Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

Press release 13th March

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

BEARD OF IRELAND 2021: HOLDER PETER COLES SHAVED & MISSES BEARD OFF ROUND

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that competition for the Irish Beard of the Year 2021 has reached the final Beard Off Round

The voting in Round Two saw Northern Ireland Retail supremo Aodhan Connolly take 75.5% of well over 1.000 votes with broadcaster William Crawley second with 16.8%. Both are now in the now final with golfer Shane Lowry and Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann

Last year’s winner Peter Coles was shaved in the final day of polling.

The 2017 winner was politician Colum Eastwood who bearded broadcaster William Crawley for the annual Award.

In 2018 the DUP’s Lee Reynolds shaved writer Dominic O’Reilly for the honour with Colum Eastwood in a steady third place.

In 2019 Lee Reynolds retained the title

The 2020 winner was Maynooth academic Peter Coles

The BLF says that while traditionally a land of predominantly clean-shaven cultures, Ireland has in recent times become something of a centre for stylish and trendy beards and the interest in the 2021 poll has underlined the point

Contenders for the title in 2021 include a diverse range of the hirsute- a golfer, political activists, journalists, an academic as well as the two Health Ministers in Belfast and Dublin who are both hirsute.

The campaigners say the poll is specifically about the impact the beard of an individual has made in Irish public life and no other factor.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, congratulations to the four Beard Off finalists. Our commiserations to last year’s winner Peter Coles. We expect his beard to be back

There were two preliminary Beard Off votes between 5-8^th March and 9-12^th March. The top two from each round are now through to a Best Beard of Ireland vote between 13-16^th March

Beard of Ireland 2021

William Crawley, broadcaster

Matthew O’Toole, politician

Sam McBride, journalist

Peter Coles, academic, Maynooth University

Shane Lowry, golfer

Aodhán Connolly, Businessman

Robin Swann, Health Minister, Belfast

Stephen Donnelly, Health Minister, Dublin

COVID & Boris Johnson March 2020: ‘a feeling of British exceptionalism in Downing St’

The quote comes from former Labour MP Jon Ashworth in an interesting Guardian piece on Downing St and COVID in 2020. It reveals that the virus was widespread at the centre of Government in Whitehall as Boris Johnson havered over lockdown measures:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/12/no-10-plague-pit-how-covid-brought-westminster-to-its-knees

On Monday 16^th March 2020 Johnson suggested people avoid pubs and theatres (I’d been in a London pub on Sunday 15^th March- the Cock Tavern in Hackney and didn’t go into one again until July-the same pub as it happens). On 20^th March 2020 he ordered them to close and on Monday 23^rd March he announced the first lockdown.

Yet it was all late. COVID was already widespread in the community-certainly in London. As the Guardian article notes numbers may have had it but getting a test was virtually impossible.

However many, myself included, started to act before Johnson. I cancelled a socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research on 16^th March (the building was open) and also a London union officers committee meeting in central London I was due to chair the previous week. In both cases there was a sense that getting people together in small rooms was not a great idea.

It was still happening in Downing St though.

On Friday 12^th March I attended the annual Bernie Grant Memorial meeting in Tottenham. It was packed with hundreds of people and I felt uneasy. I’m not aware though of a significant COVID spike related to it, thankfully. At this stage the precautions stage was at elbow bumps rather than handshakes. Social distancing and masks were a way off.

Probably the thing that really brought home how far Johnson was behind much of public sentiment was the start of the cancellation of Premiership football matches.

The game between Spurs and Manchester United on Sunday 15^th March was much anticipated. It was cancelled at short notice. As often business (which is what Premiership football mostly is)was in front of Johnson acting.

He stuck to his Podsnappery, ‘Not English’ line that COVID restrictions were for *other* countries for another week. As a result many more got ill, died and suffered long term illness than might have been the case.

Defending the right to protest as Tories plan new legislation

Last Sunday the police fined the nurse organiser of a masked and socially distanced protest in Manchester over the Tories 1% pay rise (a cut in reality) for nurses

Now the Met Police, well known agitators for more restrictions on protest, are trying to ban a protest, also socially distanced and masked, this Saturday in Clapham about the murder of a woman walking home at night. A suspect has been arrested. He is a serving Met Police officer.

If you want an example of the arrogance and anti-democratic mentality that is to be found in police forces look no further. Professional, no. Prejudiced, yes.

The Tories are planning a new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. It deals with a range of issues but parts of it are driven by a reactionary response to Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter protests.

The Tories are of course all in favour of a right to protest as long as it is not actually exercised.

Part of the Bill focuses on damage to statues. This is comparatively rare and as likely to be caused by far right and fascist elements (the Tories are not so bothered about this) as anyone on the left.

The proposal is to increase the maximum sentence for this to 10 years because it upsets people (i.e Tory voters). The upset may well be genuine (and understood) but the proposal is draconian

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-criminal-damage-to-memorials-factsheet

In a plan to allow the police to implement all sorts of restrictions on protests, to suit their own convenience essentially a new criminal offence of public nuisance will be created. This covers making excessive noise and smells. So no shouting or farting please…

Public Nuisance Offence

Conduct captured will include nuisances such as producing excessive noise or smells, or offensive or dangerous behaviour in public, such as hanging from bridges.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-protest-powers-factsheet

Historical background

Tories threaten the right to protest again

Beard Liberation Front

Press release 9th March

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

BEARD OF IRELAND 2021: HAIRS BEING SPLIT FOR LAST 2 PLACES ON FINAL POLL

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that competition for the Irish Beard of the Year 2021 is officially bristling. Health Minister Robin Swann and golfer Shane Lowry won the first round of voting and go through to the final at the weekend.

The voting in Round Two which will see the top two beard wearers go through to the Final Beard Off vote at the weekend ends at midnight on Friday.

Hairs will be split before the poll closes

The 2017 winner was politician Colum Eastwood who bearded broadcaster William Crawley for the annual Award.

In 2018 the DUP’s Lee Reynolds shaved writer Dominic O’Reilly for the honour with Colum Eastwood in a steady third place.

In 2019 Lee Reynolds retained the title

The 2020 winner was Maynooth academic Peter Coles

The BLF says that while traditionally a land of predominantly clean-shaven cultures, Ireland has in recent times become something of a centre for stylish and trendy beards and the interest in the 2021 poll has underlined the point

Contenders for the title in 2021 include a diverse range of the hirsute- a golfer, political activists, journalists, an academic as well as the two Health Ministers in Belfast and Dublin who are both hirsute.

The campaigners say the poll is specifically about the impact the beard of an individual has made in Irish public life and no other factor.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, The 2021 Beard of Ireland Award is a coveted Annual Award and the result will probably be a close shave. The winner is announced on 17^th March

There will be two preliminary Beard Off votes between 5-8^th March and 9-12^th March. The top two from each round will then go on to a Best Beard of Ireland vote between 13-16^th March

Vote at this link:

Beard of Ireland 2021

William Crawley, broadcaster

Matthew O’Toole, politician

Sam McBride, journalist

Peter Coles, academic, Maynooth University

Shane Lowry, golfer

Aodhán Connolly, Businessman

Robin Swann, Health Minister, Belfast

Stephen Donnelly, Health Minister, Dublin

Stan Newens (1930-2021) Labour MP & socialist historian

I was sad to learn of the death of Stan Newens last week.

He was a Labour MP (for Epping and then Harlow) and an MEP and in the 1950s a member of the Socialist Review Group, which became in more recent years the Socialist Workers Party.

He never really retired and did a good deal of work on labour and socialist history in his later years.

His Wiki entry is here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Newens

He spoke at an event in 2011 co-organised by the London Socialist Historians Group to mark the life of socialist historian Ray Challinor who like him had been an SRG member in the 1950s and remained a lifelong friend.

http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2011/11/stan-newens-on-ray-challinor.html

Newens notes that Challinor told him that he was ‘the most conservative socialist’ he had ever known, which he took in good part.

He was certainly idiosyncratic in his views and while categorised as being on the left that didn’t necessarily cover all of his views.

That though is not to any give ground to the mean spirited and rather unpleasant obituary of him in the Guardian.

His work on the late Rumanian dictator Ceaucescu dates from the early 1970s but it remains difficult to understand why a man with Newens political background could see him as anything but a brutal dictator. I suspect he saw Rumania as part of a third camp, in the orbit of Russia but somewhat at arms-length. As Tony Cliff who he worked with in the 1950s (and he once drove Cliff to Glasgow on the back of his motorbike) would say ‘nothing so romantic’.

Stan Newens had a compelling speaking style-as many socialists who learnt their trade on the stump did- and he carried this into later life. Conversations with Stan were invariably in the form of an argument- but usually a friendly one which ended with a smile.

He will be missed.                                                               

Socialist History Society appreciation of Stan Newens:

http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/?p=1125

London Socialist Historians obituary of Stan Newens

http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2021/03/stan-newens-1930-2021-socialist-with.html

Beard Liberation Front

7th September

Contact keith Flett 07803 16766

Campaigners say beard taxes have never worked

The Beard Liberation Front the informal network of beard wearers has said that the idea of a beard tax, which has gained attention again thanks to a mention in the Metro newspaper is a non-starter. Such taxes have never worked in practice and in 2023 would cost far more to enforce and collect than they would ever raise.

While history records several beard taxes including Peter the Great these were aimed at the rich and powerful in society. The lower orders had insufficient money historically to pay any direct taxes.

A modern beard tax would require a Beard Inspectorate to enforce tax payment and just to check on beards in Dalston and Shoreditch in East London alone would be likely to outweigh proceeds from the tax.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we have long believed that a shaving tax on all items relating to shaving would raise more money and it would also be climate friendly.

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has expressed concern that Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp may have follicle failure.

BLF analysis indicates that Klopp’s trademark beard has declined as Liverpool’s Premiership form has hit problems.

The campaigners say that Klopp’s beard has long been one of the most distinctive in the Premiership and at its peak it was a match winner. Klopp’s beard power inspired the team.

In 2021 there has been a notable follicle failure, the causes of which the BLF are investigating

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, in certain circumstances follicle failure can be reversible but this requires a detailed understanding of what has caused it. Our experts are looking at that

Tories threaten the right to protest again

The £10,000 fine imposed by police on Manchester nurse and socialist activist Karen Reissman on Sunday for organising a small masked and socially distanced protest at the Tories outrageous 1% pay rise (in effect a cut) for nurses on Sunday underlines that the right to protest- even safely in current times-remains under attack.

The Guardian reported on attempts by the Metropolitan Police to ban Extinction Rebellion protests in central London in October 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/19/police-seek-tougher-powers-against-extinction-rebellion

My brief view on that appeared in the Guardian along with other letters:

The history of protest has many instances when a tactic or strategy didn’t work, was ill-conceived or counterproductive. The Extinction Rebellion protest that briefly halted trains in east London might fall somewhere in that area (Extinction Rebellion risks throwing away goodwill, Journal, 18 October). That doesn’t mean that protest on the climate emergency is not required and has some urgency. It also means that the right to protest needs to be protected and defended, in this case from the Metropolitan police. Effective protest that leads to real change is a difficult thing to achieve and historically has required what the sociologist Charles Tilly called an entire repertoire of contention. That is as true now as it was in the 1830s when the Chartists tried everything from petitions to a general strike and an armed rising to try and secure the vote.

Dr Keith Flett

London Socialist Historians Group

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/18/extinction-rebellions-right-to-protest-must-be-respected

The police action was subsequently found to be unlawful. Their reaction was to lobby Home Secretary Priti Patel to change the law. She clearly remains minded to do so.

The Independent reports (9^th March):

The Police, Crime, Security and Courts Bill will impose new requirements to notify the police and to cut noise, as well as restricting the ability to inconvenience Parliament.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has noted that a key motivator of the proposed changes has been the Extinction Rebellion protests.

There is a significant danger that the Tories will use the very necessary restrictions of the last year to try and permanently restrict the right to protest.

A reminder of the history of the defence of the right to protest and organise particularly in respect of police powers was provided by EP Thompson in his collection, Writing by Candlelight:

The Chartist, Radical Liberal, Irish Nationalist and formative Labour movements were distinguished by their sensitivity to libertarian issues, and their suspicion of the polity of statism. When the police forces were enlarged and rationalized (or, as some would have it today, ’modernized’) in the mid-nineteenth century, this was a victory for bourgeois utilitarian bureaucratic policy in the face of intense resistance extending from old Tory localism through Radical Liberalism to outright Chartist opposition— for Chartists and trade unionists very well understood what kind of imperatives dictated government policies. As a consequence of this opposition, the presence of the police in British public life remained unusually subdued. They must be seen as ‘servants’ of… either the gentry or ’the public’, and they must in no circumstances exhibit a brash public presence. And, as a more concrete evidence of the old libertarian tradition, which endures to this day, the British police (at least in Britain) must go about the streets unarmed.

Commons motion tabled on racism in English & Welsh cricket. Time to put the ECB & Minister on a sticky wicket.

A number of MPs have tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons on the issue of racism in English and Welsh cricket.

As ESPN’s George Dobell notes such motions are rarely debated but serve the function of publicly tabling a matter:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/parliamentary-motion-condemns-institutional-racism-blighting-english-cricket-1254366

Since the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement last summer there have been fine words from the ECB on the question but as the EDM notes evidence of progress or accountability for previous failings is scant.

The EDM asks the appropriate Minister Oliver Dowden to take action. Given Dowden’s well-known views on BLM getting change will certainly require much more than an EDM. Very probably a campaign by those ‘activists’ who Dowden regularly complains about.

That this House expresses its serious concern at the underrepresentation of African, Caribbean and Asian coaches, umpires and match officials at all levels of Cricket in England and Wales; recalls the 1997 report Racial Equality in Cricket by the Cricket Board of England and Wales, which promised to tackle racism in cricket; expresses its alarm at the subsequent failure to address the institutional racism that is present at all levels of the game; condemns the failure of the English Cricket Board to appoint any African, Caribbean and Asian umpires and match officials to such panel positions in the last 29 years; deplores the bullying, racial harassment and victimisation suffered by African, Caribbean and Asian, players, umpires and coaches within first class cricket; welcomes the establishment of the Asian Cricket Association to promote the careers, training, and development of Asian cricketers and professionals in the game; calls upon the English and Wales Cricket Board to support and fully fund African, Caribbean and Asian Cricket Associations to remedy the historical injustice of race discrimination that has excluded ethnic minority cricket players, umpires, coaches, managers, and teams from reaching their true potential and position in the game; and urges the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to make anti-racism and equality and diversity targets within cricket a ministerial priority, and to report annually on the progress being made.

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/58224

Beard Liberation Front

10^th March

Donald Trump is no longer President: Nigel Farage & Piers Morgan step back. More please

Despite endless lies and an attempted (if botched) coup Donald Trump finally had to leave the White House in January.

Since then two of his more prominent UK fans, Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan, have taken a step back from public roles.

Farage has quit his role as un-elected leader of the ReformUK Party while Morgan has exited his role as a presenter of GMB.

We wont unfortunately have heard the last of either. However hopefully more of Trump’s UK fan club will take the hint.

In the meantime its worth reminding Farage and Morgan that there is something of a tradition for men who step down from public life having failed in one way or another to reflect and grow a beard.