This brief extract on the socialist movement in Finsbury Park as World War One ended gives a flavour of this well researched and fascinating piece of socialist history
The scene at Finsbury Park after the War reflected the changed situation. Where previously the venue had been dominated by the Herald League, with the coming of peace out came all the groups and parties which had kept a low profile during the War. I. Renson, who was a teenager in that period, remembers Sunday mornings in the park:
There were numerous platforms, sometimes up to 20 if one included the religious ones. I remember seeing the Herald League, the BSP, the National Socialist Party. the ILP and the Socialist Party of Great Britain. There was also the Labour Party and quite a few small organisations which folded up in a few years’ time. some of them getting absorbed into other groups and parties like the Communist Party. Trade Unions also had platforms there.
I spoke with Ken Weller at his East London home on several occasions over the years about his historical researches. He was an activist writing above all histories of activism from below. Putting together such writing from fragmented sources require a lot of work but also a deep understanding of how the left and its networks operated.
It appears that Ken may have been another victim of the scourge of COVID but his writings and life as an activist provide an admirable legacy.
What does the Telegraph ‘Pubs with no beer’ story tells us about the Tories in 2021?
On 6th February the Daily Telegraph front page floated a story that pubs in England (which is far as the Tories remit now runs though the paper didn’t mention that) might re-open in April but not be allowed to sell alcohol.
What however does it tell us about the Tory Party in 2021? They are not the party of temperance. Historically they are connected to the Beerage- the large regional UK breweries. The Liberals were the party of temperance while Labour played it both ways. One section understood, rightly, that drunkenness is the enemy of social progress (why the Tories liked it) the other section keen on winning the votes of pub goers who liked a beer after a hard day’s work.
The Tories in 2021 though are not the party of the Beerage or British industry. They may have taken back control but that is rhetoric for public consumption. Actually they are a party of international market capitalism, making profits worldwide and trying to ensure that the proceeds end up in the UK and most particularly in their pockets.
On that agenda does it matter if the UK brewing and pub industry flounders? Not hugely. It matters a bit to Chancellor Sunak because there is still an economic impact and costs to Government. If pubs just re-open, whether or not they sell what they are supposed to, he can save on furlough money. That is also very Tory Party 2021, claiming to be carrying through large scale public works while in reality pursuing an austerity agenda.
Meanwhile keep in mind the man who threatens to bring you the pub with no beer: Boris Johnson.
There is pressure from the pub industry to re-open pubs in April or May. Tim Martin has (inevitably) expressed his thoughts which unusually for him are broadly quite sensible. Of course his comments about how much pubs contribute to the economy would look better if he paid Wetherspoons staff a decent living wage:
The report also contains a comment from Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter medical school,
“What the executives of pubs need to know is that failure to get it right equals back to square one. And back to square one equals much more pain economically, much more hardship.”
He said people drank alcohol to relax and “one of the consequences of relaxing is that you drop your guard”.
Dr Pankhania doesnt sound like someone who is perhaps too familiar with the pub environment since his ‘drop you guard’ point does makes it seem that everyone who visits a pub gets completely drunk and then frolics (clothed or not) with other drinkers. Not in the pubs I frequent I might note and certainly not in COVID secure pubs.
Below is some actual evidence, mundane thought it is, about COVID infections in pubs in 2020
COVID transmission in pubs: some actual evidence(not what temperance campaigners hope for)
With Schools possibly re-opening from March 8th once again stories are appearing that pubs and restaurants will have to stay shut until May to avoid a spike in COVID infections.
The Telegraph has embellished this (6th February) with a story, inspired no doubt by the usual temperance campaigners in the scientific community, that they can open provided they don’t sell alcohol. The usual evidence free BS about pubs and infection also appears again
If schools reopen safely as they should there will be no reason why a rise in infections should occur. Of course the Government has tried three times to reopen schools unsafely in June and September 2020 and January 2021 but only got away with it once, with unfortunately predictable results.
Secondly there is no actual evidence that pubs and restaurants are significant sources of COVID infections particularly when significant safety measures are taken, as they were last summer. That’s not the same as saying that they don’t cause infections but rather they are not high up the list.
There are always experts ready to opine otherwise although they never have coherent evidence. Without delving into their justifications too much one might suggest that they vary between those that rarely if ever venture into pubs and restaurants but assume they must be venues where mayhem routinely occurs and those that like such places a little bit too much and think that everyone else also gets completely drunk every time they visit a bar as they seem to themselves.
Fortunately some quite mundane but likely to be accurate information on COVID infections in pubs and restaurants has now appeared. It came when two senior public health officials from Sheffield and Staffordshire appeared before a House of Commons Scientific Committee on 27th January. They are responsible for running now reasonably effective local authority track and trace operations looking in some detail at where infections occur.
While pubs and restaurants are currently shut both agreed that even when they were open household transmission was by far the most common source of infection. Pubs and restaurants did cause infections but not significantly so.
Not really the stuff of hyperbolic media headlines but just everyday reality
Health experts’ claims ‘hospitality not Covid hotbed’ comes as ‘no surprise’
28-Jan-2021 By Nikkie Thatcher
Claims from local public health directors that hospitality venues are not a big risk of coronavirus transmission should come as no surprise, one trade body has said.
Stylish beard power played its part in Joe Root’s century in his 100th Test Match
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has praised England captain Joe Root for scoring a century in his hundredth Test, against India on Friday 5th February.
Root became only the third England player ever to achieve the feat, after Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart. It is also his third consecutive Test century.
The campaigners say that Root’s consistent stylish beard has played a significant role in his remarkable recent run.
Root has had facial air off and on for some time but recently he has grown his beard further and developed it into a distinctive Captaincy style.
Root’s beard adds stature and gravitas to his presence at the crease and this can distract opposing bowlers.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, its disappointing that the analysis of BBC cricket supremo Jonathan Agnew did not refer to Root’s facial hair influence batting but we are pleased to pay tribute to it. Beard Power in cricket is an increasingly important matter
Their Patriotism & Ours; From the French Revolution to Peterloo, Which Side Are You On?
There has been a debate about whether Labour styling itself as patriotic and waving the Union Jack will win or lose votes and, just as much, whether it’s something a social democratic party should be doing anyway.
From the New Labour period Labour has had at best an inconsistent approach to working class history but it is important when it comes to matters like patriotism because it was a contested term. Sometimes it appeared in service of the forces of reaction and some times it might be part of causes that challenged reaction.
E P Thompson noted in the Making of the English Working Class that those who opposed the French Revolution and Jacobinism in the 1790s clothed ‘patriotism, nationalism, even bigotry and repression’ in the ‘rhetoric of liberty’.
However by 1795 a series of Patriotic Societies- perhaps the biggest being at Norwich- which were pro-Jacobin had been formed. After the Napoleonic Wars, which saw an upsurge of reactionary patriotic sentiment, we find in Manchester before Peterloo in 1819 a Patriotic Society that supported Henry Hunt, the speaker on the Manchester day in August 1819.
William Cobbett’s Freeborn Englishman could appear on the political right or left depending on the context and issue and that is the question for Labour. If the question is, which side are you on?, both doesn’t really work.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has launched its annual search for My Hairy Valentine ahead of Valentine’s Day on 14th February.
This year it has been refocused to include two categories:
1 Beards that are sexy, allowing for the reality that this is in the eye of the beholder
2 Beards that are loved because they add a reassuring presence to public life and should be celebrated.
Michael Rosen and Kris Kristofferson won the Beards That Are Loved round and will go through to the Beard Lovers final
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we accept that the distinction between beards that are loved and beards that are sexy is a fine one but the final Beard Lovers round will cover both.
Not in the hole: Scottish Parliament declines to investigate Trump’s golf courses
Some on the left appear to see the Scottish Government has a haven of progressive thought compared to England.
Obviously that’s not difficult and nor is it hard for Nicola Sturgeon to strike the odd policy pose that is to the left of Keir Starmer either.
That said, while aspects of the Scottish independence movement do have clear radical perspectives, the mainstream polity is probably more distinguished by being a little more competent than Boris Johnson rather than having a significantly different outlook. Again that is hardly difficult.
In that context it’s interesting to note that an attempt by the Scottish Greens to get the Scottish Parliament to investigate Donald Trump’s two golf courses north of the order via an Unexplained Wealth Order, was rejected by SNP and Tory MSPs this week.
The rejection was on procedural grounds. Namely that it is a legal matter for the Lord Advocate and not the Parliament. I’d hardly be the judge of that but it seems odd that given that it is currently open season on Trump (not before time) that the occasion was not at least used to threaten nationalisation of the golf courses or similar. It would have been just a gesture but it would have annoyed the Trumps.
It might be noted that given how ‘successful’ Trump’s businesses are in general perhaps an Unexplained Lack of Wealth Order might work better once golfing activities restart.
The COVID impacted economy in Tottenham. More people Boris Johnson doesn’t know exist
The Guardian has published a useful if concerning report on the COVID impacted economy in Tottenham and the wider London Borough of Haringey.
When Haringey was formed in 1965 it was deliberately constructed to have a balance between less well off working areas in Tottenham and better off areas in Crouch End and Muswell Hill. The idea behind that was to have a political balance between Labour and Tory.
Of course since then the Tories have disappeared from much of urban Britain and both sides of the Borough mainly vote Labour.
Haringey has the fastest rising rate of unemployment in the UK at 10th December 2020- 7.7%. As the article notes some of that is in previously secure middle class jobs in the West of the Borough.
There is a wider story the article doesn’t tell though and it is about Tories. I’m born and bred to the area and still live there. Back in the day Tottenham was part of the Lea Valley, one of the big industrial areas of the UK. There were plenty of skilled well paid jobs and a good number of Tottenham residents worked at Fords Dagenham.
Then came Mrs Thatcher. The industry was wiped out to be replaced by warehousing with fewer, less skilled and lower paid jobs.
It was a Tory Double Whammy though. With the Tory inspired decline of the private sector the public sector became a more significant part of the lower economy.
Between 1979 and 1997 and again from 2010 Tory Governments have cut and cut again public funding to Boroughs like Haringey.
Now with the additional impact of COVID and furlough the safety net for those out of work is threadbare.
Boris Johnson visited Tottenham once after the 2011 riot when he was London Mayor. I shook his hand as President of the local TUC.
I don’t think he’s been back since. Perhaps he should consult Street Map and get a bit of exercise on his bike.
Whether or not a leaked consultancy report on a rebrand for Labour becomes policy or not senior Labour figures seem to be wrapping themselves more in the Union Jack.
As Paul Gilroy’s book noted, there is no black in the Union Jack.
Still there are some things I think to be patriotic about and somethings which are definitely not worth any patriotic thought:
These are the words that begin the Preface to E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class published as a hardback by Gollancz in 1963 and then as a Penguin paperback in1968. It remains in print.
Thompson was born on February 3rd 1924 and would have been 100 today. In fact he died on 28th August 1993 aged 69.
He was a socialist, long term peace campaigner and author of several other important history books such as Whigs and Hunters, and the collection, Customs in Common.
Even so, while some of the research in the Making is now of its time, a range of issues and concepts raised in the book, such as the moral economy, remain current debates and discussions.
Thompson’s wider position on class and class formation remains an important statement. Class is not a static category, its something forged in the heat of the struggle.
