Kmflett's Blog

We don’t need to talk about David Starkey

David Starkey has been opining about Black Lives Matter. His views are as predictable as if someone had asked me if I think beards are a good thing.

You can google his comments if you wish but take care out there.

Below for background is something I wrote in 2011 (edited for 2020 relevance) on Starkey which remains relevant, except Starkey is getting even more reactionary as he gets older.

In between he’s managed to attack the likes of Mary Beard, Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer too amongst others. Bigoted remarks of a racist and sexist nature are now his stock in trade. He usually claims when making them to be an historian of some sort (which he is) although the remarks have absolutely nothing to do with his historical work.

David Starkey [1945-] is a Tudor historian who has made the leap from being an academic to one of a small group of ‘TV historians’ who popularise history for a wider audience.

He caused outrage by appearing on a BBC Newsnight programme about the August 2011 riots in England and stating that Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech was right to argue that Britain was heading for civil unrest. He did qualify this by noting that Powell had been wrong to argue that this would be racially motivated.

Even so for someone to claim on a mainstream news programme that part of Powell’s far right and racist political agenda had turned out to be correct was something entirely worthy of the storm of protest that it has caused.

I have had the dubious pleasure of meeting Starkey and there is no doubt that he is, or at least was, a genuine research historian of the Tudor period. He can talk engagingly and interestingly about his subject in a way that one wishes more historians working on their latest monographs could.

Even so the fact remains that historians have their ‘periods’.

I am, for example, a nineteenth and twentieth British labour historian a not over populated area. If you find me opining on an historical issue outside of my ‘period’ it would be as well to consider that I’m more likely to be expressing an opinion rather than something I’ve actually researched.

Starkey has in recent decades made a name for himself as a right-wing ‘Kings and Queens’ historian of the sixteenth century in England.

Left-wing historians tend to be more interested in the next century, the seventeenth, which saw the English Civil War, so there are few effective counter authorities to Starkey on the left.

Starkey now seems intent though on promoting a second career as a right-wing controversialist and should be understood as such.

Dr Keith Flett,is the convenor of the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London

Easing out of lockdown: Is it time for a Grand National Holiday?

The Government continues an easing of lockdown measures in England at least, against advice from some scientists.The Guardian Editorialised in June that while lockdown couldn’t go on forever, it should end only when its safe.

Quite so but that begs an important question. It will only really be safe when there is a vaccine for COVID-19 and that may be a while off.

Of course travel and workplaces could be much safer and risk minimised. The issue with that for some, as the Tories push to end lockdown now, and have reduced the furlough to ‘encourage’ people back to work, is that will hit profits.

The real battle arguably is whether the Government is successful in restarting the economy as it was, in the old way, before March 2020,or whether change can be implemented. To give one example, it is surely more than time to push ahead with a green new deal.

If that isn’t happening and with summer here there is a another strategy we can find in history, a Grand National Holiday. That would involve refusing to return to work until the Government concedes that measures for a new normal are required.

It has been tried before in 1839

The ‘Holiday’ was the idea of William Benbow. Like many radical activists in the nineteenth century he ranged across a variety of occupations, from pornographer to coffee house keeper to grocer and journalist, to survive.

He had been pushing the idea of a Sacred Month for decades in radical circles. He published it as a pamphlet in the early 1830s and this can be freely accessed on the internet.

Benbow’s plan might well have stayed simply an interesting idea were it not for the fact that the Chartist Convention of summer 1839 adopted it as policy and determined to put it into operation in August of that year, starting on the 12th of the month.

The plan was a simple one: to disengage from capitalism until the system stopped working.

This meant that not only was no work to be done, but that supporters of the ‘Sacred Month’ should withdraw any savings they had in banks or other institutions. They were also required to abstain from all excisable articles such as drink and tobacco. On 12th August 1839 in many, mainly northern areas, the pubs were shut.

It was argued that aside from anything else this prevented any disorder and drunkenness as the month got underway.

The weekly Chartist newspaper The Northern Star for the 17th and 24th August 1839 reported meetings across the north, often with very large turnouts comprising a majority of the working population of particular areas, which then proceeded to march to surrounding locations to pull others out in support of the Sacred Month.

Perhaps the best way of describing it is a mass flying picket, but before the motor vehicle, the only way to do this was to march on foot.

There is not a uniform picture of how long people stayed out for- some days in a number of areas- but not the whole month. Again the logistics were complicated. With so many out, and long before any kind of welfare system, people had to balance support for the holiday with the need to survive in terms of eating and providing for those unable to work.

Even in areas where the strike did not take hold there was at least symbolic support. In London for example on 12th August there was a mass Chartist meeting on Kennington Common for example.

It didn’t ultimately work but 180 years on working people are much better organised to give it a go.

Black Lives Matter: the renaming of pubs

A pub name may not seem exactly the most serious issue facing the Black Lives Matter movement and changing the name of a pub may look like tokenism.

That said pub names tend to define certain local areas and can pass as commonplaces into local culture.

So its understandable that the Edward Colston in Kingsdown Bristol is planning a name change and consulting the local community on what it should be:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53240033

At least one other pub a Wetherspoons in Wrexham is looking at a name change- the Elihu Yale. He founded the University of the same but his wealth came from the slave trade.

A good deal more is needed when it comes to beer and brewing that changing the name of pubs but it’s a sign that there is at least a recognition that change needs to come.

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

1^st July

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say beard trims pose barbers shop safety risk

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with hairdressers and barbers set to re-open in England from 4^th July that beard trimming is likely to pose a safety risk and should be avoided.

The campaigners say that while is understood and accepted that after a lengthy period of closure many want to have their hair cut or styled, beard trimming is a very different matter.

Barbers shops are a confined space that should require a mask to be worn. Trimming the beard cannot however be done while wearing a mask

When some barbers shops opened at the end of May in the US Boston barbers specifically banned beard shaves as it would mean the removal of masks (Boston Herald 25^th May 2020)

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, by all means go the hairdresser or barber in England from 4^th July but leave the beard alone.  Trimming it is not safe.

100+ days in lockdown. A world we have lost & a world we must gain

Three months and a bit ago on Monday 16th March, I entered the lockdown I’m still in.

The first week of course was voluntary but otherwise not. I travelled from Tottenham to Cardiff on that Monday with my partner Megan because we had a short break planned in Bristol later that week around the Bristol beer festival.

My working life as a union officer in the telecoms area always consists mainly of virtual meetings (currently entirely of them)and whatever Johnson and Cummings were thinking in that week physical meetings had already gone. I myself pulled an academic seminar I was chairing on the Monday and a London union reps meeting on the Wednesday (which was held virtually).

As the week went on the beer festival (at the same time as the Cheltenham races)was pulled and we didn’t travel to Bristol.

On the 23rd March as Johnson announced lockdown I was planning to return to London for the week and then see where matters were. Obviously I didn’t. It wasn’t necessary travel and my partners central Cardiff house is a lot more spacious than my Tottenham flat and I’ve been living across the two locations for 25 years (see my Twitter avatar)

So what is missing?

The Pub

The beer up to a point but given the very quick shift of many craft brewers to canning and on-line/delivery options that isn’t really an issue. In fact there is a stockpile in the house. Its social interaction that is missed. Society is social and while I like to be alone sometimes, I also enjoy informal chat. Some pubs are re-opening in England on 4^th July but I’m not ready to return yet.

The British Library

As with the pub one can research on-line and you’re not meant to be chatting in the library. But it’s still constrained and the library is not only a great place to research but to think too. Unlike the pubs which  will mostly re-open again in some form before too long the Library will be more complex in terms of social distancing I suspect. I don’t really expect to back in the reading rooms this year at the moment but we’ll see

London buses

I don’t own a car or ride a bike. I walk and get the bus. At the moment safety of workers is key there but just moving around London, seeing what’s going on, getting off here and there, is part of life in a great city like London. I sense it’ll still be a while.

The new normal. A world we must gain

It’s a world we have lost (for the moment) but the new normal must mean gains too:

Less traffic on the roads and less pollution

More space for cycling and, separately, for pedestrians. In short making London a more people friendly city with less privatised space.

More emphasis and much better pay for the really essential workers, Health and care workers, transport workers, supermarket workers. There are lots more but it’s time to turn the world upside down.

A serious focus on housing and making sure its genuinely affordable and liveable in for those who really keep London going.

And of course many less public memorials of past racists and imperialists

It’s be nice to think  Labour will press for at least some of this and I hope it will but a better new normal won’t be achieved without organisation and a fight from below.

Beard Liberation Front

30^th June

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Ben Stokes becomes first England cricket captain since Flintoff to have Beard Power

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has celebrated the appointment of Ben Stokes as England cricket captain for the forthcoming first Test against the West Indies..

He becomes the first England captain since former Beard of the Year Freddie Flintoff led England unsuccessfully in the 2006/7 Ashes.

Stokes replaces Joe Root temporarily as his partner is due to give birth to their baby.

Root is the latest in a line of England captains who have either been occasionally hirsute such as Alastair Cook or perpetually clean shaven such as Andrew Strauss and Michael Vaughan.

The campaigners say that facial hair can provide an important tactical advantage in men’s cricket in 2020 and Ben Stokes will be in a good position to beard the West Indies.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Ben Stokes came close to being voted Beard of the Year in 2019 and he if successfully deploys his captain’s beard in the First Test he will be in a good place for a 2020 challenge.

Ed Miliband is right: Johnson is no Roosevelt.

As most readers of this won’t need me to point out, Boris Johnson has decided to temporarily switch self-images from Churchill to FDR (Roosevelt) who was US President from 1933-45.

The context of course is Johnson mostly re-announcing existing spending commitments (one of his specialities)in an attempt to claim that this how he will avoid a post-lockdown recession. Commitments on jobs are notably lacking and as much to the point Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband has rightly called out on twitter that Johnson is no Roosevelt.

PM strategy is to hide totally inadequate commitments compared to scale of problem with FDR rhetoric and attempt to claim old answers of deregulation will solve problems. What we actually see is government unable to rise to scale of the economic emergency we face.

The historical detail is as usual complex and inevitably more complex than Johnson allows for.

Roosevelt did promote a New Deal from 1933 of public works and investment to boost the US economy. This was after many economies had begun to emerge from the 1929 slump but the US lagged. Car production had only reached the level of 1920 by 1938

As Eric Hobsbawm noted in the Age of Extremes car production-a key index of production then- in the US halved between 1929 and 1931 and wasn’t recovering as quickly as elsewhere. He also notes in a typically Hobsbawmist piece of detail that production of vinyl jazz records stopped altogether.

In the UK the National Government from 1931 with the backing of a significant section of what had been a Labour Government backed an austerity driven approach. Johnson isn’t really breaking from this idea but neither is he reinforcing it as some right-wing hawks would like.

Hobsbawm argues that while Roosevelt’s New Deal was radical compared to some (the UK for example) it was inconsistent and not enough to avoid a new slump in 1937/8.

Then came World War Two.

If Johnson is failing to address the matter entirely, Ed Miliband’s words are welcome in that they don’t echo the approach of Ramsay MacDonald in 1931. There is a need to understand though that while Roosevelt’s measures in the New Deal were radical they still weren’t radical enough.

The puzzle of Boris Johnson & grassroots cricket. Please sign the petition

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Mike Savage/REX/Shutterstock (5016776o)
Boris Johnson MP in Bat
Lashings All Stars vs House of Commons & Lords cricket match, Maidstone, Britain – 30 Aug 2015

Those who assume that Boris Johnson blocked a return of recreational (grassroots) cricket in the Commons as the cricket ball is allegedly a ‘vector of disease’ because he knows nothing of the game are wrong.

He was after all a member of the Bullingdon Club which was founded in 1805 to play cricket whatever else it may have gone on to do.

Johnson was not around in 1805 but there is ample evidence of him not only watching cricket (he was booed at the Oval Test in 2018 when he was a backbench MP as he’d been spotted asleep, surely a perfectly acceptable afternoon pursuit at a cricket match) but also playing it.

Indeed he has been the captain of the Spectator cricket team in its annual game against Lord Althorp (see below). It would seem that these matches contain a good deal of gamesmanship (or cheating as its generally known) and it may well be that Johnson is not that clear on how a cricket ball can be safely used in the current moment (sanitiser, regular cleaning etc).

It’s a puzzle. Perhaps Dominic Cummings doesn’t like cricket..

Anyway there is a petition to demand that matters change and cricket can return:

http://chng.it/BGbtr6PFnb

Boris Johnson & cricket

My week began with the annual Earl Spencer v Boris Johnson cricket match, held at Charles Spencer’s Althorp House in Northamptonshire. This is a truly wonderful event in a wonderful setting. Boris’s team has not yet notched up a victory, even though we once fielded Kevin Pietersen. This year, we actually came close to winning. The Johnson team made 127. Charles Spencer’s, with one over left, was on 123. It was a nail-biting finish, and they finally beat us with only two balls left to bowl.

Stanley Johnson Diary 20^th July 2017

Lord Spencer’s ringer

Sir: Charles Moore is right to draw attention to Boris Johnson’s appalling behaviour in bringing on Kevin Pietersen as a ringer for a friendly against Lord Spencer’s XI at Althorp (Notes, 21 June). But to be fair, there is history there. I once played for Boris’s ramshackle team in this fixture and was appalled to see who the cad Spencer had persuaded to open the batting for the home side: Jimmy Adams, the former West Indies captain.

Nigel Farndale

Liss, Hampshire

Spectator 28^th June 2014

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

29^th June

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

A new normal as Men’s First Class Cricket returns: independent beard assessors

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with men’s  First Class Cricket set to return on 1^st August after Test cricket in July it’s time for a new normal and that must include the appointment of Independent Beard Assessors to assist the Third Umpire in international matches

Test Match Special is currently replaying the 2^nd Leeds Test from 2017 between England and the West Indies which featured one of John Holder’s Ask The Umpire sessions. BLF Organiser Keith Flett asked him what the position would be if in a referred LBW decision the batsman beard obscured the Umpire’s view. Broadly Holder’s view seemed to be that ‘Out’ Beard Before Wicket was possible

Holder returned to the matter in 2019 when opined on it in Test Match Special’s Ask the Umpire slot on 2nd August 2019 during the second day of the Ashes Test at Edgbaston in response to questions from BLF Organiser Keith Flett and Peterborough supporter Toby Wood.

Holder noted in response to Flett that while players might try to ‘improve’ the ball by rubbing it in a beard previously enhanced by beard oil or balm, it was a matter for the Umpires on the field to intervene if they were concerned.

Likewise Holder suggested that if a player’s beard was long enough to obscure an Umpire’s view of play they could be asked to tuck it into their shirt.

The Beard Liberation Front says that while it totally accepts that Holder’s comments were made in good faith they might lead to dissent on the field. Criticising the length of someone’s beard or suggesting they were using it to illegally change the ball could be a very sensitive issue.

The campaigners say that it would be better for each Test to have an independent beard assessor who could deal with any facial hair related disputes under a previously agreed Code which should sit alongside but not be part of the Laws of Cricket

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, imagine what W G Grace would have said and done if an Umpire had attempted to intervene on a matter relating to his beard. An independent assessor would make sure there were no close shaves on the field. With Test cricket set to resume in July and Men’s County Cricket in August the new normal must include positive moves to address the beard issue.

Beard Liberation Front

29th June

contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Michael Rosen certified as Beard of Summer 2020

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that following his triumph in the Beard of Summer vote on 27th June author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen has now been certified as the winner.

A brief presentation will be arranged at a date and location to be determined, although this will not be for a significant period given present circumstances.

Michael Rosen shaved actor Michael Sheen for the honour in a well contested on-line poll and Sheen subsequently congratulated him on twitter.

The Beard Liberation Front says that Rosen’s beard has shown tremendous resilience after a period of serious illness. It is good to see that both Michael Rosen and his beard are now on the road to recovery.

He and his partner Emma-Louise Williams spoke about this, and about the superb care that he has received from the NHS, on Radio 4’s Today programme on 29th June.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53217014

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we are delighted that Michael Rosen has been voted Beard of Summer 2020. His beard is a true benchmark for hirsuteness in tough times and it might even inspire Arsenal to end the season successfully as well