Kmflett's Blog

SpyCops Inquiry as History (pt1). It was 50 years ago today

The public hearings into SpyCops, undercover political policing between 1968 and 2008, are into a second (virtual)week and will go on for a good while yet. The inquiry has been in progress since 2015 and has already amassed considerable documentation, which is gradually being posted on the inquiry website:

There are lots of issues with the way the inquiry is being run, information and particularly names that are redacted and, while there are a considerable number of reports and statements already posted, its clear that there are many more which remain secret (several police witnesses have made broad reference to this point).

Moreover one cant be certain as to whether at 50 years and more distance police witnesses cannot remember some detail or simply prefer to avoid mentioning things which might now reflect badly on them. The chair of the inquiry has very significantly restricted the ability of lawyers of some of the core participants to ask questions of police witnesses.

With all those caveats the proceedings of the inquiry are of some interest to historians and particularly radical and socialist historians.

It is a reflection in part of the longevity of some lives in the early twenty-first century. Imagine for example if it had been possible to hold an inquiry into the policing of the Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common on 10^th April 1848, 50 years later, with many of the key figures giving evidence.

It didn’t and could not have happened. In that sense the SpyCops Inquiry is, whatever else it is, a fascinating historical episode.

Beard Liberation Front

17^th November

Beard Liberation Front says Jeremy Corbyn’s beard must stay

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has noted the news that Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and Islington North MP, has been readmitted to the Labour Party after a brief period of suspension.

The BLF is not party political but it has recognised and welcomed the important role that Jeremy Corbyn’s beard has played in promoting the cause of hirsuteness in public life over many years.

The campaigners have urged Jeremy Corbyn to make sure that there are no attempts to interfere with his beard by ill-intentioned clean shaven revisionists.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the current Labour leader Keir Starmer has never had a beard and we’re fine with that as his choice. At the same time he must recognise that the Labour Party is a broad church when it comes to appearance and that includes beard wearers going right the way back to his namesake Keir Hardie.

Trump speaks on ‘patriotic history’

UK reporting of Donald Trump tends to focus on certain aspects of his, at best, erratic behaviour, so his recent pronouncements on US history did not receive as much attention as they might merit.

While Boris Johnson has not, as far as I know, demanded an official patriotic update of Our Island Story a fair amount of Tory culture wars are in this area.

I doubt Johnson has ever heard of E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class which was the model for Howard Zinn’s work referenced below. That said the history of working class struggle for civil rights, democracy and justice is hardly the matter of every day discourse in 2020 sadly.

Johnson told the 2020 Tory Conference that he wants to make sure that all of British history is told. That includes the history of racism and imperialism and the fight against it. Inconvenient for Johnson that may be but socialist historians need to continue to make sure it is unavoidable.

Trump’s statement is at this link

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-white-house-conference-american-history/

A summary of what he said and what it was supposed to mean is below together with a link to a longer analysis

Trump wants history to be taught as a celebration of the United States and its achievements, and wants it taught in such a way as to erase the achievements of popular movements, including unions and civil rights organizations. He singled out for condemnation Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States

Trump and the people around him who wrote his speech, white nationalists like Stephen Miller, want to turn the clock back to a time when they imagine historians only wrote the history of white presidents and other elite actors, and when they did so with gushing praise. There never really was such a time. Professional historians have always been sceptical and the very tools of their profession are seditious, because history teaches us that things could have been different (contingency) and can still be different.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/18/trump-doesnt-understand-history-any-more-he-understands-epidemics

This post also appears in Issue 71 of the London Socialist Historians Newsletter (Autumn 2020) http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2020/11/lshg-newsletter-71-autumn-2020-now.html

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release 17^th November

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Parliamentary Beard of the Year vote to run as normal after Patchwork debacle

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the vote for the Parliamentary Beard of the Year will run as normal in 2020.

It will open on 30^th November with votes for a winner from each of two shortlists of four MPs. The winners of each poll will enter a final ‘Beard Off’ vote with the Parliamentary Beard of the Year announced on 14^th December.

All votes will be on-line and open to all.

The campaigners say that there is no issue with the vote going ahead after Patchwork’s public poll to find the MP of the Year was abandoned due to claimed ‘voting irregularities’.

It has been claimed that the abandonment was because Jeremy Corbyn had won.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the vote for Parliamentary Beard of the Year has become a political institution and we are pleased to say it will go ahead this year. Jeremy Corbyn has won the title more times than any other MP but whether he wins in 2020 is entirely up to voters and no one else.

What a male left-wing activist wore & looked like in the late 1960s (HN336 Police Spy ‘Dick Epps’)

The Public hearings of the Spy-Cops inquiry which are continuing this week and hearing about serious issues of police infiltration of left-wing organisations and campaigns and trade unions do have some lighter moments.

Below is an extract from a written report placed before the inquiry on 16^th November of an undercover officer of the Special Demonstration Squad known as Dick Epps. His real name is not public.

44. My appearance changed radically. I grew my hair long and grew a beard and a moustache. I went to a charity shop and bought myself a pair of corduroy trousers, a jacket with a hole in the elbow, and a roll neck sweater. That became my new uniform as it was in keeping with what your average left wing activist was wearing at the time.

Beard Liberation Front

16^th November

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Bill Bailey & Michael Rosen head Beard of the Year 2020 Longlist

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers has announced the longlist for the Beard of the Year 2020.

The list consists of twelve names.

The first four listed have either won or featured consistently in the quarterly Beard of the Season votes held during the year as well as other regular polls. These four will feature in the ‘Beard-Off’ votes for Beard of the Year 2020 which will open on 1^st December and close on 24^th December. Beard of the Year will be announced on 28^th December.

The remaining eight names will go to two deciding votes (four names in each vote) which will run for five days on 16^th and 23^rd November via Twitter. The top two from each round will join the first four to create a final list of eight on December 1^st.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we’ve made some changes to the way the Beard of the Year vote runs for 2020. We’ve moved the vote to twitter where polls often have great engagement and instead of two polls which ran for many weeks we’re running a series of shorter more focused polls. May the best beards win!

Beard of the Year 2020 Longlist

Automatically on the final ‘Beard-Off’ votes from 1^st December

Michael Rosen (winner Beard of Summer & Autumn)

Michael Sheen (winner Beard of Wales)

Peter Coles (winner Beard of Ireland)

Richard Osman (winner Beard of Spring)

Run-off

David Olusoga (historian)

George Alagiah (journalist)

Jurgen Klopp (football manager)

Stormzy (musician)

Graham Norton (broadcaster)

Peter Alliss (golf commentator)

Bill Bailey (comedian)

Lenny Henry (actor)

Beard of the Year longlist Trim Off #1 Top 2 go through

The name of Conrad Dixon has featured a lot in the first week of the public sessions of the Spycops inquiry.

He was the senior police officer who set up the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS)and appears to have recruited many of those who worked for it.

He died aged 72 in 1999 and there was a Times obituary

The Times claim the unit was called the ‘Scruffies’ as opposed to the ‘Hairies’ the name referred to in the Inquiry. It also attributes a greater degree of training and professionalism to the members of the unit than appeared to be the case from the evidence given by surviving members.

Interestingly Dixon left the police and pursued an academic career publishing a number of books on seafaring, after police operations involving the prosecution of members of the Free Wales Army and the Angry Brigade.

Keir Starmer’s Desert Island Discs: Where was Arsenal’s Requiem for a Dream?

Keir Starmer has appeared on Desert Island Discs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pdqz

Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t made an appearance yet but perhaps his turn will still come…

In the meantime the current Labour leader’s choice of music was, as one might expect, uncontroversial. There was no Motorhead or MC5 and he assured listeners that it was all his own work as it were.

However there is one possible source of controversy.

He chose the Lightning Seeds Three Lions, and referred to being at England’s semi-final match against Germany at Euro ’96. Quite uncontroversial of course until one recalls that Starmer is a lifelong Arsenal fan. So what was wrong with choosing Requiem to a Dream, the music Arsenal walk out to at the start of a game? Perhaps the view was that it would be undiplomatic but I don’t think anyone would be complaining if a politician admitted they were committed to something and had been for years- even if it is Arsenal.

The Ambridge Socialist

70 years of class struggle in Borsetshire

15^th November

No dancing on the village green after Biden win

With even Donald Trump, who is not thought to listen to the Archers, halfway to conceding defeat in the US Presidential election, Ambridge has remained silent on Joe Biden’s victory. Admittedly Ambridge is or should be currently in lockdown but surely there must be some in the village who plan an impromptu, COVID-19 safe, celebration?

Moss still trying to move to Wales

Kirsty has discussed with Helen plans to put her house on the market as Philip Moss continues with his plans to try and evade prosecution and jail for modern slavery by moving to Wales. They plan future meet-ups in Monmouth which has a Waitrose and a public school so they should be fine.

Ruairi comes out as Siobhan has a brief reprise

Siobhan Donovan who was written out of the Archers in 2007 after unwisely getting involved with Mr ‘emotional desert’* himself Brian Aldridge made a brief return this week. Siobhan, according to the BBC anyway, recorded a message for Ruairi on his 18^th birthday. Fortunately for him Siobhan gave her blessing to his sexuality where he fits broadly into the third letter of LGBT. Ben determined that Ruairi’s ex, Troy, was in fact a ‘Greek porn star’ which begs the question of how much knowledge Ben has of the genre and where he got it from? Has he been talking to Brian Aldridge?

In Other News

Lynda has been on Susan’s radio show

*Jennifer Aldridge

Beard Liberation Front

14^th November

Beard of the Year 2020 longlist set to include lockdown beards

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that beards grown during the various lockdowns that have applied across the UK’s four nations at various points since March 2020 will be a factor in determining Beard of the Year 2020.

Author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen won a vote for the Beard of Lockdown in July 2020 covering the initial all UK-lockdown.

The Beard of the Year longlist will be announced on 16^th November with the Beard of the Year announced on December 28^th.

The winners will be determined by a series of short on-line polls, different in format to the previously used poll which was felt to be overlong in its duration. Details will be available on Monday.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, lockdown beards have been a significant new departure in the hirsute world in 2020 and we’ll be making sure that the Beard of the Year 2020 contest reflects that.