Kmflett's Blog

Labour, Marxism & Starmer: Not the history man strikes again

The Attlee Government owed less to Marxist textbooks than it did to the famous Daily Mirror cartoon showing an allied solider holding out a sign reading ‘Victory and Peace in Europe’ Keir Starmer, the Road Ahead 2021.

Whether you think Keir Starmer is close to New Labour or not he certainly has one thing in common with the 1990s tendency, an apparent and perhaps deliberate ignorance of Labour Party history.

Starmer clearly thinks (in so far as the matter interests him at all) that Labour and Marxist thought are entirely unrelated.

In fact at the foundation conference of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 one constituent was the Social Democratic Federation an organisation which styled itself as Marxist. It did not fully participate in the Party and had left by 2010. The better elements of it- those that didn’t back World War One- helped to form the Communist Party in 1920. The CPGB worked in part in the Labour Party and was not formally excluded until the late 1920s.

The Attlee Government commissioned Marxist academic Harold Laski to write an introduction to a new Labour Party edition of the Communist Manifesto on the 100^th anniversary of its publication in 1948.

Harold Wilson opined that Labour owed more to Methodism than Marx and quite probably had a point but that didn’t mean it owed nothing. Well not at least until not the history man Starmer opined anyway.

Beard Liberation Front

27^th September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Resignation of Andy McDonald raises fears of Starmer beard purge

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the resignation on Monday of Shadow Employment Secretary Andy McDonald, the MP for Middlesbrough, has raised fears that Labour leader Keir Starmer is engaged in a purge of beards at the top of Labour.

McDonald, who featured in the shortlist for the 2019 Parliamentary Beard of the Year, is one of the best known hirsute Parliamentarians.

The campaigners say that his resignation increases fears that the perpetually clean shaven Labour leader Keir Starmer wants a clear out of beard wearers in the Party. It comes after changes to how the Labour leader is elected, agreed by Labour Conference on Sunday, had already led to concerns that in future a leader was most likely to be a clean shaven man in a suit.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, reports suggest that Andy McDonald resigned because Labour plans to move away from campaigning for a £15 minimum wage. This is an important principle and one we’d expect a socialist beard wearer to refuse to budge from, whatever the clean shaven revisionist faction in the Labour Party plans.

Cask Ale Week: the return of Brains Dark

Its Cask Ale Week. Given that cask ale is a living product sold very largely in pubs and bars there have been significant issues in 2021 with pubs shut from January to April because of the pandemic.

Fortunately however pubs are now open again and cask is back.

The range of cask beer available is now hugely larger than when I started drinking it in the early 1970s. Then there was bitter, mild (perhaps) and best or special bitter. This last would be a bit stronger sometimes reaching as much as 4.5% ABV.

Dark mild has not fared well since. Historically it was brewed at a range of strengths- its style not a strength- but by the 1970s it had overwhelmingly come to be a low alcohol beer. It might be drunk in quantity by those involved in manual labour but was increasingly replaced by lager.

As Cask Ale Week started then I was delighted to try a glass of a classic British (and Welsh) cask beer Brains Dark in a central Cardiff pub.

While a Brains dark beer has been available in various formats, cask has not been brewed for a while. Demand genuinely was too low (see above).

Brains itself had a significant question mark over its future. It has passed its pub estate to Marstons and was talking about stopping brewing at its new Cardiff brewery in favour of contract brewing.

Fortunately the brewery remains open and Brains Dark was brewed there once again in early September. Head brewer Bill Dobson tweeted that the new brewery facilitates production of small runs of beer a lot more than the old Bass site by Cardiff Central station they moved out from.

The good news is that the beer tastes much as ever. There are chocolate notes and it remains an easy drinking 3.5%. Hopefully it will continue to be brewed. The pub I sampled it in was not a Brains (Marstons) one and I’m not sure if its available in any of the old Brains pub estate. But available it is and well worth a try in Cask Ale Week.

I continue to wish an imperial version was brewed though..

Beard Liberation Front

27th September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say Moeen Ali personified beard power in cricket as he ends Test career

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the decision of Moeen Ali to retire from Test cricket marks the conclusion to one of the most successful periods of cricketing beard power in modern cricket.

Moeen first played for England in 2014 and earlier this month was appointed England cricket vice-captain for the 4th Test against India at the Oval.

Moeen was third in the Beard of the Decade vote in December 2019 shaved only by the likes of author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen.

The campaigners say Moeen Ali has been a hugely positive ambassador for the hirsute as a Test player and it is hoped that this will continue for some years in other forms of the game.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Moeen can be summed up in two words: Beard Power.

Beard Liberation Front

26^th September

Media Release

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Liberation Front ‘resolutely opposed’ to Taliban diktat on beard wearing

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it is resolutely opposed to a reported Taliban diktat that barbers in Afghanistan must not trim or shave beards.

The Taliban favour lengthy organic beards, although this is not so much a matter of style but a religious principle on their part.

During the period of non-Taliban rule which has just ended, beard wearing became less common and barbers set-up to take advantage of interest in styles and fashions in facial appearance.

The campaigners say that one of the BLF’s founding principles has been that people should be able to dress and appear as they want. That includes the right to wear a beard, but equally the right not to wear one.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, obviously we do campaign on discrimination against beard wearers. Perhaps the key word there though is ‘discrimination’ so when someone is told they must wear a beard we are resolutely opposed to that kind of diktat.

Angela Rayner, Boris Johnson & Scum. A term both have used

Nye Bevan called the Tories ‘lower than vermin’ and Angela Rayner’s description of Boris Johnson as ‘scum’ at a Labour conference event in Brighton is a relatively mild term by contrast. Johnson has been frequently called ‘scum’ and ‘racist scum’ over the years and seems to have survived perfectly well.

Actually as Johnson’s biographer Sonia Purnell notes he has used the term himself (2009)to describe bankers when London Mayor. He did qualify the point by going on to note that nevertheless the City played a central role in the economy.

45 years ago this weekend Tony Benn came within 1% of being elected Labour Deputy Leader

Labour Conference is meeting in Liverpool this weekend but 45 years ago in September 1981 it was in Brighton.

In January 1981 a Labour Conference at Wembley had agreed to introduce an Electoral College for Leader and Deputy Leader. Previously only MPs had vote. Michael Foot, the leader at the 1981 Conference had been the last to be elected by MPs only. The right had wanted a one member, one vote system (to cut the unions out of it). When they lost, many, but not all, left to form the SDP.

At the Election for Deputy Leader on Sunday 27^th September 1981, Benn and Denis Healey were the second round ballot candidates. Both were political heavyweights with considerable experience of Government, Benn on the left, Healey on the right.

The Labour left, what in a sense became the ‘Bennite left’, mounted an energetic campaign but the assumption was the Healey would get much of the union vote and win.

Benn recorded in his diary that as he entered the conference hall at 5pm he was ‘prepared for a massive defeat’

In the first round ballot Healey got 44.536% Benn 36.639% and John Silkin 18%. He was eliminated. The T&G (now part of Unite) who had backed Silkin switched their vote to Benn.

In the second ballot Healey got 50.426% while Benn got 49.547%. He lost by 0.8%. Benn noted that he then went off to a rally called by London Labour Briefing.

Benn lost but in doing so laid at least part of the basis for a left-wing presence in the Labour Party that still exists today…..

The Ambridge Socialist

26^th September

New threats to Ambridge ruling class

The class struggle is always present in the BBC’s reports from Ambridge but you have to review them carefully to grasp its ebbs and flows.

This week however two clear threats to the Ambridge ruling class have emerged. Arranging a Dynasty Harvest Supper at the Brookfield barn David and Kenton discussed whether Vince Casey was planning to disrupt matters. He is a relationship with key Archer Dynasty person Elizabeth while one of his daughters Beth has become friendly with Ben Archer. The discussion was apparently light-hearted…

Later in the week it was revealed that Alice is planning to divorce Chris. Brian Aldridge rightly spotted a significant issue. A divorce would require a financial settlement which might well mean Chris ending up with a significant stake in Home Farm. Can a member of the Horrabin family be relied on….

Mysterious footprint found in Ambridge

A mysterious footprint has been discovered in Joy’s garden. Joy thinks she saw a man hanging around in the vicinity but when she went to investigate he had cleared off. Who was he? It has excited much comment on the various Archers related FB pages. Helen thinks it is Rob who has returned to try and snatch her child. Hence Helen and Lee have moved out to Bridge Farm and Tony has fitted a security camera. Others suspect Blake, the modern slave injured in the Grey Gables explosion and there are other theories..

Chris ejected from the Bull

Chris has been ejected from the Bull after getting drunk and being sick on a cribbage board. This last act being a serious matter at the pub. Given the temperance undertones in the Archers in recent times its worth noting that it is an offence to be drunk in a pub and the landlady/lord is required to eject any people who are. Duly done.

The return of the Imperial Pint: the world has moved on.

Perhaps it’s the. 24 hour news culture that causes the lack of media attention to history. On. May 28th to mark the Jubilee Johnson announced a return to imperial weights and measures. Culture Wars are ever green it seems. He already announced this in September 2021 when the below dates from

As part of their continuing Culture Wars the Government has announced a return to pre-metric weights and measures including the return of the imperial pint.

Of course the pint glass and a mark of its measure never went away. In recent times it has had an EU standard symbol. Now it will return to the Crown.

So what? Those who drink pints will be mostly be more concerned that they get full measure rather than how its symbolised.

Of course the world has moved on from the world of warm beer (54F) in pints.

In fact imperial measures have made a significant return in the era of craft beer. With IPAs and double IPAs and imperial stouts now to be found on many bars, a (legal) measure of two-thirds and one-third of a pint is often preferred. Occasionally these might be described in metric measures but mostly it’s the imperial measure that is used.

The battle was already won, if it needed to be, before the Government did a thing

Beard Liberation Front

October 6th

Media Release. Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners suspect Labour Conference platform beard ban

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that its supporters in the Labour Conference hall in Liverpool suspect that there may be a ban on beards appearing on the conference platform.

The campaigners say that pogonophobia, the fear of beards, has gained support at the top of the Labour Party. Leader Keir Starmer appears ready to take the Party into a new era of clean shaven revisionism last seen in the Blair era.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Labour says it is a Party that treats all equally. We hope that any informal beard ban instituted by clean shaven General Secretary David Evans, is over ridden by the Conference Chairs and that hirsute delegates get their chance to address conference along with others.