to be heard.
Michael Rosen faces Gareth Southgate for Beard of the Year 2021
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has announced the longlist for the Beard of the Year 2021.
Author and broadcaster Michael Rosen and England football manager Gareth Southgate are among four beard wearers guaranteed a place in the final Beard Off rounds from 15th December. They have won hirsute accolades during the year.
Eight others will go into two preliminary rounds to determine a further four follicle fashionistas who will also feature in the December Beard Off rounds.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Beard of the Year is the hairiest and most hotly anticipated event of the beard wearers year. Michael Rosen was joint winner in 2020 but competition will bristle again this year.
Beard of Year 2021 long list
Michael Rosen Beard of Spring/Autumn 2021
Jimmy Wales Beard of Winter2021
Richard Osman Beard of Summer 2021
Gareth Southgate Hirsute Personality 2021
Moeen Ali, England cricketer
Tim Dunn, railway enthusiast & broadcaster
Steve Bell, cartoonist
Benjamin Zephaniah, poet
Billy Bragg, musician
Daniel Norcross, Test Match Special broadcaster
John Whaite, Bake Off to Strictly
Brian Eno, musician
Preliminary rounds: longlist to final shortlist
Thur 18 November to Mon 22 November. Top 2 go through
Thur 25 November to Mon 29 November. Top 2 go through
