Contact: BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social
Jeremy Corbyn voted My Hairy Valentine 2026
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has concluded its annual search for My Hairy Valentine ahead of Valentine’s Day on 14th February with victory for the veteran Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn
In 2026the focus was on
Beards that are loved because they add a reassuring presence to public life and should be celebrated.
In an on-line poll of 3,800 people Jeremy Corbyn achieved 50% of the vote with Michael Rosen second with 25%
BLF Organiser Keith Flett Jeremy Corbyn has won the vote for the Beard of the Year in the past but his success in the 2026 My Hairy Valentine vote underlines that his much loved beard is now a national treasure.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has welcomed the news that Spurs have embraced managerial Beard Power after the perpetually clean shaven Thomas Frank was sacked as manager at White Hart Lane on Wednesday.
Spurs have appointed Igor Tudor, whose last managerial role was at Juventus, leaving in October 2025.
Frank’s predecessor the magnificently hirsute Ange Postecoglou was also sacked by Spurs despite winning the club’s first silverware for some while.
The campaigners say that Spurs must grapple with the reality that follicles matter in top flight football management in 2026. While noting the approach of follicle free Slot at Liverpool the BLF singles out Arsenal Mikel Arteta as a hirsute role model. Arsenal are currently top of the Premiership and Arteta varies his approach from light stubble to a full a beard depending on the requirements of the moment. He is a master of hirsute tactics and strategy.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we hope that the appointment of Igor Tudor as the interim manager at White Hart Lane at last means that whoever is meant to be in charge at Spurs has begun to grasp the importance of Beard Power in football management in 2026.
August 2025 Government loses The Times letters page on Palestine Action ban; February 2026 ban found to be unlawful. Government unaware of the First Law of Holes
The above is The Times letters page of 12th August 2025. The lead letters were on then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action. Not one supported her decision.
E P Thompson retained an enduring fascination for the Times letters page as representative of a swathe of Middle England thought, often rather reactionary. Not one letter is from London, let alone North London
It was not quite the Daily Telegraph but it was a long way from the Guardian and suggested that Yvette Cooper was increasingly isolated on this issue.
The wheels of justice turn quite slowly and Shabana Mahmood is now Home Secretary. She is reported to have determined to appeal the decision announced by three judges on 13th February 2026 that the ban was unlawful.
One of the characteristics of the present Government is its refusal to recognise the First Law of Holes on a range of issues including Palestine Action. Namely when in a hole, stop digging.
Tim Martin has form when it comes to Nigel Farage. He was to be found in a supporting role in Farage’s Brexit campaign. What Wetherspoons actually gained out of Brexit seems unclear but this month a new Spoons in Alicante has opened.
This I think tells us that while Tim Martin is good at pubs he is useless at politics.
The Reform pub plan, written on the back of one of Farage’s fag packets, does not add up financially. It doesn’t really need to because Reform are not in Government.
The attraction to Martin is clear. There is a focus on moving towards equalising tax paid by pubs and that paid by supermarkets. Martin has long campaigned on this and rightly so.
After he issued a missive to the Stock Exchange on this and why he backed Reform’s ‘plan’ he confessed himself non-plussed as to why so few others in hospitality had backed it. A reminder again that Martin is good at pubs and dreadful at politics. Hospitality has swerved the Farage ‘plan’ because most know his niche appeal is bad for their business. The Fullers Chair did initially back the ‘plan’ before quickly doing a U-turn and explaining he was about pubs not politics.
Pubs are inherently political but the rancid racist politics of Farage won’t help at all
Government support for Pubs. The Carlisle State Management Scheme 1916-1973
With debate about how much support the Government should give to pubs an episode from British history, when the State not only gave support but actually ran a brewery and pubs has been lost to history.
The Carlisle State Management Scheme is I suspect only known to those of a certain age and people who live in Carlisle.
During World War One the Government became concerned in particular about the impact of drinking on arms manufacture. Whether as Roger Protz has rightly underlined this was a genuine concern or just part of Lloyd George’s longstanding antipathy to beer and pubs is another matter.
As a result in 1916 the Government took control of pubs and beer supply in three areas. By far the largest was Carlisle where several breweries were shut and the remaining one became a State controlled one. The same applied to pubs in the area.
The plan was not to stop drinking but to control it. The pub managers had no interest in maximising beer sales and rules were introduced to underline the point. Between 1916 and 1919 ‘treating’, the buying of rounds was not allowed for example.
However the beer quality was thought to be good, and numbers of the pubs were redesigned by Harry Redfern, an architect influenced by William Morris’s ideas on arts and crafts. The State Brewery made a profit in every year it operated. It was privatised by Heath’s Tory Government in 1973 and bought by Theakstons of Masham.
Given the quality and strength of beer that was brewed under regulations brought in by the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914 the State Brewery may have been an improvement, although I don’t have details of the strength of beer produced at Carlisle in the early years of the scheme.
A music hall song on post-1914 beer makes matters clear however:
Lloyd George’s Beer, Lloyd George’s Beer.
At the brewery, there’s nothing doing,
All the water works are brewing,
Lloyd George’s Beer, it isn’t dear.
Oh they say it’s a terrible war, oh law,
And there never was a war like this before,
But the worst thing that ever happened in this war
Is Lloyd George’s Beer.
Buy a lot of it, all they’ve got of it.
Dip your bread in it, Shove your head in it
From January to October,
And I’ll bet a penny that you’ll still be sober.
Another area of operation for the State Management Scheme was the area around the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock.
Four public houses and an off-licence were involved. According to the interwebs, the premises returned to private ownership in 1922-3. Three of the four have been identified Greyhound, Royal Small Arms Tavern (Rifles)- currently boarded up- and Ordnance(demolished 1920s). The fourth is tentatively identified as the Plough Inn, Sewardstone (a McMullens pub still open).
The Greyhound is a going concern run by Hertford brewer McMullen who note that they have owned the pub since 1923.
Where the beer came from for the Enfield pubs I haven’t managed to establish, perhaps it was sourced from the Carlisle brewery, but so far I have no solid evidence on that. It appears that the canteen built at the factory, in part to keep workers away from eating in pubs, was run by the brewers Trumans.
Perhaps it’s time to have another go at a State Management scheme at least as a trial. How about nationalising Wetherspoons?
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Manchester United Jim Ratcliff has brought the hirsute into disrepute following his racist comments that immigrants had ‘colonised’ Britain.
His comments have been condemned in an uncharacteristically robust manner by Keir Starmer while support has come from Nigel Farage and GB News.
The campaigners say that Ratcliff’s statement underlines the point that far from every beard wearer is progressive, tolerant and open minded. That is why the BLF’s activities over 30 years have focused on identifying those who promote a positive image of the hirsute which Ratcliff certainly does not.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett, Ratcliff lives in Monaco and it sounds like he gets his impressions of Britain from watching GB News. He has brought the hirsute into disreput
