5th May 1821, the first edition of The Guardian… & the first Fletter
The Guardian is 200 years old on 5th May. I am not quite old enough to have had a letter in the first edition but below is what one might have read like it:
Dear Editor,
It’s good to see that the Manchester Guardian supports an extension of the suffrage, the fundamental issue that saw so many cut down by Tory oppressors on horseback at Peterloo, the August before last.
It’s not just the vote. Working men see the vote as the way to get what we have long needed. I refer to the 10 hour working day and a daily wage sufficient to put food on the table.
Campaigners say Keir Starmer needs a change of image to address poll woes
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that as a range of polls beckon on Thursday it has become clear that Labour leader Keir Starmer needs a change of image.
The campaigners say that while policies remain important in politics, the image of political leaders in an increasingly visual age has taken on greater significance too.
Boris Johnson who has few discernible policies beyond, arguably, handing Government contracts to his friends and allies, has developed a very distinctive image. His unkempt hair and dishevelled appearance is not popular with all but it is easily recognisable.
Keir Starmer by contrast comes across as just another clean shaven middle aged man in a suit, albeit usually with a sharp haircut.
The campaigners say that while it is too late for Thursday’s elections Starmer needs to look back to Labour’s first leader and the person he is named after, Keir Hardie, and grow a beard.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, a beard would give Keir Starmer additional gravitas and strengthen his visual presence. Style is a key issue in modern politics and Keir needs to be more authentic and organic. That must mean facial hair.
High Winds & Beards: the answer is not ‘blowin’ in the wind’. Guidelines for the hirsute issued
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that as high winds continue across much of the UK beard wearers are strongly advised to take special care of their beards.
The campaigners say that while danger to life and limb is the central issue when extreme weather hits, a secondary concern for organic beard wearers is that exposing the beard to high and blustery winds may blow the beard out of shape and can cause permanent hair and follicle damage in some cases.
It is less likely that designer and some hipster beards will suffer significant wind damage
The BLF advises the following precautions:
Keep the beard slightly damp at all times by immersing it in a glass of hazy IPA or imperial stout. This will give solidity to the beard hairs and prevent them being blown around.
Use a scarf or snood to protect the beard at all times
Secure the beard with elastic bands, strapping the hairs to the chin
If the beard is blown out of shape use a hair dryer to re-form the hairs in the correct position and then stay indoors for a several hours to allow the hairs and follicles to recover
BLF organiser Keith Flett said, the answer is most definitely not blowin’ in the wind this week. We advise the hirsute to take care out there
Crucible 2021: Selby leads in final session as he heeds BLF guidance on Beard Power
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Mark Selby is in a strong position to win the 2021 World Snooker Championship after he heeded Beard Liberation Front guidance on the importance of beard power.
The BLF had warned that snooker risked becoming one of the least diverse of sports as the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield saw two clean shaven contestants in Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby qualify for the final.
However Selby relented and started growing a beard. Murphy remains robustly clean shaven.
The last winner with a beard was Judd Trump in 2019 and his victory represented the first time a winner had worn a beard in the final.
The campaigners say that there remains a significant residual element of pogonophobia in top level snooker. Mark Williams was criticised for being ‘untidy’ before he unwisely shaved his trademark beard while beaten semi-finalist Stuart Bingham was referred to as ‘The Bald One’
The BLF says that a beard in top level snooker can be positioned to promote air currents that help players to pocket balls through aerodynamic influence.
BLF organiser Keith Flett said, Judd Trump’s victory was the peak of a long march of beard power through snooker. Those sports that were overwhelming clean shaven until quite recently such as golf have become hirsute, while its quite unusual to see a football player without a beard these days. Despite Selby’s late conversion to a beard power approach there is much work to be done in terms of diversity in snooker and outdated attitudes on appearance and style.
As some at least might suspect the preference of the police in many cases is to make things up as they go along and beard policy is little different.
The Gloucester force attempted to ban beards but seem to have relented on a case by case basis.
Lincolnshire and possibly elsewhere tried to argue that beards would get in the way if police needed to wear medical, as opposed to general protection, masks. However medical masks are for medics not police officers
In Scotland where a more authoritarian approach is adopted, there seem to be guidelines on how exactly moustaches should be worn.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, in line with other public servants we’d expect police officers wearing beards to make sure that they are generally neat and tidy. That should be sufficient and it seemed to work ok in the case of DI Arnott.
What Margaret Thatcher did on May Day Bank Holidays
The May Day Bank Holiday was introduced by a Labour Government in 1978 to fall on the first Monday after May 1st if it did not itself fall on a Monday.
On May 3rd 1979 the Thatcher Tory Government was elected.
In recent years there have been numerous calls from the right, one presumes mainly from Thatcherites, for the May Day Holiday to be scrapped and for it to be replaced with a Trafalgar Day or even a Thatcher Day in the Autumn.
Fortunately the Thatcher Foundation Archive provides details of what Mrs Thatcher herself did on May Day Bank Holidays:
Monday May 5th 1980 Chequers
1030 Hair
1515 Mr. and Mrs. Wolfson and children arrived for tea
Crucible 2021: The long march of beard power in snooker halted
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that snooker risks becoming one of the least diverse of sports as the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield sees two clean shaven contestants in Sean Murphy and Mark Selby.
The last winner with a beard was Judd Trump in 2019 and his victory represented the first time a winner had worn a beard in the final.
The campaigners say that there is a significant residual element of pogonophobia in top level snooker. Mark Williams was criticised for being ‘untidy’ before he unwisely shaved his trademark beard while beaten semi-finalist Stuart Bingham was referred to as ‘The Bald One’
The BLF says that a beard in top level snooker can be positioned to promote air currents that help players to pocket balls through aerodynamic influence.
BLF organiser Keith Flett said, Judd Trump’s victory appears to have been the peak of a long march of beard power through snooker. Those sports that were overwhelming clean shaven until quite recently such as golf have become hirsute, while its quite unusual to see a football player without a beard these days. Murphy v Selby underlines that there is much work to be done in terms of diversity in snooker and outdated attitudes on appearance and style.
Perhaps it would be unfair to suggest Ms Kuenssberg isn’t a very good journalist when a fairer assessment might be that she is just a very partial one who would be better off by far writing opinion pieces for a right-wing paper than trying to be a BBC political correspondent where certain considerations of balance are meant to apply.
Anyway Ms Kuenssberg has somehow missed that Johnson has been sacked twice for lying (once by the Times and once by Michael Howard) which is quite important in assessing how truthful someone might be. Let’s take it though that she thought this was all in the past- the Howard sacking was in 2004.
However, even though they are even further in the past, Johnson’s Eton School reports-easily discoverable- do suggest a consistent picture of evading the truth and reality over many decades.
His personal tutor Andrew Hobson wrote a report which says in part ‘I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else’.
In 1982 Hobson noted ‘Boris seems affronted when confronted with what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility’.
Here perhaps is a clue to the untruths of Johnson. It’s not that he is incapable of knowing the difference between truth and fiction. Rather the lies cover up things he hasn’t done, couldn’t be bothered to do or did because he thought he could and should get away with them, even though others would not. It’s a matter of class arrogance.
Readers back Kate ‘I refuse to be lectured’ Aldridge
In an Ambridge Socialist snap poll readers have backed Kate Aldridge who responded to Jakob’s suggestion that she ‘calm down’ by underlining that she refused to be lectured. Her concern on this occasion seemed to be that Alice hadn’t named her as a god parent for the latest member of Ambridge’s ruling class. She later backed down.
Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, the majority in our poll, far more soundly based than YouGov, backed the ‘no home but the struggle’ option. Kate often backs the wrong causes and has the wrong line but there is no doubting her militancy.
Ruairi bests Daffodil Justin
Full marks too to Ruairi who responding to a demand from Justin that he remove a picture of himself dressed as a daffodil from the time capsule told him to get a shovel and do it himself. This he did wrenching his shoulder in the process. He then had to borrow Eddie Grundy’s metal detector to locate the capsule and destroy the photo. Taking the piss out of members of Ambridge’s ruling class may not advance the class struggle that much but it is fun.
Life Drawing classes at Lower Loxley
If the BBC manages to report it, Monday at Lower Loxley may at last provide a sequel to the famous Jolene and Sid shower scene. Lee will be participating in a life drawing class run by Call Me Russ.
Pigs
Meanwhile Elizabeth has relented and allowed Rex to locate his pigs at Lower Loxley. A partnership with Vince surely beckons
In Other News
Joy is running for the Parish Council. As usual the BBC haven’t mentioned the Ambridge Socialist candidate, Bert Fry
Marking May Day 2021 in broadly the same way as Engels did in 1891 (involves wine)
The May Day demonstration in Hyde Park on 3rd May 1891 was a landmark as it marked the first united march (the first May Day in 1890 had seen two marches). Engels writing to Laura Lafargue about the day noted how he, the Bernsteins and Tussys had celebrated in the evening at his Regents Park Rd residence:
When we came home last night, we wound up with a Maibowle, the Maikrauth of which Percy had sent us from Ryde. We put in 4 bottles Moselle, 2 claret, 1 Champagne, and finished it — we, Bernsteins and the Tussy’s. Late in the evening Cunninghame Graham came in and actually had two or three glasses of it — he seems to have left his teetotalism at Tangiers. There is a slight but rather agreeable Kater,J kept in proper bounds this morning by a bottle of Pilsener.
A Maibowle is a punch and Maikrauth is Woodruff used to make the punch. Kater is a hangover.
I’ll be sticking to red wine tonight to mark the welcome return of physical May Day rallies around the country after 2020. I was at the one organised by Cardiff Trades Council at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay but I was pleased to see the Haringey TUC banner (where I remain a delegate) on the North-East London May Day march to Homerton Hospital.
From 1891 to 2021 the tradition of solidarity on May Day endures and if celebrating it was good enough for Engels 130 years ago it’s fine now surely.
