The campaigners say that while they are sure that Santa is a good trade unionist and operates in a fully unionised workspace, he is also one of the world’s most iconic beard wearers. As such he is a very long-standing member of the BLF.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, one thing we know Santa focuses on is that those who help him out at this time of year should have genuine beards like his and not absurd false ones
The Beard Liberation Front organises the Campaign for Real Santas each December
I’m not one of those who think Bob Dylan sold out when he went electric at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966, but the news that he has sold the rights to his music to Universal is no surprise (Report, 7 December). The early Dylan, influenced by the Trotskyist Dave Van Ronk, would have written a song about it, but as he noted, the times they are a changin’.
John Lennon 9 Oct 1940-8 Dec 1980. From Can’t Buy Me Love to Revolution. How will be be recalled?
John Lennon was shot and killed 44 years ago on 8th December 1980, aged 40.
In the days long before 24 hour news, social media, the interwebs and mobiles news travelled more slowly. I recall hearing of Lennon’s death at a trade union committee meeting in New Barnet. I was 24 and even that age slightly too young to have been around for the Beatles peak period in the sense of buying their records, at least until the late 1960s.
44 years after his death Lennon has passed into history himself now (20-30 years being the benchmark between history and the present broadly speaking). How he will be remembered by those who do remember him and those who don’t is an interesting question. The Lennon of Cant Buy Me Love or the Lennon of Revolution? Or both perhaps…
The Beatles released the John Lennon song Revolution on 26th August 1968 and sat at No.1 in the charts for 12 weeks.
Revolution was the ‘b’ side to a rather better-known Beatles song, Hey Jude. If that song has primarily endured as something that audiences at major events worry Paul McCartney may pop up and try to sing, Lennon’s thoughts on revolutionary politics remain of interest.
The chronicler of Beatles songs, the late Ian McDonald, noted that the musical range that spanned Lennon’s earlier song, I Am the Walrus, and Revolution was unmatched by any post-1945 musician.
The song was rejected as an ‘A’ side officially because it was too slow but really because McCartney, at that time, regarded it as politically controversial. The singer later changed his position and released Give Ireland Back to the Irish, as a single which was promptly banned by the BBC. Revolution never was.
Revolution was recorded in May 1968 as the Paris ‘nights of the barricades’ reached their peak. However alternative and longer versions of Revolution appeared on the Beatles White Album.
But it was not the music of Revolution, essentially a slow blues, that caused comment and controversy but the words.
In particular debate centred around Lennon’s words that ‘when you talk about destruction’ you can ‘count me out’ which on an alternative version he sang as ‘count me in’.
Those used to British TV in the 2020s may be slightly amazed that a video of the Beatles performing Revolution was aired on the BBC’s Top of the Pops in September 1968.
Lennon’s drift in the song was that change in society had to come through ‘peace and love’ rather than a more combative approach to capitalism.
It was not well received by the left, which considering the furore it caused on the right was unfortunate for Lennon.
Lennon was clearly alive to the Beatles main audience in 1968, a worldwide one of youth who were rapidly becoming radicalised.
The Rolling Stones had very much the same idea with Street Fighting Man, a song which now sounds distinctly odd when sung by Sir Michael Jagger.
Lennon’s track provoked an article in Time magazine and a critical response in song from Nina Simone that deserves to be better known particularly in the age of Black Lives Matter.
The British radical paper Black Dwarf attacked the peaceful sentiments of Revolution, provoking an exchange on revolutionary politics between Lennon and the paper’s Editors. In the US the new left saw it as a ‘betrayal’ of the movement and a ‘petty bourgeois cry of fear’.
Ian MacDonald nevertheless argued that the song was the first ‘crack in the Beatles corporate façade’, while, no leftist himself, going on to note that by 1987 Revolution was being used by a Nike in an advert to promote its training shoes.
Historical hindsight tells us that Lennon himself was a on a political journey, reflected in the words of the song and his indecision about whether he supported the ‘peace and love’ pacificism of the 1967/8 period or the harder revolutionary politics that began to appear as the 1960s drew to a close.
By 1970 the Beatles had split up and Lennon was in the US, often seen as a participant on left-wing demonstrations and reportedly funding left-wing campaigns. Certainly by that time the man who had sung Can’t Buy Me Love less than 10 years before was regarded by the FBI as a political subversive whose activities needed to be watched
December 7th Seminar. Has the role of black leader of London Chartism, William Cuffay, been ignored by historians?
The last London Socialist Historians seminar of the Autumn Term 2020 took place on Monday 7th December at 5.30pm via Zoom.
Dec 7th Keith Flett, 150 years since the death of William Cuffay, black leader of London Chartism in 1848. Has he been ignored by socialist historians?
On the 150th anniversary year of his death in Tasmania the seminar looks at whether the life and influence of the black leader of London Chartism, William Cuffay, has been overlooked by socialist historians.
Spring Term 2021
Seminars for the Spring Term 2021 will once again be on Zoom. They will start in late January 2021 and run until March. Details will be available in the coming weeks.
Millwall won’t take the knee but the tradition exists for a reason: to say NO to racism
It is reported that after Saturday’s disgraceful booing of players taking the knee at Millwall’s first home match with spectators they won’t do so again when they play QPR on Tuesday.
Taking the knee is quite a recent protest tradition which started in the US often involving sports players kneeling rather than standing for the US national anthem:
It has not previously been much taken up in the UK not least because in most contexts there isn’t much concern if people don’t stand up for God Save the Queen or mumble their way through the words at sporting events.
In that sense, as the seminal work on tradition by George Rude and Terence Ranger argued we are inventing a tradition, and all the best traditions are invented.
Taking The Knee became common here at sporting events and elsewhere to mark the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police earlier in the year. It was picking up on a tradition invented in the US and for a very important reason, to take a stand against racism.
There is plenty of historical precedent for the invention of actions that become traditions. For example the point that no one thinks much in 2020 of those who don’t stand for the English national anthem can be traced back (in part) to January 1819
At the Manchester Theatre Royal, soldiers attacked Henry Hunt supporters who refused to uncover, take off their white hats for God Save The King, just months before the Peterloo Massacre took place in August 1819 where Hunt was the speaker.
It was politics certainly, a politics that led to the start of Parliamentary Democracy.
The statement by Millwall supporters (at link above) that they don’t support taking the knee because they don’t like the politics of Black Lives Matters is fully in line with all those ‘I’m not a racist but..’views one can here.
Black Lives Matters is a movement not a political party containing people with varying ideas and strategies. All of them are united however by the principle that racism is a bad thing and publicly opposing it is important.
Black Lives Matter and so does the tradition of Taking The Knee
Jeremy Corbyn heads for place on Parliamentary Beard of the Year shortlist. Which MPs will join him?
The Beard Liberation Front has said that the voting process for Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2020 is continuing with the second ‘trim-off’ vote to determine the finalists now open.
Eight candidates will attempt to shave each other for the coveted annual accolade. 2020 sees the highest proportion of Tory MPs on the shortlist ever reflecting more hirsute Parliamentary times.
The first of two votes ran from 30th November until the 4th December, with a second from 5th December until December 9th. Each vote will consist of four MPs with the winners of each vote going to a Beard Off vote on 10-12th December.
Tory MP Stuart Anderson and SNP MP Stewart McDonald won the first ‘trim-off’ vote and Jeremy Corbyn looks certain to secure a place leaving one further place in the ‘trim-off’ vote which concludes on 9th December.
The winner of Parliamentary Beard of the Year will be announced on 13th December
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, this is one vote in 2020 when Jeremy Corbyn, who has won the Parliamentary Beard of the Year a record number of times, does feature. Whether he and more particularly his beard wins again or not will be entirely up to voters
Tory Culture Wars wont be won on the playing fields of Eton
According to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
Eton is but the latest focus of long running Tory Culture Wars which have ranged in 2020 from taking the knee to protest against racism (frowned upon, possibly Marxist)to Scotch Eggs (might be a substantial pub meal).
Eton has been in the news because the current Head, Simon Henderson is trying to bring the school at least into the twentieth century. Collateral damage in that effort has been the dismissal of a teacher Will Knowland. He posted what sounds like, at best, a highly doubtful video about why men were better than women on his personal Youtube channel. This was reportedly linked to the school in some way. He was asked to take it down, declined and was dismissed. Leaving aside what seems to be the objectionable nature of the video, whether that was fair or not I cant say. It very much depends on what procedures and processes are in place at Eton. Mr Knowland should have joined a union, which do accept people of varying views, leaving aside one hopes fascists.
Then, the next stage in the Eton Culture War, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said Eton should accept female students. This provoked the ire of Old Etonians like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Mogg who said this would be a very bad idea.
Cue acres of media commentary particularly in the Mail and Telegraph.
If however this particular episode of the war reminds us that Eton is an anachronistic relic of an unequal class based society where money counts for more than merit, and that is has no place in the world in 2021 it may have been worthwhile.
Spurs fans applaud taking the knee at White Hart Lane & stand in a long anti-racist tradition
Spurs history suggests that it is not a football club to welcome racists or fascists.
Sometimes it has needed to be reminded. When Spurs Against the Nazis (part of the Anti-Nazi League) opposed the National Front in the 1970s the Club wasn’t so sure at first, but soon came on board. It took some campaigning effort and well-disposed long standing anti-racist Spurs supporters spoke up too.
Subsequent attempts by the BNP to cause trouble in the 1980s and 1990s were given short shrift.
These days Stand Up to Racism on the ground and Show Racism The Red Card at an official level continue the work of making sure that racist supporters of Tommy Robinson and the like have had no quarter at White Hart Lane.
Even so there have been self-styled Spurs supporters active in the far right ‘Democratic Football Lads Alliance’ whose efforts to stir up racism at WHL have had to be opposed and blocked.
One of them Phil Hickin tried to encourage fans, as they returned in small numbers today to White Hart Lane, to boo the players taking the knee in the game at Arsenal, as some fans had done at Millwall on Saturday.
The fans ignored that and applauded the anti-racist stance of the players. A reminder if it were needed that the work of keeping racists and fascists out of football is one that needs to be in perpetual progress.
Beard Liberation Front pays tribute to veteran pogonophobe turned beard wearer Peter Alliss
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to the veteran golf commentator Peter Alliss who has died unexpectedly at 89.
Alliss was a veteran pogonophobe claiming as recently as the 147th British Open Championship in 2018 that the increasing number of golfers with beards was due to the use of garden fertiliser.
However in his last period Alliss repented and came out with a beard as part of the BBC’s commentary team on the current US Masters golf in November 2020.
The campaigners say that while Peter Alliss didn’t quite make the 2020 Beard of the Year shortlist he will receive a special mention when this year’s Beard of the Year is announced at the end of December.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we are very sorry to learn of the death of Peter Alliss. For many years he was a worthy opponent of all things hirsute but we were delighted when he finally decide to grow a stylish beard. Sports commentary will not be the same without him.
Moss prepares to cover his tracks & human traffic the slaves
Philip Moss has told his son and business partner Gavin that he is winding up the building business and selling on the slave workers he has (three of them) via ‘Victoria’ who apparently is a slave labour dealer ‘on the other side of Birmingham’. Gavin who is familiar with ‘Victoria’ is uneasy about this as he believes that slave workers under her control are poorly treated, or at any rate more poorly treated than Moss has managed.
Given that the only person who knows the actual financial state of his business is Moss himself it’s unclear, although it would be unusual, if Moss was telling the truth. As likely it is an attempt to cover his tracks and get out of Borsetshire before the reality of his operation is discovered.
Jazzer has issues
Jazzer has been roundly told off by Tracey for selling his apparently potent home brew to her son Brad who is under age. As a result Brad got drunk and was sick all over Tracey’s living room carpet. Just wait until Brad discovers Tumble Tussocks
Eddie Grundy abandons treasure for Christmas profits
Eddie Grundy has been rumbled by the Brookfield detectorists and had his van tyres slashed as a result. David Archer has offered him exclusive rights to treasure hunting as recompense but Grundy has declined. He prefers an agreement to forage for holly a far more profitable side line at this time of year
Chris confesses to Sergeant Burns
Chris has confessed to Sergeant Knacker Burns that Alice is not having a break in Bath but in fact on a de-tox for her alcohol issues. Knacker explains that Chris shouldn’t beat himself up for not spotting Alice’s love affair with the bottle as people are good at hiding things. We wonder if he knows a certain Ambridge based builder?
