Kmflett's Blog

The importance of the vote

The EU Elections take place on 23^rd May. Given that a Referendum voted narrowly for Britain to leave which on the Government’s original timetable it should have done by now, it might be wondered how legitimate the vote is.

The participation of the new vehicle for Nigel Farage’s far right politics, the Brexit Party, with its allegedly doubtful sources of funding and practices raises further issues.

Turn out is likely to be on the low side, it usually has been for EU Elections probably because many wonder what exactly MEPs do or don’t do to make a difference to their daily lives.

Once the elections are complete Europe wide on Sunday and results announced on Monday we are likely to see an enhanced presence of far rightists and fascists in the European Parliament.

All that said, and I’m far from an obsessive about Parliamentary elections of any kind, participation in  democratic elections is important.

Its important because fascists like Stephen Yaxley Lennon are standing for election and only voting against them (in the north-west in this case) can stop them on this occasion.

Its also important because the Chartists fought for the right to vote for men, not finally achieved until 1918 and the Suffragettes did the same for women.

On the 200^th anniversary of Peterloo its important to remember the sacrifices that people made to win the vote and its also important to remember that even today in the US Trump is making extensive efforts to prevent working people from voting now echoed to some extent by the Tories here.

So vote on 23^rd May. It may not mean much in itself but the fight to win you the vote in the first place means a lot and that means its worth exercising it.

2019 Beard, Shorts & Sandals Season: The Big Issue Vote- socks

Beard Liberation Front

22^nd May

Media Release contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

2019 Beard, Shorts & Sandals Season. The Big Issue Vote: socks/no socks very close

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with another Bank Holiday weekend upon us the 2019 Beard, Shorts and Sandals is reaching a conclusion.

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. However if the beard, shorts and sandals are to be displayed in busy urban areas it may be prudent to wear closed rather than open casual footwear and ankle socks, not visible to others may be worn.

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, we deliberately have a category on the poll for those who are ideologically opposed to socks and sandals. We expect most are currently engaged in obsessing one way or another on Brexit. For the rest those who don’t wear socks and those who do, or might, are very closed matched. The vote closes at midnight on Sunday 26^th May with the outcome announced on Bank Holiday Monday.

The surprising songs protesters sang at Peterloo.

One of the great things about the 200^th anniversary of Peterloo marked in 2019 was the range of exhibitions and events that were scheduled to mark the occasion. For historians amongst the most interesting are digitisation projects which are putting original documents related to the massacre in St Peters Fields Manchester on Monday 16^th August 1819 on-line.

The unique collections of the Working Class Movement Library in Salford  (near the train station should you want to visit) have a record of the trial in York in March 1820 of ten people charged with sedition as a result of Peterloo including Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford.

It also contains William Hulton’s hand written notes on the record of the trial. Hulton was the Tory Chair of Magistrates who sent the Yeomanry in at Peterloo.

An interesting footnote is that Hulton records part of the evidence of John Tyas the Times reporter at Peterloo in respect of the songs the crowd sang. These were:

Rule Britannia

God Save the King

See the Conquering Hero Comes (Tyas was only possible on this, it relates to the arrival of Henry Hunt)

It all sounds somewhat patriotic until one recalls William Cobbett’s Freeborn Englishman, noted by EP Thompson in the Making of the English Working Class. According to Cobbett he was a robust opponent of foreign domination and authoritarianism and very keen on trial by jury and liberty. He was less bothered about democracy.

But the working class protesters on the Manchester Monday 205 years ago were bothered about democracy and the Tory Magistrate Hulton gave the orders to cut them down.

https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/protest-politics-and-campaigning-for-change/peterloo-massacre/william-hultons-notes-on-the-trial-of-henry-hunt/

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release 21^st May

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Campaigners say beards are best grown naturally not through the use of Minoxidil

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has advised those seeking to grow a beard to avoid using the drug Minoxidil.

The drug available over the counter at chemists has a side effect of promoting the growth of hair in some people and it has been reported that those seeking to grow a beard have been using it with positive effects:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7011335/British-men-using-hair-loss-drug-label-grow-BEARDS.html

However the drug can have side effects and the Beard Liberation Front says its organically based guide to beard growth should be used:

Step 1: do not shave

Step 2: by early afternoon, wash the face and comb through the developing stubble

Step 3: during the afternoon rub some real ale, or if you must, lemon juice, into the developing facial hair to nourish it and promote growth

Step 4: In the evening you can begin to trim and style the proto-beard

Step 5: If the results are poor repeat each day for a week until facial hair growth occurs

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, beard may be trendy in some areas but they are not compulsory and nor should they be. Our guide should allow facial hair to grow organically without the need for drugs. If it doesn’t happen, there are other things in the world…

The Socialist Gardener

Press Release May 21st contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW: WE BACK ALLOTMENTS

Living Under One Sun allotments, Tottenham

The Socialist Gardener, the occasional organ of socialist gardeners, has urged people to look beyond the Chelsea Flower Show, describing it as tending too much towards a celebration of gardening for the wealthy rather than developing interest in matters horticultural.

Instead it suggests instead that people focus on allotments, and growing their own vegetables as a practical way to overcome austerity

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has provoked new interest in allotments as the Labour leader has long had one in North London.

While the Chelsea Flower Show raises money for charity and showcases some important developments in horticulture, the campaigners say that it remains to a significant degree part of the London social season for the haves rather than the have nots. This year a highlight is a tree house that contains a luxury two bedroom flat. Visitors will include the Queen

Editor of the Socialist Gardener Keith Flett said, ‘The RHS does useful work around the UK but at Chelsea gardening can be a way for those who still have any money after years of austerity to show off. A day ticket for an ordinary member of the public now costs £107.

He continued, meanwhile public parks are being neglected and spending on them drastically cut back. It’s time for a move towards people’s gardening. We say tax the rich gardeners and use the money for parks and allotments.

The 2019 Manifesto for a Socialist Garden

We demand that the Government launches a massive programme of investment in public parks and provision for allotments so that all may enjoy the pleasure of gardens and gardening

We believe in the right to roam over the gardens of the rich

We support the nationalisation of the land and the creation of public parks and gardens as a matter of priority

We believe that real gardeners should eschew the use of garden centres. If you need a new plant, simply liberate it from the garden of a wealthy neighbour.

We support the hop family as the ultimate in grass roots garden plants

Eggs, Milkshakes, Nigel Farage & the Freeborn Englishman

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage after being hit with a milkshake during a campaign walkabout for the upcoming European elections in Newcastle, England, Monday May 20, 2019. (Tom Wilkinson/PA via AP)

The media have made great play of an incident in Newcastle where Nigel Farage had a milkshake thrown at him. Apparently he plans to press charges of assault by milkshake.

In the week when an unrepentant 23 year old fascist has been sentenced to life in prison for planning to kill a Labour MP such matters deserve to be both taken seriously and with a sense of proportion. It is a matter of what Charles Tilly called repertoires of protest and which are appropriate and which are not.

In the industrial era organised protest has been about banners, placards and chants.

The organised crowd throws, boos, hisses and groans at those they dislike, as the Chartist crowd did in London in 1842 at troops leaving the new Euston station to break the General Strike of that year in the north.

Egg throwing is a traditional if individualistic form of protest though. Crowds threw rotten eggs (& worse including dead cats) at people in the pillory(abolished 1816,1837). These were mostly crowds throwing things at criminals however. When radicals were put in the pillory the crowd threw nothing but collected money for the victim instead.

Egg throwing at political figures from Cameron to Prescott has continued in the modern age. The worse that results is a mess and the impact of protest is small. A milkshake arguably causes even less harm.

Across Europe the practice of custard pie-ing figures of public note has a developed, a reminder that politics, eggs and all, is partly theatre.

The throwing of eggs is part of the heritage of William Cobbett’s Freeborn Englishman. At the Battle of Wood Green in North London on 23^rd April 1977 when several anti-fascists were arrested for throwing rotten eggs at National Front marchers they were acquitted on the basis that this was part of the traditional right of protest.

If Nigel Farage is in fact as big a defender of the rights of the English as he claims he might reflect on that. Of course Farage is not a fascist but a racist, an important distinction when it comes to the repertoire of protest. When fascists marched in Wood Green not just eggs but bricks and other things were thrown. That would be entirely inappropriate for a protest at Farage. Bricks or punches (see the recent attack on Jeremy Corbyn) can cause physical harm, potentially serious. By contrast eggs and milkshakes cause discomfort but no more.

Of course as above by far the best form of protest at people like Farage is a collective one, at the ballot box or at a demonstration. That doesn’t mean we can ignore other aspects of the repertoire of protest however.

A man has been charged with common assault. His defence might be one of legal and legitimate political protest

I believe that the examination of the stroke, the brilliant piece of fielding will take us through mysticism to far more fundamental considerations, than mere life enhancing

CLR James Beyond a Boundary

Kenton Archer has told Freddie Pargetter that Lower Loxley is set to go bankrupt in 12-18 months. Meanwhile Kenton, landlord of The Bull, can’t repay a loan that his brother David gave him after the Great Flood of Ambridge. Which of these Ambridge institutions will go under first?

Beard Liberation Front

PRESS RELEASE

18^th May

Contact Keith Flett           07803 167266

Beard campaigners boycott Antwerp World Beard and Moustache Championships

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers which campaigns against beardism, irrational prejudice against the hirsute, has said that it is boycotting the World Beard and Moustache Championship in Antwerp this weekend because it encourages hirsute topiary

The BLF says that while the Championships are fun and do important charitable work they send entirely the wrong message about facial hair in 2019

The vast majority of categories at the Championships relate not to the growing of facial hair but to its cutting and trimming with considerable involvement of hairdressers and shaving companies.

BLF organiser Keith Flett said, beards should not be some kind of facial equivalent of a prize hedge. If people want to cut and shape their facial hair we have no objection but it is not the positive image of the hirsute that we seek to encourage

Beard Liberation Front

media release 17th May

contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

After May: is it time for the first hirsute Tory leader since Lord Salisbury

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with the Premiership of Theresa May coming to an end it could be time for the Tory Party to strike a blow for diversity in British politics and appoint a leader with a beard.

The last Tory leader with a beard was Lord Salisbury who when he stood down as Prime Minister in 1902 was also the last person with a beard to hold the post.

The field of hirsute Tories is limited, with the party struggling to get away from its clean shaven suit image.

However there are some choices including previous BLF Award winners Ben Bradley and Stephen Crabb.

There is also time for currently follicle free contenders such as Johnson to grow a beard

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, their politics may not be attractive to many, but a beard back at No.10 would represent progress in British politics in at least one respect. A Tory leader with a beard would also be the most effective challenge to the beard power of Jeremy Corbyn