Nationalism and "imagined communities."

 

As an ideology, 'nationalism' seems to be rooted in the 19th century and was influenced by writers and poets. The Scottish national identity was to a great extent created by Sir Walter Scott. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, are credited with creating the Italian national identity and the operas of Giuseppe Verdi are synonymous with Italian nationalism and the Risorgimento. Ukrainian nationalism, seems to stem largely from the imagination of the writer and poet, Taras Shevchenko.

Benedict Anderson was right to describe the 'nation' as an "imagined community" because we can't know everybody who is part of the nation. In a country like England, I think regional identities are probably stronger than national identities. There's definitely a 'scouse' identity and as they say, "You can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can't tell him much."

I remember being in pub in north Devon when I got into a conversation with a local bloke who asked me where I was from. We got talking about the regions and I said that I wasn't that keen on Londoner's. He smiled and said to me, "You've got your bloody Brums"! A Scottish lorry driver who once gave me a lift, told me that as far as he was concerned, you could drop a bomb on everything south of Birmingham.

Say no to Starmer's digital ID.

 

Larry Ellison

Opposition to Starmer's digital ID is growing by the day. Already some 2 million people have signed a petition opposing digital ID. Why do state pensioners need digital ID if they're not working? Many don't use smart phones.

Tony Blair has been pushing for digital ID for years. Many of the financial backers of his modestly named 'The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change' are tech billionaires. The world's wealthiest man, Larry Ellison, of the Oracle Corporation, has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Blair's Institute and is involved with digital ID.

This isn't about tackling illegal immigration; it's about surveillance and control of the UK population and making money for Blair's wealthy friends. Blair and Starmer, are obsessed with snooping on people and trying to control their lives and behaviour. Starmer, a former Marxist Trot and state prosecutor, is trying to build a Stasi-like police state in Britain.

Charlie Kirk and Atlas Shrugged.

 

Charlie Kirk

What happened to Charlie Kirk was appalling.  Nobody deserves to die for their opinions. Charlie was known as a "right-wing influencer". He was a proselytizer of a pro-capitalist right-wing ideology wrapped up as Christianity.

When I heard Kirk denounce 'empathy' as a dangerous concept, I knew that he was more a devotee of Ayn Rand rather than Jesus Christ. Charlie's Bible is Atlas Shrugged which has been described as the Bible of the American Congress. I read Atlas Shrugged some years ago and I found it a rather silly and absurd novel. When Rand published the novel in 1957, some critics found that the book lacked any sense of moral purpose and was elitist. Atlas Shrugged is a pro-capitalist dystopian novel which depicts an American society in the future that is brought down by too much state interference and regulation. Rand's heroic capitalist multi-millionaires, are depicted as Atlas carrying the heavens on their shoulders.

Ayn Rand railed against altruism and empathy and despised welfare systems. Yet she couldn't live up to her own ideals. As her health failed her in later life, she finished up on social security and Medicare. Charlie Kirk called himself an 'entrepreneur', but his business 'Turning Point USA', seems to have relied heavily on financial donations, which I suspect came from wealthy individuals with vested interests. Rand's heroic capitalists are not quacks and nostrum mongers, but steel barons, railway tycoons and oilmen.

Policing free speech in the UK and the U.S.

 

Rupert Bear

British social attitudes were very different in the 1960s and early 1970s, because the feminist movement was just taking off. Nobody really used the term sexist, or racist, nor was there a 'cancel culture'. Rupert Bear used to go to "Coon Island" and children still had golliwogs.

I remember the northern working men's clubs where there was always a comic on the bill. The comics weren't quite as filthy as Roy Chubby Brown, but they were quite risqué. They said that when Max Miller and Frank Randall were prosecuted for obscenity, their ticket sales increased at the music halls. Like the comedian Frankie Howard, Max Miller relied on the double entendre.

 On the Busses" was working-class comedy, a kind of shop floor type of humour or banter. It's in the tradition of the saucy seaside post card. I don't think you can really have politically correct comedy. What passes for comedy in the UK today, is rather pathetic. I thought the League of Gentlemen comedy series was an exception but it's an acquired taste.

Back in those days, it would have been unthinkable that people could be arrested by the police for expressing public opinions. There was really no such thing as 'hate speech" or "malicious communications". There were libel laws and laws regarding obscenity and blasphemy. But prosecutions for blasphemy or obscenity were very rare.

Boris Johnson, the former Conservative Prime Minister, said recently that the police were making over 10,000 arrest every year for comments made by people on social media. Nick Clegg, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that 30 people a day in the UK, are being arrested by the police for comments made on social media outlets like X and Facebook.

Under Starmer's Labour government, Britain is beginning to resemble a police state. Although the Trump administration have expressed concerns about restrictions on free speech in the UK, people who apply for U S. visas, now have their social media sites searched for "indications of hostility" towards the citizens, culture or the founding principles of the United States. Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used for the last five years. 

Early capitalism and the inculcation of work habits.

 

The German sociologist Max Weber, noted that wherever modern capitalism has sought to increase productivity of human labour by increasing its intensity, it has encountered stubborn resistance from pre-capitalistic labour.

It was Josiah Wedgewood's aim to "Make such machines of men as cannot err." In 19th century Britain, we know from historical accounts that some working-class children were literally worked to death by employers. Many factory children sustained terrible injuries. As the historian E.P Thompson notes, "The exploitation of children on this scale and intensity, was one of the most shameful events in Britain's history."

The exploitation of labour is not about pitting younger workers against older workers or males against females, or black against white, it has always been a feature of the capitalist system and the exploiters and exploited.  The pre-capitalistic worker rebelled against the notion of week after week of highly disciplined labour and considered waged labour an indignity. To them the factory was the 'Bastille.'

People are not born as factory hands but have to be turned into factory hands using a combination of the carrot and stick. What is required is an "inner compulsion", the "labourer must be turned into his own slave driver." 

Stalin used the death of Kirov to crack down on political opponents. Is Trump doing the same thing with the death of Charlie Kirk?

 

After Charlie Kirk was shot, it wasn't known who the assassin was or what their motive was for killing him. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump, immediately blamed the 'left' for the killing.

As of yet, those who are investigating this killing, have found no link between Kirk's killer, Tyler Robinson, and left-wing groups. According to the Anti-Defamation League, since 2002, right-wing ideologies have fuelled more than 70% or extremist attacks and domestic terrorism plots in the United States.

It seems that the Trump administration, have turned the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, into political propaganda so they can introduce oppressive measures against left wing groups in America. Charlie Kirk's killing is to Donald Trump what the death of Sergei Kirov was to Joseph Stalin, an excuse for a purge and a crackdown of one's political opponents.

Barry Hines and Kes.

 

Barry Hines

Ken Loach's film 'Kes' is a great film based on the book 'A Kestrel for a Knave' by the author, Barry Hines, from the mining village of Hoyland Common in South Yorkshire.

Many of us of a certain age who are northern working class, can relate to Billy Casper and his life in this film. Many of us have encountered school teachers like the neurotic headmaster of Billy's school, Mr Gryce. My secondary modern school was like being in Borstal. The teachers, many of whom, were ex-national service men and a waste of taxpayers' money, would knock you about with their fists for the fun of it. A few of the teachers were quite decent and did actually teach you something. One of the teachers who taught my father, gave me a book prize.

The only thing these bastards instilled in me, was dislike of teachers, the middle-classes, and a dislike of authority. I've been a recusant for most of my adult life. Barry Hines wrote this book to show how young working-class lads like Billy Casper were thrown onto the scrap heap at a tender age by the British state education system in the I960's and early 197O's. If you went to a secondary modern school, you were destined to be factory fodder. Poor Billy was destined for the pit. Although Barry Hines, qualified and worked as a teacher in Barnsley schools, he knew what side he was on even if many don't.

The term 'Fascist' is banded about all the time, but do most people really know what it means?

 

Benito Mussolini

The term 'Fascism' is banded about a lot, but most people, don't really know what it means. The word is derived from the Latin 'fasces' which denotes a bundle of wooden rods surrounding an axe head, which was a symbol of the magistrates' authority in ancient Rome.

Benito Mussolini was the first Fascist dictator and Italy was the first Fascist regime, but Mussolini described Giovanni Gentile, as "the philosopher of Fascism." Mussolini had been a socialist. The Italian Fascist called their regime the 'Corporate State', and Mussolini, claimed that it was founded on the strengths of capitalism and socialism, which he called the "third way." Initially, Italian Fascism was not anti-Semitic and some Jews in Italy were members of The National Fascist Party (PNF). They probably joined the PNF for two reasons: a sense of patriotism or a way of getting on. Fascists don't care much for democracy, civil liberties, or a free press, and they're generally totalitarian regimes and dictatorships.

In both Germany and Italy, Fascism arose when the bourgeoisie (middle-classes), felt their interests were threatened by the working class or proletariat. The same thing happened in Spain in the 1930s. For Fascists, everything is subsumed into the state and everybody is seen as working for the best interests of the state - the motherland or fatherland. The 'leader', is seen to embody the very ideals of the state. Fascism is extremely nationalistic and militaristic, and in both Italy and Germany, trade unions and socialists and communist' parties were crushed. The Italian Fascists didn't murder Jews to begin with, but murdered socialists and communists.

Fascism has been described as a 'capitalist dictatorship' and it is certainly true, that industrialists, the wealthy, and the military, backed Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Before the outbreak of WWII, the English bourgeoisie, knew that Hitler was on the side of the dividend drawer and hated Bolshevism. Before coming to power in 1933, the German Nazis often used anti-capitalist propaganda when it was politically expedient to do so. 

Franco sent a letter to the British Conservative Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, thanking him for his support during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Britain's official position, was one of neutrality when it came to Spain. Chamberlain's sister-in-law, Lady Chamberlain, was a great fan of Mussolini and an ardent Fascists. Winston Churchill called Mussolini a "Roman Genius" and when he visited Italy in 1927, he told the Italians that had been Italian, he would certainly have been a Fascist. He said that Mussolini and his Fascists had done the world a favour in getting rid of Bolshevism in Italy. In 1923, Benito Mussolini, was given the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, by King George V. This was only withdrawn when Italy declared war on Britain.

Is Andy Burnham planning to depose Sir Keir Starmer-oid?

 

Andy Burnham - Mayor of Greater Manchester

They say that Labour doesn't do regicide, but it's obvious that Keir Starmer can't last because he's hopelessly out of his depth as PM. He always was the default prime minister. He's never been able to establish any connection or rapport with the British public who generally dislike him or find him boring. Starmer and his government, can't even shoot straight.

I'm not sure that Andy Burnham would be any better at the job, even though press reports claim that he's planning to return to Westminster. He can't even keep the buses running in Greater Manchester. This Friday 19th September to 22nd September, there will be no buses running in Greater Manchester because 2000 bus drivers are going on strike over a pay dispute. In Greater Manchester there's now only the Bee Network and TfGM don't employ the drivers. If you can't get a Bee Network bus then you're knackered because there's no other bus service. Sharon Graham and Unite the Union have got us all by the goolies.

No doubt Burnham will say that his hands are tied, but if he can't keep the buses running in Greater Manchester, how can he be expected to keep a country running.

Dickens and Dostoevsky.

 

Charles Dickens & Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have read most of Dostoevsky's major novels twice and though I enjoyed reading them, I don't think they changed my life or had a profound effect on me. Crime and Punishment is a cracking novel and possibly one of the best of all novels.

I once asked a Russian woman if Russian people were like the characters in a Dostoevsky novel. She said are English people like the characters in a Dickens novel. Dostoevsky seemed to believe that the Russian people had a craving for suffering and delighted in their afflictions. In his 'Diary of a Writer', he wrote: "Even in happiness there is in the Russian people and element of suffering; otherwise, felicity to them is incomplete."  

English people aren't really like the characters in a Dickens novel but they are representative of a type of English person that we can often recognise.  I've never met a Mrs Gamp or a Wilkins Micawber, or a Harold Skimpole. They say Dickens modelled many of his characters on family and friends. They have called Dostoyevsky the Russian Dickens, but as an author, Dostoevsky is far more profound. He's more of a psychological writer.

I believe Dickens's novels were very popular in Russia and Dostoevsky wrote: "We, however, understand Dickens when rendered into Russian, almost as well as the English - perhaps, even all the nuances. Moreover, we love him - perhaps not less than his own countrymen. And yet, how typical, original and national is Dickens. What can be derived from this."

I believe that the 1952 film of The Pickwick Papers that was first screened in the Soviet Union in July 1954, was a great success. I have often wondered what the Russians made of that rogue Alfred Jingle and how his words translate into Russian.

Are bus strikes in Greater Manchester likely to become a recurring problem for Andy Burnham?

 

In my entire life I have never known a situation where we had no bus services in Greater Manchester for three or four continuous days. Even when there were bus strikes, which was a rarity, there was always an alternative bus service.

If the bus strike in Greater Manchester goes ahead on the 19th September, it will largely affect people who rely on public transport because they don't drive or have access to a car. It will impact mostly on the elderly, people with disabilities, and those on low incomes. These people will have three options: stay at home for three days, Shanks's pony or get a taxi. You had better make sure you've got plenty of shopping in before next Friday.

How does a situation like this, get people out of cars, and using buses, because they're told it's more environmentally friendly? Only a bloody fool would give up their car to use public transport as bad as this in Labour controlled Greater Manchester. We're now in a situation where bus services in Greater Manchester, are under public control, but Andy Burnham and TfGM don't have any control over the bus drivers or their pay and conditions because they don't employ the drivers who are employed by private bus companies like First and Stagecoach.

I don't blame the drivers for trying to get an increase in their pay because they know they're in a powerful position, because there's now only one bus service in Greater Manchester and that is the Bee Network. If you can't get a Bee Network bus you're fucked. Sharon Graham and Unite the Union know they've got us all by the bollocks, so I am amazed that this dispute over pay, hasn't been settled long ago. The bus operators will probably use this situation as leverage to squeeze more money out of TfGM.

Bus strikes are likely to be a recurring problem for Andy Burnham and TfGM. No doubt Burnham will tell us that his hands are tied and there's little he can do under the circumstances. But if he can't keep the buses on the road, how can he expect to run a country when he replaces Keir Starmer as the Leader of the Labour Party and becomes the next British prime minister?

What is the social cement that holds society together?

 

The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, pondered why the many can be governed so easily by the few and concluded that both force and opinion, play a role.

The Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, who is seen as the father of modern-day conservatism, thought it was the 'little platoons' - families, communities, and local institutions - that were the foundations of society and which maintained social order and cohesion. The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, talked about a theoretical condition called the "state of nature", which existed before government, where human life was a "war of all against all" which was characterized by fear, constant conflict, and a lack of morality, industry and society.

If this is the case, how did the native Americans live without a government or the aboriginal people of Australia? They lived in a state of nature for tens of thousands of years but they had their own rules, customs, and traditions. They were self-governing autonomous tribes that practiced mutual aid and co-operation. Is this what they call anarchy? There may have been conflict between tribes at times, over competition for natural resources, but those conflicts weren't anything like the two world wars of the 20th century. There was also a great deal of co-operation because in the long-run, it is in nobody's interest to be in a constant state of war. 

I believe that the Indian Chief Sitting Bull, came to England in 1887, as part of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. In London, he was shocked to see the number of people begging in the streets. He couldn't quite understand why these people were going hungry when the shops were full of food. He said his own tribe did experience privation at times, but they shared what they had among the tribal members so that nobody went hungry.

I was never impressed with this Thatcherite idea of rugged individualism where we are all seen as competitive individuals pursuing our own greed and self-interests. Society works as well as it does because we're not really like that. If we were, we wouldn't have lifeboat crews or listening volunteers at the Samaritans. A society that is made up of an aggregate of self-interested egoists, is no society at all. 

Bee Network bus drivers to strike for three days from 19 September.

 

Andy Burnham

The Bee Network in Greater Manchester seems to be beleaguered with problems.

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester promised the people of Greater Manchester a London-style bus network. We've seen buses crashing into one another or crashing into bridges. Only recently upstairs passengers on a double decker bus in Eccles, were nearly decapitated, when the driver tried to get under a bridge that wasn't high enough. Passengers in Greater Manchester now face the prospect of no buses from Friday 19 September to Monday 22 September in a coordinated strike over pay, when two thousand drivers will walk out.

This action will obviously have most impact on people who don't drive or own a car and rely on public transport to get about.  All the drivers are members of Unite the Union. Although the Bee Network has been brought back under local authority control, it doesn't employ the drivers or negotiate their wages. Many of these drivers will be employed by First or Stagecoach. As most of the buses are now part of the Bee Network, Burnham has created a monopoly which means that alternative public bus transport will be severely limited or not available to the general public.

Rayner admits to not paying enough stamp duty on luxury Brighton seaside flat.

 

Angela Rayner - UK Deputy Prime Minister

When I read Angela Rayner's public statement, I almost felt like crying. Angie was cynically accused of having removed her name from the deeds of her four-bedroom property in Ashton-under-Lyne in order to avoid paying £40,000 stamp duty (Tax) on another property in Hove, Brighton. She bought the house in Ashton with her former husband in 2016 for £375,000, when she became the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne. The property is now said to have a value of £650,000.

In May 2024, Rayner was accused in the press of having failed to pay capital gains tax for the sale of her former council house and of having wrongly declared her permanent address on the electoral register. She was cleared on both counts. Both Rayner and her former husband, Mark Rayner, a trade union official, had sold their former council houses in Stockport. These properties had been acquired under the 'Right-to-Buy' scheme. Rayner had maintained that her property in Ashton was her primary residence, and saved £2,000 in council tax on another property in London. She's now admitted to not paying enough stamp duty on the £800,000 luxury seaside flat in Hove, Brighton, but says this was done in error because she was incorrectly advised when she and her former husband put the family home in a trust, for their son who has disabilities and for her other children. In short, it's not her fault but the fault of someone else.

The problems seem to arise because Ms Rayner currently as three residences. When it comes to her constituents and her local Tameside Council, her primary residence is said to be in Ashton, but her local neighbours' say that they never see her. When it comes to saving £40,000 in stamp duty, her primary residence is said to be a flat in Hove, because she told the tax authorities this wasn't a second home but her primary residence. Her third home is a rent free 'grace and favour' apartment in Admiralty House, that was once the London home of Winston Churchill. This is now her primary residence when she's in London. She moved there when she gave up her rented property in London. Rayner has now referred herself to the watchdog on parliamentary standards and according to press reports, is under investigation by HMRC.

Boris Johnson says UK police arrest over 10,000 people a year for online comments.

 

"The UK police are now making over 10,000 arrests every year for online comments, more than the police in Russia itself, and this judgement is yet another propaganda gift for Vladimir Putin." (Boris Johnson - The Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2025). Johnson warned that Britain is becoming a 'police state' under Sir Keir Starmer.

I don't know where Boris Johnson got these statistics from, but if these figures are correct, then it does suggest that the British police like the East German Stasi, are spending a great deal of time monitoring the views that British citizens make on social media.

This seems to be clear in the case of Graham Linehan, the co-writer of the comedy series 'Father Ted'. He was arrested by British police when he flew from America to Heathrow Airport. The police told Linehan that he was being arrested for tweets that he'd made on the social media site X.

The Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, says that we have free speech in Britain, but this hardly seems to bear scrutiny. Even the Trump administration in the U.S. have expressed concerns about the crackdown on free speech in Britain.

When expressing moral concerns about genocide in Gaza is considered ‘intent’ and can get you arrested and imprisoned by the British thought police, then we ought to be seriously worried. Are British citizens going stand for being treated like "thought criminals" who are arrested for "thought crime"? As George Orwell said, "If  liberty  means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

Kemi Badenoch and social class.

 

Kemi Badenoch

As soon as the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, opens her mouth, any working-class person would know that she's not of the English working-class, regardless of her colour. She speaks with a middle-class accent.

We don't talk about 'siblings' or 'social capital' even though I'm well aware of what they mean. I also doubt that many black people could identify with Kemi Badenoch, including Nigerians. Kemi really walks in a no man's land, and is not really one thing or the other. Some black people might consider her a 'coconut' - black on the outside and white on the inside.

Badenoch defines social class in terms of a person's occupation, but I think it means much more than that. Not all British working-class people are class conscious but many are. A British Social Attitude Survey carried out in September 2023, found that 52% of respondents identified as working-class, little different from the 58%, who did so in 1983. Nearly half, (46%), of those who identify as working-class, are employed in middle-class jobs. Some 77% of people in this survey, said that social class affects someone's opportunities in Britain and people are more likely today, than twenty years ago, to believe that it's more difficult to move from one social class to another.

In his essay, 'The Lion and the Unicorn', George Orwell, said that England was the most class-ridden country under the Sun. It's also one of the most inegalitarian countries. It still remains a country where property and financial power are concentrated in very few hands, even though its politicians talk a lot about equality, diversity and inclusion.

Gordon Reece, who was a political adviser to Margaret Thatcher, once told her that the type of people who were likely to vote for her, were people who listed to Jimmy Young on Radio 2, watched Top of the Pops and Jim I'll Fix It, and didn't read the broadsheet newspapers or watch in-depth late night news programmes. He told her that they weren't really much interested in politics at all, but if she wanted to become the next UK Prime Minister, she had better reach out and grab them.

Culturally, I don't think there's much difference between the Sun or the Daily Mail reader, but the former are probably less likely to be riddled with angst and insecurity and are more optimistic in outlook. Both are more likely to listen to Classic FM rather than Radio 3 and watch the Eurovision Song Contest. 

Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Engulfed in £6 Million Migrant Scandal

 

Morgan McSweeney

Morgan McSweeney's parents have been paid £6 million by the Irish government for housing asylum seekers. The company 'Togail Veil Glas Teoranta' (Limited green veil lifting), is registered at the same address as his father's accountancy firm and is part of a complex web of shell companies stretching to Cyprus. Tim McSweeney and his wife Carmel, are the only listed directors.

Morgan McSweeney, is the Downing Street Chief of Staff under Starmer's Labour government. Morgan McSweeney’s first cousin, Clare Mungovan, is a special advisor and lead policy advisor, to the Irish minister, Simon Harris.