The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that not only do neither of the US Presidential candidates up for election today have beards, there is no prospect of them doing so either.
However the BLF has decided to ask supporters which candidate would impress most if they had a beard.
There has not been a US President with a beard since the late ninteenth century
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, this might be a dream or a nightmare but it is surely in 2020 a valid question.
US Presidential Election: no place for men with beards
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the US Presidential Election is no place for men with beards.
There has not been a US President with a beard since Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) and pogonophobia rules at the highest levels in US politics.
By contrast the UK has not had a Prime Minister with a beard since Lord Salisbury in 1902
Donald Trump is a notorious beard hater who agonised over appointing warmonger John Bolton, who has a moustache, as National Security Advisor at one point.
More recently he has said that he disapproves of the beard of Eric Trump, who was himself voted the Scariest Halloween Beard 2020.
Business Insider magazine has commented that ‘Trump reportedly does not like facial hair. None of Trump’s close associates have facial hair, a pattern dating back decades’.
Joe Biden is also consistently clean shaven although he doesn’t have a record of pogonophobic remarks.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the message from the US Presidential Election is that if you’ve got a beard the two main candidates don’t want to hear from you. We expect Donald Trump might ban beards if re-elected. Joe Biden might not go that far but don’t expect a Beard Friendly White House from him either.
Socialist History seminar to look at new research on E P Thompson’s Time Work Discipline
E P Thompson’s essay on Time Work Discipline was published in Past and Present in December 1967. Since then it has become one of his most widely read and quoted pieces of research, spawning a range of articles and influencing books on the subject of historical time.
Dr Mark Hallwood will present some new research to the London Socialist Historians seminar on Monday 9th November which challenges aspects of Thompson’s argument that pre-industrial workers had little concept of regulated working time. This has interesting wider implications both historically and in the present day where working time and the working days
Nov 9th 17.30hrs Mark Hallwood, ‘Between 5 and 6 of the clock’: Time-telling, Time-use and Time-discipline in Pre-industrial England’
This meeting will be on-line via Zoom. To register and get secure log-in details please click on the link below
Being an internationalist I’m not an unequivocal fan of the break-up of Britain into its constituent parts if the result is to encourage reactionary nationalism. That is possible in times like these but then so is a socialist focused variety. I am in favour however on principle of the rights of nations to secede from the current UK structure and for that to be democratically determined by the voters.
The specific context is Johnson’s decision to announce a new lockdown to December 2nd
I listened intently when he announced the first lockdown in March. It applied to England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
This time it applies to England only. Wales is in the middle of a 17 day firebreak lockdown timed to coincide with school half-term. Scotland and Northern Ireland have also implemented new measures.
Johnson’s authority is much diminished in the last 6 months and no doubt if the North had authority to run its own affairs it would too (as would London) leaving Johnson the Home Counties and the Shires.
It may not be how the break-up of Britain was envisaged when it was much debated in the 1970s but it’s happening and it wont easily be reversed once all this finally ends.
Really Useful Knowledge about a ‘national lockdown’. A history of the present
National refers to ‘England’ here but like the Tories many journalists struggle to grasp where Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are or that they have different Governments.
Northern Ireland and Scotland (central belt)already have stricter restrictions than the English Tier 3 (in some respects). Wales (which has a Labour Government) started a 17 day firebreak lockdown on 23rd October much to the derision of some of the ‘national media’.
Lockdown means working from home for those that can (or already do). It does not apply to health workers, education workers, those who work in supermarkets, transport, delivery and distribution workers, banks, chemists etc, frontline workers in power, telecoms, water, the police (obviously). These are often (not always) at the poorly paid end of the labour market and quite often from ethnic minorities. They got a significantly higher rate of infection in the first lockdown but ‘whoops, we did it again’.
There is a third group. Those who wont be able to work such as pubs, restaurants etc which will be shut. Ignore the increasingly strident group of temperance campaigners who say this is because they are a major source of infection. They aren’t. The point of shutting them, and indeed the whole point of a lockdown, is to reduce social interaction. The Welsh firebreak was timed to coincide with school half terms but as the NEU notes locking down to reduce social interaction and keeping schools open suggests a strategy that may not work. Johnson and Starmer support it of course, which should be a caution enough in itself.
This third group and the businesses who support them may or may not get financial support. This issue isn’t central to Ministers or public health experts thinking since they are not in that position (and are mainly only dimly aware of it at best). It will depend on pressure from the TUC and from campaigns and (we can but hope) the Labour Party. A furlough extension of a month (now applied across the 4 nations) helps but isn’t enough anymore than it was in the earlier lockdown.
How long will it last? History related to nineteenth century epidemics suggests that unless there was clear evidence that second lockdowns were related to strict measures to control disease in the medium term or the arrival of a vaccine, tolerance of them was often limited. In a rare moment of perception Johnson is apparently aware of what might be called Hotel California syndrome where the thing just drifts on.
Finally none of it makes any sense unless test, track and trace is removed from SERCO and done properly by local authorities.
This week has seen the youth of Ambridge feature in BBC reports from the village. The left places a lot of store in the younger generation not least because surely they cant be as reactionary as the Brian Aldridges of this world.
It is Ambridge however and the youth show no obvious sign of even backing the milk and water (without the milk) socialism of Sir Keir Starmer.
Ben is disappointed that he hasn’t been invited to Ruairi’s birthday event but in turn is pursuing college student Evie. Josh has got bank approval for his new business venture (??) which will be based at Hollowtree.
That means Rex and Toby will be served notice on their occupation of that land despite Pip seeking to broker a settlement.
We think we’ve followed the storyline correctly such as it is…
Lower Loxley Trust has doubts on Freddie
We’re not sure if we’ve heard of the Lower Loxley Trust before (no doubt Keri Davies has the archives) but Elizabeth attended a meeting this week where concern was expressed that Freddie was managing the Christmas show this year. Freddie after all has been in jail and there is the matter of reputation to think about. Wait until they find out about Lower Loxley’s links with the slave trade (assuming the new BBC DG Tim Davie allows such a storyline of course).
Susan Carter’s Radio Show
The Ambridge Socialist has lodged a complaint about unsuitable music being played on Susan Carter’s Radio Borsetshire programme. First it was Barry Manilow and now its Donny Osmond’s Puppy Love. This is bringing the BBC into disrepute, even without Susan’s bits of the show
There are grumbles about lateness, non-appearance of work and a lack of organisation
The Islington years (1994-2008)
Boris developed a habit of attributing his lateness, inability to answer awkward questions, ill-temper or apparent lack of preparedness..to a debilitating hangover..(just an act apparently)
Henley MP (2001-4)
It was just his persistent lateness for any meeting that rankled with the organisers’
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.
ERIC TRUMP SPOOKS LAURENCE FOX TO WIN SCARIEST HALLOWEEN BEARD VOTE
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, which campaigns against irrational prejudice against the hirsute, has said that the Scariest Beard of Halloween 2020 vote has seen Eric Trump, second son of Ivana and Donald Trump spook contrarian Laurence Fox for the creepy Award.
The title, awarded each year on October 31st, takes a wry look at Halloween festivities by identifying the scariest beard in the public eye. The winner is likely to win by the narrowest crack of a squeaky floorboard.
The BLF does not generally believe that beards are scary, a view promoted by generations of pogonophobes.
It is accepted though that on a dark moonless night as a beard looms through the gloom, nerves may rise a little as to what lies behind the beard.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we like beards, but there are a few out there that are genuinely, concerningly scary. Eric Trump just crept past Laurence Fox this year but of course neither man’s beard is actually scary, in the daylight anyway.
Indeed I am today, being born on 31st October 1956 as the Russian tanks swept into Budapest & just as Britain, France and Israel were starting the debacle that was Suez.
Clearly I learnt my politics at birth.
I’m not a great fan of birthdays, although they are statistically significant-2 years to my State pension, but as an historian one does note the passage of time.
The Beatles wrote a song about it, When I’m 64, that appeared on Sgt Pepper in 1967. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney with clarinet by George Martin. Ian McDonald in Revolution in the Head notes the form of the song harks back to the 1930s while the lyrics are a sort of satire on popular views of northern life at the time.
The song in that sense is social history but of a slightly different kind now than in 1967. McDonald argues it wasn’t terribly popular with those who bought Sgt Pepper-think Lucy in the Sky and Within You Without You. I wouldn’t know being (slightly) too young at the time.
Anyway on my 64th birthday I’m locked down in Wales,(but I still live mainly in Tottenham) I haven’t retired and I remain an active socialist and trade unionist.
