Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front press release

Trade Union Membership rises: an historical perspective

The Government has published the annual figures for trade union membership. They are for those concerned with workplace organisation (I’m a trade union officer in the private sector based in the City of London) mildly encouraging. Membership has risen by 100,000.

As ever there are challenges and the TUC’s useful analysis is here:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/trade-union-membership-rises-100000-single-year-%E2%80%93-challenges-remain

Some of the challenges are highly relevant to the areas I’m involved in broadly telecoms and the wider connected world.

Union membership in the private sector has fallen slightly and the numbers of younger workers (under 35) is still far too low.

Of course an organising agenda can address this and as the TUC blog makes clear has successes. Aside from dealing with issues for existing members and negotiating with employers I’m out every week recruiting new members.

It is world where they understand very well the issues they have- job security, the cost of living such as housing and transport, and whether they can expect regular pay rises. It is also a world where many don’t really understand how useful being a union member can be to them. People I speak to are often surprised by how much I know already about the matter they’ve raised with me and also how much I can do about it with colleagues. Of course satisfaction is never guaranteed but getting the issue addressed and answered definitely is. As individuals they just don’t have that clout.

There is a wider picture however that the TUC blog doesn’t mention- reasonably enough since it is specifically about the 2017-18 figures.

Strikes are at or close to an historic low so the visibility of what unions can do, if need be, is low to both members and potential members. Even if a strike is defeated (by no means an unusual event unfortunately) it shows that collective action is possible.

Here there are two issues that need to be looked at.

One reason often given for the low level of strikes is that people are waiting for a Labour Government to change Tory laws which deliberately make taking legal industrial action difficult. Indeed the 50% minimum turn-out of those eligible for a legal strike ballot applies nowhere else in British public life. Likewise the ban on e-balloting is specifically designed to frustrate turn-out in ballots and cause the minimum figure not to be achieved.

Labour is committed to changing all this but when it is elected even when it does it won’t make an automatic difference. The balance between political and industrial activity reflects weakness where rather doing things for themselves people look for politicians to do the job.

It’s a question of looking at how waves of unionisation took place in the past. We can look back to the new unionism of the 1880s and the dock strike and to the unionisation of the new technology of the 1930s, the care industry.

It was a tough struggle but it was done.

The equivalent today are the Googles and the Amazons and unions are on to it. Union recognition campaigns at TFI Fridays, Picturehouse and Uber underline that it is possible to organise but also inevitably that success can remain elusive.

A success in one of these areas would be totemic in terms of people not currently in unions understanding both why they should be and what it could mean for them.

In short, it can be done.

Beard Liberation Front

31^st May

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Search for the Beard of the Cricket World Cup, the W G Grace Prize, underway

The Beard Liberation Front has said that the search for the Beard of the 2019 Cricket World Cup is underway.

An indicative poll of well-known hirsute cricketers who are playing is now on-line and full poll will commence after each team has played their opening match on 3^rd June.

In the beginning was WG Grace but in the twentieth century cricket went to the barbers. So much so that by the early 1960s a major shaving company was sponsoring one day cricket and players deemed insufficiently clean shaven were sometimes sent from the field to sort it out.

In the twenty first century beards in cricket are back from Moeen to Hashim. Its now understood that a beard can have a psychological impact on opponents after Mike Brearley pioneered the point. Beards can also have an aero-dynamic impact on play itself.

Beards will play an important, perhaps vital, role in the World Cup. But who will have the winning whiskers?

Contenders could include Moeen Ali, Hashim Amla and Virat Kohli. Competition is expected to bristle as the competition goes on

However the Beard Liberation Front has said that to be eligible the beard must at least pass the Clint Eastwood post-stubble test & will ideally be more in the WG Grace beard zone

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, this is the most hirsute Cricket World Cup ever and we expect stiff competition for the W G Grace Prize

The Last Months of the Tory Party

The Tories election performance in the EU Elections where they got just over 9% of the poll and 4 MEPs has been reported as their worse Election performance since 1832. I’m not entirely sure what the historical basis of this claim is (and Ive looked) but there is no doubt that the Tories are in a very serious crisis.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft writing in the Financial Times (25.5) on the Tory Party drew attention, in the context of the Tory leadership election, that the Party which had 2.7m members in the early 1950s now has, at best, 160,000- it was 124,000 as recently as March 2018 (Sunday Telegraph 26.5) The average age is according to some estimates 70 (others suggest 57- my thanks to the Guardian’s Stephen Moss for this info)

Wheatcroft wrote a book in 2005 on the strange death of the Tory Party (the title echoed Dangerfield’s book on the strange death of Liberal England) which turned out to be somewhat premature. He had the direction of travel right though. While Labour under Corbyn has revived to 500,000+ members, the Tories are definitely struggling to survive. They have few activists on the ground, and in many areas no Councillors, the base from which Parliamentary seats are often won.

The reason is probably easy enough to determine. Theresa May dubbed the Tories the Nasty Party in a speech to the Tory Conference in 2002, and some half-hearted attempts to ‘modernise’ since notwithstanding they have only got nastier since. It would take quite some front to join the current Tory Party I suspect, unless perhaps you were a former member of UKIP

Further if the Tories key raison d’etre is to be the party of business they have a very serious issue. Namely that while much of business wants to stay in the EU the Tories policy is to leave. Indeed the reportedly leading contender for the Tory leadership, Johnson, is on record as saying ‘f*ck business’.

As Wheatcroft notes this is a little surprising because as a Party the Tories have been around a long time and have proved themselves to be the great survivors.

There was,Wheatcroft notes, a Tory Party in the late eighteenth century. They started to become something like the party we know today (broadly)after the 1832 Reform Act.

Wheatcroft goes on to note that while the Tories were deeply divided over things like the Corn Laws in the 1840s and Tariff Reform in the early twentieth century, not to mention Ireland on various occasions, in every one they avoided destroying themselves.

In the period 1951 to 1992 there were 12 Elections and the Tories won a Parliamentary majority in 8 eight of them. Since 1992 there have been 6 Elections and the Tories have won a Parliamentary majority once.

The Tory Party may yet survive a while longer but the direction of travel seems clear.

The High Cross Tottenham at one year: things keep getting better

The High Cross, a pub situated in a former public convenience in central Tottenham near the police station and the bus garage celebrated its first birthday last Friday. It wasn’t exactly its first birthday I think but a bank holiday weekend is a good time to mark the occasion.

Obviously Ive no idea about the economics of the thing but judging by the number of customers its doing well. It originally had 6 taps now it has 12 and didn’t open 7 days but now it is does.

Its all a bit surprising and welcome because until recently pubs have been shutting in Tottenham for a while. Probably the main culprit was a building company entrepreneur who bought up pubs and then shut them and redeveloped them as flats.

Its true though that until recently the drinking population of the area was in a decline, perhaps not major but demand was less. Thanks to gentrification (arguably one of the few benefits BUT Tottenham has been a place of comers and goers since the 1870s) that’s no longer true.

Anyway I have a professional interest as a trade union officer in keeping an eye on what happens in Tottenham so I was well aware in the latter part of 2017 that a licence had been granted to the former toilets. The people behind it appeared to be a chef and a former Mother Kellys employee.

That is Chris and Alex btw.

It seemed a bit uncertain whether Tottenham had changed enough to support new pub openings particularly ones selling craft beer on keg even allowing for the number of breweries now in the area.

The answer anyway is yes. The food is excellent and the beer range very decent with monthly tap takeovers and always a varied range on from imperial stouts to lower strength pales.

It is obviously not a huge place but its well organised and friendly and it has worked. Even Time Out, usually a source of incorrect information about Tottenham, managed to give it an excellent and mainly correct review on its first birthday

Happy Birthday to the High Cross!

Beard Liberation Front

30th May

contact keith Flett 07803167266

2019 Cricket World Cup set to be the most hirsute ever

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the 2019 Cricket World Cup that starts on 30th May at the Oval is set to be the most hirsute ever.

When the Queen met the captains of the 10 competing teams at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday all of them had beards as she sat amidst them for a photograph.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Beard Power will be a major factor in the 2019 World Cup without question

Jacob Rees Mogg’s The Victorians sold 734 copies in its first week(still Vince Cable managed 68)

Jacob Rees Mogg studied history at Trinity College Oxford and has now produced a volume, The Victorians, about some leading Victorians he likes.

The book has been universally slated, the most recent review being by Simon Hepher in the Telegraph (its behind a paywall but I’m sure most readers of my blog subscribe to the paper anyway).

The bad news for Rees Mogg (if it is bad news, he has been paid, it may be the publisher Random House that is taking the hit) is that the book sold only 734 copies in its first week and that tends to be the benchmark for sales.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2019/may/29/jacob-rees-mogg-victorians-has-sold-734-copies-will-publishers-take-note

On the other hand Rees Mogg may reflect that when Vince Cable published a work of  fiction (Rees Mogg’s may be close but not quite in that category) it managed just 68 sales in the first week in 2017

I am reading it chapter by chapter when time allows and it does beg the question of what kind of history Rees Mogg was actually studying at Oxford, something I’ve been puzzling over for a while.

Certainly it was not research history.

The Victorians contains no footnotes or endnotes to point the reader to sources where they can read more about or check what Rees Mogg says.

It also contains no acknowledgements of any visits to libraries, archives or anywhere else where Rees Mogg might have researched and checked matters.

It does have a brief two-page bibliography consisting entirely of secondary works. This it seems to me is particularly poor. A good deal of Queen Victoria’s personal writing is available free on-line for example but it doesn’t appear that Rees Mogg has looked at it, even though it only requires a google.

Dr Keith Flett convenes the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London School of Advanced Studies

John Cleese’s claim that London is not an ‘English City’ shows his ignorance of London’s history

John Cleese who was funny once is at it again, doing what Rupa Huq MP on Twitter called his best Morrissey impression. According to Cleese London is not really an English City anymore.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/may/29/john-cleese-criticised-for-saying-london-is-no-longer-an-english-city

Quite aside from exhibiting an unacceptable racist attitude, Cleese is also showing his ignorance of history.

The late socialist historian Raphael Samuel wrote a long essay, Comers and Goers (in The Victorian City, 1973), about London in the later Victorian period. It begins thus:

‘The migrating classes’ as they were called by the promoters of the Leicester Square soup kitchen in the 1850s have left remarkably few traces of their existence, even in the places which once served them as town lairs. No railway hotels mark the terminal point of their journeyings. No imposing clubs stand as memorials to the seasons they spent in town’.

Samuel had partly in mind what Mayhew called the ‘wandering tribes’ seasonal workers who came to London in the winter for warmth and shelter and travelled to the countryside for work in the spring, summer and autumn.

But within that there were large numbers of gypsies, Irish workers, who were driven to London for work, given the poor state of their own labour market, and of course sailors as London was an important port.

Samuel writes of numbers of Americans, Chinamen, Lascars, Greeks and Italians, while numbers of stonemasons also migrated from London to America in search of seasonal work.

London has remained a place of comers and goers, a world city. Cleese’s ‘ English City’ is an unpleasant piece of historical fiction.

Dr Keith Flett is the Convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group

Beard Liberation Front

PRESS RELEASE

29^th May

Contact Keith Flett           07803 167266

Campaigners defend the right to wear a beard & sandals after ‘EU Lib Dem voting’ row

South London Liberal Democrat activist Max Brockbank sporting a traditional LibDem beard

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers which campaigns against beardism, irrational prejudice against the hirsute, has said that it is moving to defend the right of people to wear a beard and sandals without any pogonophobic imputations being made about their political beliefs.

Firstly Alastair Campbell, auto expelled from Labour for saying he had voted LibDem in the EU Elections, stated that he was not a Liberal Democrat, the sub-text being that since he didn’t have a beard or wear sandals that was obviously the case.

Now comments on social media have started to circulate warning Labour activists to watch out for LibDem infiltrators who will be wearing ‘beards, hand-knitted sweaters and sandals’. Again the BLF says this is an openly pogonophobic comment.

It is many years since the Liberal Democrats, in the main, abandoned any association with an image related to beards and sandals. However the tradition does live and it is one that the Beard Liberation Front defends against pogonophobic prejudice

BLF organiser Keith Flett said, the wearing of a beards and sandals does not imply any particular political belief athough we are reasonably sure that this is one fashion Nigel Farage will never adopt

Guidelines on wearing a beard and sandals

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/2019-beard-shorts-sandals-season-peoples-vote-says-no-socks-with-sandals/

Beard Liberation Front

29th May

Media Release contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

2019 Beard, Shorts & Sandals Season. People’s Vote says NO socks with sandals

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with warmer weather forecast the 2019 Beard, Shorts and Sandals the vote about whether it is permissible to wear socks with sandals has gone in favour of NO socks.

40% of those voting backed no socks, while 20% supported wearing socks together with 15% who said they might on occasion. 20% were ideologically opposed to sock wearing with sandals under all circumstances

The BLF has relaxed guidelines for the 2019 season and brought in a new framework governing types of footwear, length of shorts and the controversial issue of socks:

1] Shorts may be half length (to the knee) or three-quarter length-‘culottes’. The length of shorts is particularly important as climate change may mean that unprotected legs get sunburnt.

2] Footwear should be casual. There is a considerable range of sandal type footwear now available. Some leave parts of the feet and toes open to public view, while some does not. The BLF is not prescriptive about the matter.

3] Socks should generally not be worn following a People’s Vote on the issue

4] There is no prescription or definition on what type of beard may be worn, or how this may match with the shorts and sandals. This is left up to the individual.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, no doubt some will see the vote for no socks as a snub to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who is often seen to be wearing socks with his beard, shorts and casual footwear. However more accurately it reflects a continuing trend to a more organic appearance and style, exposing more of the body, including here the feet, to the elements