Kmflett's Blog

Whitsun Church Ales: the origins of the pub-crawl..

Whit Sunday is the 7^th after Easter, hence 31^st May (not always the same date, since 1965,as the UK Bank Holiday)

In the traditional calendar Whit Sunday and Whitsuntide, the days after it, is a period of festival and holiday. It represents a time when the weather is warmer and the agricultural calendar less pressing. It allows for outside gatherings (socially distanced in 2020 obviously and probably not 260 miles from home).

Part of this is the Church Ale a practice which declined with the Reformation but like all the best customs continued on here and there.

The Church Ale was not a beer as such but a wider name for a festival where specially brewed beer was certainly consumed as was food. The aim was to raise funds for charitable causes, often as the rhyme below indicates the church itself.

It was also perhaps the origin of the pub crawl. It was not unknown for numbers of Church ales to take place at the same time allowing for an ale-crawl between several of them.

As usual I don’t expect we’ll hear anything from those who claim to stand up for an English or wider British way of life on this but its no less of a tradition for that.

The churches must owe, as we all do know,

For when they be drooping and ready to fall,

By a Whitsun or Church-ale up again they shall go

And owe their repairing to a pot of good ale

— ”Exaltation of Ale”, by Francis Beaumont

Beard Liberation Front

31st May

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to Clint Eastwood on his 90th birthday.

While he has not worn a beard in recent decades he popularised one of the most iconic 1960s beard styles.

Eastwood played The Man With No Name in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy known as the Spaghetti Westerns.

He appeared sometimes with a beard, sometimes with stubble, wearing a broad brimmed hat and a poncho and invariably chewing on a cheroot.

He created an entire hirsute persona as he explained: ‘I felt the less he said, the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience’

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Clint Eastwood is associated with one of the most iconic post-1945 facial hair images. He may be clean shaven nowadays at 90 years old, but the image will endure

The Ambridge Socialist

31^st May

Reporting the class struggle in Borsetshire

Harrison Burns purged as Ambridge cricket captain

BBC reports from Ambridge are back and there could hardly be more dramatic news than the fact that Sgt Harrison Burns has been purged as Ambridge cricket captain and replaced by Tracy Horrobin via an on-line vote. It’s likely that Ambridge cricket will be back later in the summer as given the number of spectators it normally attracts social distancing will not be of concern.

We await news of Tracy’s new training regime.

Meanwhile of course a Guardian reader Richard Giles has complained that lockdown Archers is just as dull as usual, though he is perhaps not a regular listener. While the view that nothing ever happens in the Archers has been around for almost as long as the nearly 70 year old programme itself, it’s not true as readers of the Ambridge Socialist know well. The victory of quintessential proletarian rebel Tracy Horrobin over Ambridge’s police officer, Sergeant Burns to become captain of the village cricket team suggests anything but boredom. I doubt they thought that was boring at Lords.

The New Archers

With the Archers back there was a good deal of comment about the new temporary normal of a limited number of characters worked. Some, again, presumably not regular listeners, claimed David Archer was boring and Josh Archer had no discernible character at all. Neither of these points will come as any surprise to Ambridge Socialist readers.

Appearing on the Dum Tee Dum podcast on 29^th May Archers veteran Keri Davies noted that the first voice we had heard was David Archer because after all it is The Archers, about the Dynasty of the same name. Indeed it is, which is why we back the alternative proletarian dynasty of the Grundys. After 70 years their time has come.

In Other News

Keri Davies has confessed to inventing the Borsetshire tradition of spile troshing. As those familiar with the work of Eric Hobsbawm will know all the best traditions are invented.

The lockdown is being further eased in England, where Johnson believes he has control, from June 1st with sport re-starting.

Its far from clear at best that this wont help to cause the spread of COVID-19 given that new cases remain rather than higher than other European countries that have lifted lockdowns to an extent.

Making historical comparisons is always difficult and comparing early 21st century society with C19th society is in that category. There is one clear comparison when it comes to epidemics. Certainly in the first half of the nineteenth century there was no vaccine or real understanding of most such as cholera. Similarly there is no vaccine for COVID-19 although in terms of medical science we are in a completely different place when it comes to understanding disease.

Even so this means that since there is no absolutely safe way to get out of lockdown and open ended national lockdowns, even if desirable to a few, wont work in a world that is firmly global, political decisions do have a role to play. Problems start to occur when it is suspected that such decisions are taken in the interests of the few rather than the many.

I’ve been re-reading Richard J Evans, Epidemics and Revolutions in Nineteenth Century Europe (Past & Present 120, 1988). Suitably thanks to the present situation you should be able to read it free on-line via JSTOR if you aren’t a member of an academic library.

Evans touches on the cholera epidemic of 1831/2 in Europe which was a time of revolution (even almost in Britain).

In reaction to the outbreak of cholera which was endemic and caused numerous deadly epidemics in the nineteenth century (and is still at it in the twenty-first century in some parts of the world) in 1831 European Governments introduced a range of restrictions which may seem familiar. These included quarantine, isolation and restrictions on movement, in those days mainly enforced by the military before the rise of regular police forces.

The Prussian Government which had threatened to shoot people who ignored the restrictions relaxed them in September 1831 due to ‘economic problems’. The Hapsburg monarchy abandoned quarantine arguing that it had led to ‘consequences more mischievous than the malady itself’ and the Russians did the same.

Evans notes that the relaxation of restrictions represented Governments giving way to some extent to pressures from traders, manufacturers and merchants. They had argued that deprived of a living the labouring classes ‘driven to desperation’ would fan the ‘flames of rebellion’.

When cholera arrived in Britain the Government abandoned efforts to control it, fearful that restrictions would lead to revolution. However in 2020  there are no historians on SAGE except Dominic Cummings (First Class Degree, Oxford University, Ancient & Modern History)….

In 2020 some at least of the policy decisions of Governments seem to be driven by similar concerns as those in the 1830s, although they had the excuse that they had no real science to inform them.

Still neither revolt or revolution is on the agenda. Not quite yet anyway…

The politics of protest: the ‘mob’ versus the ‘crowd’.

Recent events have again raised the issue of whether people protesting in the streets are a mob or a crowd. The letter below, published in the Guardian, about a small protest outside of Dominic Cummings North London house, makes the distinction. In this case there was no mob and arguably not even a crowd.

Protesting outside the house of someone who has transgressed many people’s understanding of what might be termed a ‘moral economy’ is a British tradition stretching back over many centuries. It was not however by any means always politically progressive, so controversy over it is also something not recent.

People outside Dominic Cummings house on Monday should in my view be seen as ‘legitimate protesters’ and not a mob. The use of the term mob to characterise popular protest dates back at least to Edmund Burke’s view of the French Revolution. As the great historian of nineteenth century protest George Rude underlined what reactionaries thought was a mob was in many cases simply a peaceful crowd making reasonable points. If one wants to look for a mob, the activities of the Bullingdon Club are a good place to start.

Events in the US provide a much wider canvass to issues of the politics of protest but a summary of the mob v crowd debate is here:

While George Rude saw in a protest up to a riot the work of the crowd, and broadly progressive intentions and outcomes, E.P. Thompson was less happy with this formulation. He suggested that riots could also contain reactionary elements and the crowd involved in the Gordon Riots would be an obvious example.

I would take Thompson’s side in that debate (if only just) but underline the point above that while we may accept that there may be reactionary elements in crowds which can get involved in riots this doesn’t alter the fact that they happen and need to be understood

E.P. Thompson’s work on food riots points to the reality that the threat of a riot was often more effective than an actual riot. It could cause a reduction in the price of bread or the distribution of hoarded food. When riots did occur very much the same impact was to be found. Hidden food was seized and distributed at low price.

There were other, more obviously political riots, often associated with the Chartists. The Chartists were an organised political force that most certainly did not support riots. It was rather the wider Chartist crowd that participated in such activities, often after provocation from the authorities.

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Marina Hyde, in her excellent article about the Dominic Cummings scandal (The truth about why Cummings hasn’t gone: Johnson is too terrified to sack him, 26 May), mentions her concerns about an angry “mob” outside his home. As one of the protesters who went there on Monday, I would like to clear up this aspect of Cummings’ misinformation campaign: there was no “mob” of protesters outside his home, though there was perhaps a “mob” of paparazzi.

On Monday, there was – at our peak – a handful of protesters quietly standing around and socially distanced on the pavement. A few of us had placards. Nobody was chanting. The police facilitating the protest confirmed we were not breaking the law and were very friendly to us. They also told us there hadn’t been a protesting presence outside Cummings’ home over recent days.

When Cummings returned from his press conference, having brazenly insulted our intelligence, quite understandably he was briefly shouted at as he entered his home and the paparazzi pressed in. One of our number swore, which, given his behaviour, didn’t seem that outrageous. Of course, it was this moment of high drama and jostling that made the evening news bulletins. Once he got inside we shut up, and shortly after that we all went home as it was getting dark.

The paparazzi were perhaps more mob-like, but in my view the man has brought that level of scrutiny on himself and it is by no means disproportionate to his crime. Please don’t allow Mr Cummings to weaponise this legitimate protest by evoking images of misbehaving protesters. We, as with the lockdown, obeyed the rules. (Guardian Letters)

When the joint venture between Marstons and Carlsberg UK was announced on 22nd May the reaction in the financial pages was muted. There was no criticism but little comment.

Capitalism has other things to ponder just now but rest assured (or not) market capitalism is churning relentlessly on.

The Times has now publshed an update on the first week of trading after the announcement and concluded it looks positive- for business that is, not drinkers particulary. We are not really at the table here.

The Times is of course paywalled but a flavour of the piece is below.

The advice is ‘buy’. One hopes that this will also be the case in future with at least some of the range of cask beers which Marstons breweries produced and which will now be brewed by Carlsberg UK

50 Years of the Equal Pay Act: Changes to the law needed but workplace organisation key

Its 50 years since the Equal Pay Act passed into law.

There is a useful House of Commons briefing here:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/economy-business/work-incomes/50-years-of-the-equal-pay-act/?utm_source=HOC+Library+-+Research+alerts&utm_campaign=651730512b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_29_08_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a9da1c9b17-651730512b-103753485&mc_cid=651730512b&mc_eid=cbbdc8d1a9

Keir Starmer tweeted that the Act underlined what a Labour Government could do, it was one of the last Acts of the 1966-70 Wilson Government. It didn’t come into effect until 1975 when Wilson was again PM. Starmer also noted that the law needs updating and he is right.

There remains a significant gender pay gap in the UK (not all of which is directly pay related-occupation for example also features) not to speak of a gender pension gap as a result.

The Commons Library briefing notes that the 1970 Act taken through Parliament by Barbara Castle related to the 1968 strike by women workers at Fords for equal pay. The dispute was a little more complex than that (as they often are) but there is no question that industrial conflict led to political change.

What the briefing doesn’t cover is the role that unions continue to play around equal pay.

An interesting TUC briefing on equal pay, key workers and coronavirus is here:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/coronavirus-shows-working-women-are-still-underpaid-and-undervalued-says-tuc

While the law is important in equal pay, the process is slow and certainly cant be relied on.

As trade union officer in the private sector I have dealt with equal pay issues over many years. Sorting out matters at the grassroots is complex too and making progress with employers on issues around equality and equal pay requires sustained organisation and campaigning.

Below is a link that a sadly late union colleague Aveen McHugh wrote in 2014 about efforts in the telecoms sector to do just that:

https://strongerunions.org/2014/04/06/the-role-unions-can-play-in-closing-the-gender-pay-gap-in-the-private-sector/

It remains work in progress and gains made in one generation can easily disappear in another. That’s where the benchmark of law is important but there is no substitute for effective workplace organisation.

The Spectator is a right-wing weekly magazine that has been going since 1828. Its archives are certainly of historic interest.

I rarely glance at it, edited as it is by Fraser Nelson, not because I avoid right-wing views in some sort of left-wing bubble, but because the views expressed are predictable and can be checked by following some of the key writers on twitters any time you like.

As Dominic Cummings has found out recently things you’d prefer were kept quiet dont always remain so, so I should disclose that I have done stuff for the Spectator in the past. About beards. Period.

Boris Johnson is a former Editor, who was eventually disposed of when he picked up a Shadow Front Bench role under Cameron before the latter became PM.

Johnson’s Editorship of the Spectator was much as you might expect if you’ve following his brief period in No.10. Details are in Sonia Purnell’s entertaining biography, Just Boris.

On that basis you’d expect the Spectator to stand by Boris, and I suspect that broadly it still does.

However it has published another piece (on-line only,paywalled) by Scottish Editor Alex Massie calling on Johnson to go.

Massie has a beard but he is not some closet-Trot, even of the Institute of Ideas kind. He has an impressive pedigree of right-wing writing.

He calls on Johnson to go on the basis that he is not up to the job particularly if he has to rely on Cummings to the extent that he cant sack him. One suspects that Johnson had the same take on Stuart Reid the person who actually edited the Spectator while Johnson was nominally in charge.

Massie makes a particularly interesting historical analogy:

The Prime Minister’s defenders argue he cannot function without Dominic Cummings. Perhaps this is the case but it is not obvious he can function with him either. I do not, in truth, know if this is a Black Wednesday or Poll Tax moment for this government but the mere fact those comparisons are now being made is another data point supporting the proposition that Johnson’s government is in deep trouble.

The Poll Tax saw the departure of Margaret Thatcher as Tory leader, despite the fact that she had won the Party 3 Elections and the appearance of John Major. Black Wednesday on 16 September 1992 not long after the General Election that Major won saw interest rates rise briefly to 15% and paved the way for the election of Blair in 1997 and 13 years of Labour in Office.

There is important footnote here though.

The departure of Thatcher did not lead, in 1992,to a Labour Government led by Neil Kinnock even though that was an unexpected outcome. In 1992 the economic debacle caused by Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont meant Labour moved into a poll lead and kept. But Major hung on for 5 years allowing him to privatise rail and much else.

The end of Johnson would not, without effort, mean an end to Tory rule

Beard Liberation Front

29th May

The style of summer 2020: Cummings tracksuit & stubble or beard, shorts & sandals

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with warmer weather across much of the UK, and lockdowns eased to varying degrees across the UK’s four nations, it is time to test the style of summer 2020.

Two key styles have been in the eye in recent days:

Dominic Cummings: stubble, tracksuit bottom, trainers

BLF supporters: beard, shorts and sandals

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, style and image are a central part of modern life. We thought we’d test which of the two styles currently out there which have been most in the public eye hits the summer 2020 zeitgeist

According to some commentators the small number of socially distanced protesters who gathered outside of Dominic Cummings house were a ‘mob’.

The use of such terms has a long history which I’ll comment on further.

However the connection with one of Mr Cummings favourite places, Barnard Castle, is interesting.

The historian Robert Colls in his book The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield 1790-1850 makes a reference to Barnard Castle (page 225) in respect of eighteenth century mobs. Colls argues that street actions by crowds were one of the few ways that ordinary people could have social agency before they got the vote and the right to organise.

He notes of Barnard Castle that the ‘squirearchy even provided their mob-captain with a gold laced hat and sword; ‘thus equipped…paraded the streets..sounding a horn, calling the people together at his pleasure’.

The purpose of such gatherings was often to promote what E P Thompson called a moral economy, to put pressure on tradesmen and producers for example to make sure that staples like bread and beer were sold at a reasonable price and of decent quality. This was often as here accepted by local ruling classes as a form of social regulation, making sure that protests did not ‘get out of hand’

Cummings before his current job headed up the Vote Leave campaign which was supposed to articulate (or perhaps manipulate) the voices of those that official political society didnt hear, done at the bidding of wealthy backers.

Surely the idea of parading around Barnard Castle in a gold laced hat articulating supposedly radical demands that the ruling class could in fact happily live with would fit Cummings well.