Kick over *all* of the statues? Is Gary Younge right

Gary Younge has written in the Guardian about the continuing and contested effort to take down statues, primarily in the UK of slave traders and racists.

It must be said that a good deal of the talk about this comes from the political right promoting various culture wars. Hence Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden continues to oppose the taking down of statues even where there is local support-such as the Museum of the Home in Hackney and arguing for a policy of retain and explain.

Certainly statues are retained but the explain bit doesn’t usually get too far or if it does the right complain further. However the reality is that there isn’t much of a clamour to take statues down. The left is mostly focused on putting them- figures like Sylvia Pankhurst and William Cuffay feature. Dowden says he is also in favour of putting statues up but hasn’t managed one in his time as Minister.

Taking down and putting up statues often signifies in visible form political change. Memorials could play the same role and indeed come and go themselves. The memorial to Henry Hunt after Peterloo in 1819 which was erected at Ancoats in Manchester has long since disappeared. Memorials to Engels residence in Eastbourne seem to come and go.

Eric Hobsbawm argues in Fractured Times that historically speaking across Europe, statues are put up and taken down as political times change. Gary Younge makes a good case for getting rid of all statues, while keeping memorials. However and particularly he is giving the Nye Bevan lecture at the Hay Festival this year I wonder if he plans to call for the removal of the statue of the founder of the NHS that stands at the end of Queen St in central Cardiff in the near future?

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jun/01/gary-younge-why-every-single-statue-should-come-down-rhodes-colston

Beard Liberation Front

3^rd June

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

National Beard Week 2021:  Positive Images of the hirsute

National Beard Week, organised by the Beard Liberation Front, an informal network of beard wearers, will run from June 21st to June 26th.

It is a long standing annual event designed to highlight positive images of hirsuteness and to call out beard haters- pogonophobes.

A summary of the 2020 results is below. They were achieved by a mixture of social media polls and, for more specialised areas such as Beard Friendly Employer, careful checks by BLF researchers.

There is no question that historian David Olusoga, broadcasters William Crawley and George Aligiah and author Michael Rosen were outstanding examples of excellence not just in their professional areas of expertise but in promoting positive images of the hirsute.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, beards are making progress and National Beard Week 2021 will aim to see more made

National Beard Week 2020

Monday 21st June: Hirsute Personality of the Year: the beard wearer who has made the positive public impact during the year. 2020 winner- David Olusoga

Tuesday 22^nd June: Beard Friendly Sandwich of the Year: the sandwich that goes in the mouth not the beard. 2020: fish finger

Wednesday 23rd June: Hirsute Broadcaster of the Year: the broadcaster whose beard has had the most public impact. 2020. Shared. William Crawley, Michael Rosen, George Aligiah

Thursday 24th June: Pogonophobe of the Year: the most notorious beard hater of the year; 2020 Boris Johnson & Donald Trump

Friday 25th June: Beard Friendly Employer of the Year: the field grows wider each year 2020 The BBC

Saturday 26th June: Beard of Summer 2021: the third of the four quarterly seasonal Awards 2020 Michael Rosen

Tim Martin demands liberal immigration policy from Priti Patel

The Daily Telegraph (2.6) apparently without irony has published news that Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin is, in effect, demanding that Priti Patel introduce a liberal immigration policy as he has a staff shortage.

This seems rather odd as Martin was a leading Brexiteer (and just another reminder, I voted Remain, though I’m no fan of the EU). Surely the plan was that once EU workers were not available this would mean jobs for willing workers in the UK to take-up.

As beer writer Matthew Curtis highlighted on Twitter Wetherspoons jobs paying £8.91* an hour on zero hours contracts are not particularly attractive and certainly offer no possibility of a career in hospitality.

Martin has denied that there is staff shortage in a BBC report except in ‘small seaside towns’. Wetherspoons current FTE is 38,000, 6,000 less than before the pandemic however suggesting a significant issue if business picks up (albeit some of the reduction is in HQ staff, which will also have an impact on how the Company is run)

Lobbying Priti Patel to liberalise immigration policy looks somewhat utopian particularly as Martin has a much easier way to solve his staffing crisis. Namely to recognise a union and reach agreement on appropriate and decent terms and working conditions.

*£8.91 an hour is the current national minimum wage for 23 year old & older workers

Beard Liberation Front

2^nd June

Contact: BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

England v New Zealand Two Test series is Battle of the Beards

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the two Test series between England and New Zealand that starts at Lords on 2^nd June see the international cricket summer start with a Battle of the Beards.

Kiwi captain Kane Williamson has long had a full organic beard, while England captain Joe Root, for many clean shaven, has in recent times sported a stylish designer beard.

The campaigners say that the beard styles of the Captains reflect significant differences in playing methods. New Zealand tend to be full-on in both batting and bowling while England rely more on artisan technique.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Lords will be a real Battle of the Beards. Will Kane Williamson’s full on organic approach shave Joe Root’s designer approach?

Whitsun Church Ales: the origins of the pub-crawl..

Whit Sunday is the 7th after Easter, hence 23rd May in 2021 (not always the same date, since 1965,as the UK Bank Holiday)

In the traditional calendar Whit Sunday and Whitsuntide, the days after it, is a period of festival and holiday. It represents a time when the weather is warmer and the agricultural calendar less pressing. It allows for outside gatherings (socially distanced in 2021 obviously).

Part of this is the Church Ale a practice which declined with the Reformation but like all the best customs continued on here and there.

The Church Ale was not a beer as such but a wider name for a festival where specially brewed beer was certainly consumed as was food. The aim was to raise funds for charitable causes, often as the rhyme below indicates the church itself.

It was also perhaps the origin of the pub crawl. It was not unknown for numbers of Church ales to take place at the same time allowing for an ale-crawl between several of them.

As usual I don’t expect we’ll hear anything from those who claim to stand up for an English or wider British way of life on this but it’s no less of a tradition for that.

The churches must owe, as we all do know,

For when they be drooping and ready to fall,

By a Whitsun or Church-ale up again they shall go

And owe their repairing to a pot of good ale

— ”Exaltation of Ale”, by Francis Beaumont

The 2019 General Election. Not just about politics but about life and death

I will write more on this but below is a brief comment on Dominic Cummings appearance before a Commons Committee this week. It appeared in letter format in the Morning Star on 29^th May. I did send a similar thought to the Guardian which didn’t appear. I can hardly complain not least because I suspected the point confronted an awkward reality about their 2019 Election coverage they now prefer to avoid thinking about.

Dominic Cummings evidence on 2020 and how COVID was dealt with to a Commons Committee on 26th May saw comment about whether matters would have been different if Jeremy Corbyn had won the December 2019 Election.

On Friday 13th March 2020 I and others attended a meeting in Tottenham to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Bernie Grant. Corbyn was the keynote speaker. It wasnt really what the audience wanted to hear just then but he insisted on opening his speech by underlining the dangers of COVID and urging people to take care. 10 days later as infections surged Boris Johnson reluctantly decided a national lockdown was needed.

It now appears that the 2019 Election wasn’t just about party politics but about matters of life and death.

Once again on The Hundred in cricket

I agree with Michael Henderson (New Statesman*) that The Hundred in cricket is an innovation that is not required not least because it risks undermining the perpetually fragile structure of County Cricket. That said having watched, virtually, a couple of trial games at Lords a few weeks back I was surprised by how similar it was to existing short forms of the game.

I suspect the real change will come, if it does, not so much in what happens on the pitch but off it, with entertainment packages. TV coverage- particularly free to air- is crucial of course, not least to try and interest younger people who otherwise might not come across cricket at all-although that in itself is a very mixed picture.

One senses the point of the specific structure of the 100 is to ensure the games actually finish to time. That has long since stopped happening in twenty over games. When limited over cricket was first introduced in the early 1960s the Gillette Cup was 60 overs a side. That would be a two day game nowadays.

*Michael Henderson is the author of That Will Be England Gone: The Last Summer of Cricket. It was an obituary for the England of County Cricket (& much else) as The Hundred was due to launch in 2020. It didn’t but is scheduled to in 2021. The piece I comment on appeared in the New Statesman (21^st May). Unfortunately unless you have or have to access to a paper copy the NS’s on-line content is paywalled although you should be able to get free access to read Henderson’s Diary piece

With current social media discussion about queueing at the bar in pubs (or not) its interesting to note that in 1948 Parliament debated standing at the bar, a perhaps related activity..

Below is an extract from a Commons debate on the 1948 Licensing Bill (14^th December 1948). A key measure in the Bill was to extend the Carlisle State Management scheme of pubs and breweries to the New Towns which were then in the process of being built. The idea was to plan the provision of pubs to meet the new population. The Bill became law in 1949 but was not acted on and was repealed after the Tories returned to Office in 1951.

I wasnt aware that standing at the bar was not allowed in the Carlisle Scheme but it seems commensurate with the regulated drinking environment the Scheme had.

The right hon. Gentleman may like sitting down when he has his drink, but the ordinary person may, occasionally, want to stand at the bar. He does not want to be told when standing at the bar that he must either sit down or get out. For heaven’s sake let the right hon. Gentleman be human in this matter. I know that all these considerations are not important political facts, but they are important pieces of human nature and human conduct in the ordinary affairs of life, and that is what we are standing for here.

Sir Maxwell D Fyfe (Tory MP Liverpool West Derby) responding to Herbert Morrison (Labour, Lord President of the Council) on municipally owned pubs

Marx & the Paris Commune. Warnings on the massacre of Bloody Week

Marx was in close touch with left leaders of the Paris Commune during its existence and the First International was widely (if wrongly) thought to be the organisation behind it.

Marx warned the Commune’s leaders a week before ‘Bloody Week’ at the end of May which saw the massacre of Communards and the end of the Commune of plans to destroy it. Varlin a left Proudhinist, syndicalist and union organiser had participated in the International prior to the Commune. He was not a supporter of Marx. By contrast Frankel who saw himself as a Communist, joined the leadership of the First International in London after escaping Paris. He died in 1896

Dear Citizens Frankel and Varlin,

….I have written hundreds of letters on behalf of your cause to all the corners of the earth where we have branches. The working class was, incidentally, pro-Commune since the latter’s inception. Even the bourgeois papers in this country have departed from their earlier ferocity. From time to time I contrive to slip a favourable paragraph into them.

 I believe that the Commune wastes too much time over trifles and personal squabbles. One can see that there are influences at work other than those of the working men. None of this would matter if you had time enough to make up for lost time. It is very necessary to do quickly what you intend to do outside Paris, in England or elsewhere.

 The Prussians won’t hand over the forts to the Versailles people, but after the definitive conclusion of peace they will allow the government to invest Paris with its gendarmes. Since Thiers & Co. had, as you know, stipulated a handsome bribe in their treaty concluded by Pouyer-Quertier, they refused to accept Bismarck’s offer of assistance by German bankers. Had they done so, they would have forfeited their bribe. Since the prior condition for the accomplishment of their treaty was the conquest of Paris, they asked Bismarck to delay payment of the first instalment until the occupation of Paris. Bismarck accepted this condition. Prussia, being herself in urgent need of that money, will therefore provide the Versailles people with every possible facility to hasten the occupation of Paris. So be on your guard!

13^th May 1871

Varlin shot 28^th May 1871

Frankel. Escaped to London and joined the leadership of the First International

If only the Commune had listened to my warnings! I advised its members to fortify the northern side of the heights of Montmartre the Prussian side, and they still had time to do this; I told them beforehand that they would otherwise be caught in a trap; I denounced Pyat, Grousset and Vésinier to them; I demanded that they should at once send to London all the documents compromising the members of the National Defence, so that by this means the savagery of the enemies of the Commune could to some extent be held in check—thus the plan of the Versailles  people would at least partially have been frustrated.

Marx to Beesly 11^th June 1871

There is a new book on the Commune and its impact from Verso (2026)

The Paris Commune:A Global History

by Quentin Deluermoz

Why is the Whit Bank Holiday not on Whit Monday?

Bank Holidays cause a lot of political debate in the UK.

Bank Holidays go back to the 1871 Act itself designed to address the annoying habit that Victorian workers had of not turning up to work at the beginning of the week which was called Saint Monday (an extension of Sunday).

The number of holidays and when they took place was fixed for England and Wales (Scotland was different obviously) and that indicated that there was a holiday on Whit Monday (the early May Day holiday didn’t come until the 1970s). Whit Monday is the day after the 7th Sunday after Easter. Easter varies each year and in 2021 the date would have been 23^rd May.

In fact of course its 31st May the last Monday in May. That has been the fixed date since 1971 and it was in temporary place from 1965.

The logic behind the change is, like much British tradition, a bit obscure. Parliament discussed Bank Holidays in 1964 around the concept of staggered holidays. The idea was to extend the holiday season and boost the tourist industry. The TUC had been demanding it since the 1940s as it meant jobs.

The main change was to shift the August Bank Holiday from the first Monday of the month to the last Monday (except in Scotland again obviously). But the Whitsun Holiday was also fixed at the same time. The idea here was to extend the holiday season at the front end. When the holiday fell in early June this meant school exams started later and imposed on plans for holidays in July (apparently). Hence keeping the holiday in May allowed exams to start earlier and for more family holidays in July.

Previously there had been a peak in late July and early August…

It’s the kind of issue you’d expect to excite the Mail and Telegraph (it doesn’t) and possibly even a certain strand of Remainiac. The Whitsun holiday in Ireland (26 Counties)remains next Monday..

A good deal of this very long running discussion might be addressed by having more public holidays. This doesn’t seem at the moment to be on the political agenda but it could be.