Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman offers his blue jeans vs red October dialectic(ish)

In terms of a twentieth century victory and defeat the 1917 Russian Revolution is pretty much epic. Alongside the rise and eventual fall of Nazi Germany it shaped a century that the historian Eric Hobsbawm described as the "age of extremes". This was a totalising politics that for a lot longer than just ten days shook the world. Lenin’s What is to be Done? is a question not a catechism, but to deny the capacity of 1917 and all that to inspire a movement for change, on a global scale, of unprecedented size and impact. Well, if that’s not ahistorical I don’t know what is. 

In 1984, ten years prior to founding Philosophy Football me and Hugh Tisdale quite independently, we didn't know each other back then, visited the exhibition Art into Production. This showcased Soviet textiles, fashion and ceramics in that all too brief period, 1917-1935 before Stalin, and Stalinism, bastardised the entire meaning of the Russian Revolution to horrific ends. The vivid colours, the use of plates and clothing, the imagination, joyfulness and pleasure of producing, wearing, using these objects of socialist desire was quite unlike anything either of us had seen before. And tucked away in the exhibition catalogue a rationale was provided for this particular version of a brave new world.

The Young Communists of 1928 had asked themselves not ‘what is to be done?’ But 'What do we want from a plate?’ Blimey, this was a cultural politics of practical production I was entirely unused to. “We want it to be right for its purpose, that is for serving food, we want it to be of good quality and style. These are the first requirements of an ordinary china plate.” Forward to the potteries comrades! But of course, they also recognised that churning out cheaper, better dinner plates than whatever Russia’s early twentieth century equivalent of John Lewis might be wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. 

Rather they implored that these plates have “a cultural, educational and organising influence.” Now correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve scoured the John Lewis tableware range and I can’t find a single product offering any such influence. In contrast out of history I'd come across an unfamiliar example of revolutionary promise proffered, something that could never be entirely commodified, a meaning and purpose compromised out of all meaning and purpose.  

The Young Communists’ manifesto for plates, cups n’ saucers too, explained the contrast to what they characterised as ‘non-resistance’:

“In this ‘parade’ of objects there are no non-combatants – nor can there be! Plates and cups, things we see daily, several times a day, which can do their bit for the organising of our consciousness – these occupy an important place.” 

For the 1917 Russian Revolution centenary, to do our bit for the organising of consciousness we reproduced a number of these original plate designs. We promptly sold out, I'm not sure how much consciousness we organised mind. 

Now for the centenary of Lenin's death, 21 January 1924, we've turned Lenin into the ultimate symbol of capitalism vs communism, Levi's jeans. Really? Those of a certain age, and politics, will well remember that for generation after generation of dissenting Soviet youth their badge of rebellion was a pair of Levi's jeans somehow smuggled into the country. 

During this period, again for those of a certain age and politics, arguments would rage. Was the Soviet Union 'actually existing socialism' or 'state capitalist' or a 'degenerate workers state' Never mind, in 2024 any such arguments are pretty much settled. The USSR neither no longer actually existing nor is today's Russia socialist, never mind the state bit its capitalist through and through, and degenerate too. 

And those jeans as a sign of rebellion? Absolutely everywhere, alongside those three universal symbols of any modern consumer society. The Nike swoosh, the McDonald's golden arches, and that brown sticky liquid which rots our teeth and makes us fat. Putin in charge and the oligarchs raking it in, not to mention the war with Ukraine few would argue the now global reach of capitalism is entirely for the betterment of all.

So, what of Lenin 100 years on? Lenin's death followed by Stalin didn't end well, and that's putting it mildly. The free-flowing imagination and creativity of those beautiful plates and cups replaced by the strictly instrumental and narrowly formulaic of socialist realist art. A one-party state, show trials, purges and Gulags. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Soviet tanks crushing the Hungarian revolt in 1956, and then again crushing the Prague Spring of 1968.

And in 1991 the defeat of Gorbachev's reform communism to be replaced first by Yeltsin, then Putin. It's a sorry tale of bloodied disappointment with not much at all, if anything, to celebrate. 

But perhaps those young communists with their cups and plates were on to something, bright and beautiful, original and inspirational, full of hope. Who are we with a world teetering on the verge of envirionmental breakdown to dismiss all that? Hope that across Britain in the1930s inspired hunger marches against unemployment. Hope that mobilised London's East End to stop Mosley's blackshirted fascists at Cable Street. Hope that inspired thousands from across Europe, the USA and Canada to sign up for the International Brigades and travel to Spain in defence of the Republic against the fascist Franco. And after Stalingrad the hope across the entire world that the Red Army could defeat Hitler, which they did. 

Hopes, each in their different ways, disappointed, but they existed for a reason, a good reason. In the old-fashioned language of Marxism, a dialectic, or in other words high hopes vs crushing disappointment, they're inter-related. Thus, our Levi's Lenin centenary design subvertising Communism vs Capitalism is a dialectic too. We think Vladmir Ilyich would approve. 

 The Centenary Lenin Levi's T-shirt is both strictly unofficial and exclusively available from Philosophy Football here         

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' akaPhilosophy Football

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman provides an idiosyncratic diet of books for the seasonal break and into 2024 

Christmas, a time of giving, receiving, and treating ourselves. For those of us who like nothing more than to curl up with a good book to provoke our thoughts, and actions, of how to change the world, what better opportunity to find the time for such a read.  That's if all the eating hasn't sapped our will to do much changing of anything. Never mind, there's always the New Year for that. 

Here's my top twelve day's worth of reads to get us agitated, in a good way, over the Christmas period. 

1. Andrew Simms and Leo Murray Badvertising: Polluting our Minds and Fuelling Climate Chaos

With his previous book Tescopoly Andrew Simms helped establish a connectivity between  the hours, often involuntarily, we spend each week shopping  and a politics that is both rooted in the everyday and transformational. With the ever-increasing imperative of the climate emergency Andrew's new book, co-authored with Leo Murray, extends that connectivity to the daily bombardment we all have to endure from advertisers promoting the goods that contribute towards this emergency: in particular, fossil fuels, cars, budget airlines, meat.  As we struggle under the strain of Christmastime consumerism an inspirational read of resistance.  

Available from Pluto books here

2. Benjamin Kunkel and Lola Seaton (Eds) Who Will Build the Ark? Debates on Climate Strategy from New Left Review 

1956 and the Communist Left was reeling from the fallout following the Soviet invasion to crush the Hungarian democratic revolution. Communist families, former comrades, over Christmas dinner hammers and sickles drawn. In those days the Communist Party of Great Britain could count on some 40,000 members. Repulsed by the sight of Red Army tanks on the streets of Budapest over 10,000 resigned, many of whom forrmed the basis  of the New Left. The 'new' has taken a variety of forms since, with today a new generation, not only themseves but their parents too not yet born in 1956, carrying forward the tradition. This latest New Left Review collection is testament to both its legacy and currency, most especially Lola Seaton's superb essay 'Green Questions'.

Available from Verso Books here

3. Marios Mantzos The Social One: Why Jürgen Klopp was a Perfect Fit for Liverpool

Who will be top of the Premiership once the seasonal squeeze of games from Boxing Day to New Year's Day have been completed? With Chelsea struggling, Man Utd not doing much better while Spurs and Newcastle flirt with inconsistency the field of serious contenders is already narrowing. Villa this season's surprise package, City losing points that previously they'd almost taken for granted, and Arsenal repeating last season's excellent form. All three will surely be in the mix come the final whistle on 1st January. But for most neutrals, well apart from any with residual Evertonian sympathies obviously, if it can't be our own club, we'll favour Liverpool to be top. Not since Bill Shankly has there been a Liverpool, or indeed any club's, manager to attract such near universal approval and affection. The inspired title The Social One says it all, and the case author Marios Mantzos makes more than backs it up. 

Available from Pitch Publishing here

4.  Jack Monroe Thrifty Kitchen

Christmas is a time of over-indulgence at the dining-room table. For a tasty antidote look no further than Jack Monroe, former firefighter, author of best-selling recipe books, campaigner against food poverty. Its' a near unique combination in the over-crowded world of 'celebrity chefs'.  Meals that save us money, delicious into the bargain, with a constant  reminder that food poverty is a phenomenon entirely man-made and should have no place in any society that dares to call itself 'civilised'. At 120 recipes, a bumper collection to feed both body and mind. 

Available from Pan Macmillan here

5. Gary Younge Dispatches from the Diaspora : From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter

25th December, no newspapers, for news and opinion junkies of a pre-digital disposition an absolute nightmare. But for many Guardian readers our daily paper not such a daily must-read it once was. Steve Bell excluded earlier this year, Gary Younge left as the 2020s began. For many their combined sharpness of comment and acuteness of opinion is a big absence. Steve's cartoons live on featured as Philosophy Football mugs, tea towels, tees and prints. Gary's writing still pops up on occasion in the paper but a real feast of it is provided by this collection ranging far and wide, to remind ourselves of how much we miss his weekly column.

Available from Faber & Faber here

6. Lynne Segal Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care

Twelve days, for those with young children, elderly relatives, or both, days of care. Yet the crisis of care is writ large across our entire society, the entire year-round, from cradle to an early grave.  Lynne Segal, co-author of the classic text Beyond the Fragments : Feminism and the Making of Socialism  makes the case for a society that sees care and caring, as a foundational value. This requires both institutions we can rely upon but also a way in which we live our lives. The personal, as the complement of, not the alternative to, the political. 

Available from Verso books here

7. Daniel Rachel Too Much Too Young : The 2 Tone Records Story

The Specials can count two number ones, Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town but neither topped the charts to grab that much cherished title 'Christmas Number One.'  Fellow ska band, Madness came closest, Christmas 1981, It Must Be Love reaches number five. Number One? The Human League's Don't You Want Me.  Author Daniel Rachel has become highly skilled at compiling popular oral histories of musical moments and movements. Previously with Walls Come Tumbling Down he brilliantly chronicled what was for me a formative period of the fusion, music and politics: Rock against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge. And now he brilliantly revisits the middle part of that trilogy, 2 Tone in glorious detail. Read, remember, enjoy, then stick some ska on the Christmas household soundtrack.   

Available from White Rabbit here

8. Henry Bell & Joey Simons (Eds) Now's The Day, Now's The Hour : Poems for John Maclean  

For those north of the border Christmas is simply a staging post before getting down to the serious partying of Hogmanay closely followed by Burns Night. Anyone not yet convinced Scotland and England are two independent nations, the long overdue recognition of such required so we can get on with co-existing as neighbours on one small island, a visit to Scotland on 31st December or 25th January will be more than suffice to persuade. John Maclean remains a towering figure of the Scottish Left, deeply committed to both the internationalism of the 1917 Revolution and Scotland's own particular road to revolution. To mark the centenary of his death, or more accurately his murder by the British state, this collection of poems will lift spirits, Scottish and English,high. 

Available from Tapsalteerie here   

And for those unfamiliar with John Maclean, check out co-editor Henry Bell's John Maclean biography too. From Pluto Books  here

9. Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History

A time of 'peace and goodwill'. Not much evidence of the former in Israel and Palestine, nor the latter for those trapped by the cost of living crisis. But there's always hope, however even that's not enough without the ideas, principles and movements to turn that into change. Christmas 1823, who would have ever imagined back then that the scourge of empire and slavery would ever come to an end? But it largely has. Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee's brilliant graphic novelisation of CLR James own stage adaptation of his book The Black Jacobins will both inspire and convince that, whatever the circumstances, change is possible.

Available from Verso Books here

10. Naomi Klein Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World 

Ghosts of Christmas, past, present and future. A classic Christmas tale, but for materialists who scoff at the supernatural nothing to do with the real world, surely? When Naomi Klein found herself ghosted by a real-life 'doppelganger' same first name, Naomi, and as a fellow campaigning feminist, she assumed Naomi Wolf had similar politics, at first she thought nothing of it. Prominent political women are quite used, if not more than a bit frustrated by, to being confused with other women. But then the 'other Naomi descends into conspiracism, and threatens to drag Naomi Klein, via association, down with her. Not quite the book we might expect from the author of No Logo and Shock Doctrine yet the surprise is richly rewarded with a narrative that is part-thriller and part-investigation, a combination in Naomi (Klein's!) hands that doesn't disappoint. 

Available from Penguin here

11. David Horspool More than a Game: A History of How Sport Made Britain

Next Christmas, 2024, it will be 30 years since the very first Philosophy Football T-shirt. Name and number on the back, quote on the front, 'All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football'. Albert Camus, and obligatory product placement, still proudly available.  Well, with that as our founding philosophy how could we possibly resist David Horspool's More than a Game?  A thoughtfully constructed narrative combines chapter by-chapter accounts of individual sports and the broader theme each serve to highlight. An account that Camus would have enthusiastically endorsed, and in his absence Albert's kit provider Philosophy Football certainly does!  

Available from John Murray here

12. Verso 2024 Radical Diary & Weekly Planner

And then before we know it the twelfth day cometh and 2024 proper begins.  A year of almost certainly a General Election, and equally almost certainly the end of 14 years of Tory governments (second obligatory product placement, yes in anticipation - no refunds available -  we have the Steve Bell mug to mark 14 years of Tory 'progress' here). Though whether Labour can deliver the change on the scale required remains depressingly unclear.The year also begins with two centenaries, 100 years since the death of Lenin and the descent into Stalinism, 100 years since the first Labour Government and the descent into Ramsay Macdonald's 'National Labour' and a Lab-Con pact. There's the 40th anniversary of the 1984-85 Miners strike too and of Orwell's fateful '1984'  While the sport to look forward to includes Euro 2024 and the Paris Olympics. All will be marked by Philosophy Football T-shirts, ('1984' and Euro 2024 are already out and available). Well what else do we need for the start of the New Year? A diary of course! For those not entirely digitalised, Verso's Radical Diary is an annual must have of effortlessly stylish design, packed with monthly and weekly reminders of struggles past with plenty of space to write in the daily details of struggles present, nearest and dearests' birthdays, home and away fixtures, meetings, General Election canvassing days, whatever and whenever 2024 holds. 

Available from Verso Books here

Note No links in this review are to tax dodging selling sites owned by multi-billionaires. If purchasing from suchlike can be avoided,please do. Best of all buy from a local, independent,bookshop.

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' akaPhilosophy Football

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman argues the horrors of Hamas and the demolition of Gaza demand peace and justice for both Palestine and Israel 

' Peace' is a word, particularly at Christmastime, that has a near universal appeal. Yet as Israel continues to reel from the bloody horrors committed by Hamas on 7 October and Palestine struggles to survive the  reduction of Gaza to a sea of rubble and the murderous attacks launched from the West Bank illegal settlements it is a word almost entirely absent from every discourse around this seemingly never-ending conflict.

For some, on both sides, there is only ever going to be a military solution There won't be. 

Others, on both sides, favour a diplomatic solution that stops the fighting but fails to address the causes. That won't work either. 

I don't always agree with Jonathan Freedland's column in a Saturday Guardian but they always make me think. Generally I find I learn more from someone I disagree with on abc but find myself in agreement on xyz than from those I entirely agree with on everything.     

Jonathan's column on 14 October seven days after the horrors committed by was absolute testament to this maxim of mine. 

In all the hundreds of thousands, millions of words written on Hamas and Gaza since there were ten words in his piece that sum up the context of this entire nightmare up better than anything.

'After the Pogrom’ the 19th century pogroms across eastern Europe, the Jewish refugees to western Europe, Cable Street, Jews and Socialists, Communists, Irish immigrants stopping Mosley, together, the Holocaust, on 7 October descendants from the latter murdered by Hamas

'The Angel of Death' the IDF from land, sea and air reducing Gaza to a sea of rubble, hospitals. schools, houses destroyed. The attacks in Southern Gaza a supposed ’safe haven’. A war crime  

'Licks his lips' Hamas and Netanyahu. None of this will stop either of them. 

Ten words, that explain precisely why neither the Hamas terror attack nor the 4000 plus Palestinian children killed by the heavily armed entirely indiscriminate IDF assault on Gaza  will bring peace, and justice, to Israel and Palestine any closer at all, in fact  quite the reverse. Because of course both Hamas and Netanyahu share the same objective. Neither has any interest in such a shared and peaceful outcome. 

Now I'm not claiming Jonathan shares all the same aims as the Palestine Solidarity protests, there was another one lasr Saturday. And you know what, I don't care, because as much as I support the protests and have marched myself, to reverse this inhuman nightmare we have to be bigger, braver and bolder. 

A common misconception is that if a movement is broadened, it is weakened. But if support for Palestine is limited only to those who subscribe to an entire repudiation of Israel then Palestine will never be free of the suffering currently being forced upon Gaza and the West Bank. 

Paul Kelemen in his excellent book The British Left and Zionism : History of a Divorce  describes an 'awkwardness'  arising out of historical context. An 'awkwardness' which he very neatly sums up as on the one hand 'Israel's establishment emerged out of the triumph over fascism and as a restitution to the Jewish people for the Nazi Holocaust'. But on the other hand it was also 'the product of imperial expansion'. However awkward it might be, to unilaterally subscribe to either one without the other is a politics to no good effect.  

Purity of intent warms the activist's ideological cockles but as a practical politics fails miserably over, and over again. 

The failure is rooted in a fundamental misconception. Supporting Palestine doesn't require being on the Left end of the political spectrum.  For all that Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana, Tariq Ali, the far left groups who provide much of activist infrastructure of the campaign  and others of a left politics bring to the movement, and they, bring an awful lot, if this is the public sum of our political parts then Palestine will never attract the breadth of support it needs to break this lethal impasse. 

When Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, Labour MPs  Dawn Butler, Jess Philips,  Jon Cruddas, Naz Shah,  Rosena Allin-Khan, Rupa Huq, Stella Creasy ,Yasmin Qureshi rebel  to support an immediate  ceasefire the significance should be obvious. None of these Labour rebels would identify with Labour's hard left. And there are many, many more from where that lot come from politically , if the means cannot be made to broaden, to accommodate, what good does that do Palestine's cause?  

Meanwhile in Lewes, where one half of Philosophy Football is based, the weekend after the vote on the ceasefire a protest was called against our local Labour Party by Palestine Solidarity activists for 'allying with genocide'. Mmm, with apologies to Lenny Bruce, ' the how to lose friends and not influence people' strategy.

'Humanitarian Pause' vs 'Immediate Ceasefire' has of course divided a Labour Party previously characterised by its near overwhelming unity behind Keir Starmer. Yet however committed, including me, many are to the immediate ceasefire what harm does it do also to recognise that those equally committed to a pause share with us one core objective, we want this human carnage to stop and doesn't that matter most of all?  

And those Labour MPs who didn't vote for the ceasefire? Noisy banner-waving protests outside their constituency offices are the easy option and achieve precisely nothing. The hard work lies with turning marching to door-knocking, Street by street collecting thousands, tens of thousands of their constituents' signatures, Labour voters who want their MP to back the ceasefire, and for every household in support a window poster. This is the language the Labour Party understands, and the effort Palestine surely deserves.  

What Palestine also deserves is the broadest possible support and there should be no self-imposed limits to that ambition. Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP, fiercely loyal to Blair and now Starmer, he didn't vote for the ceasefire yet with his background as a BBC Middle East Correspondent has made some of the best ever House of Commons speeches on Israel, well informed and hugely critical. Humza Yousaf SNP leader who had family members trapped in Gaza, Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat and the only MP of Palestinian descent who lost family members in Gaza and unbelievably was told by the Speaker this was inappropriate to mention in a Parliamentary debate. And one of the most vocal supporters of Palestine and sternest critics of Israel? Sayeeda Warsi, Tory Peer and former Co-Chairwoman of the Conservative Party.

The list, and the breadth, goes on, and wide. 

And not just breadth but means too. However big, however necessary, marches will only appeal to some, but not all.  Two examples of the potential. 

Yotam Ottolenghi, the Israeli-born British chef and author of best-selling recipe books has helped pioneer the popularity of Palestinian cuisine. Zaytoun import and promote Palestinian delicacies to add such meals both authenticity and purpose.  And both link the tasty meals produced directly to the mistreatment of the land and the farms from whence they came. 

Or football.  Why is it never, ever, questioned why Israel's national team and league clubs compete in European UEFA competitions instead of the Asian Football Confederation where they belong and were members of from 1954 to 1974 when it was forced to leave because no other country would play Israel because of the country's mistreatment of the Palestinians. Meanwhile one of the few arenas in which Palestinian statehood is recognised, by all, is the football pitch. A Palestine national team, competing proudly in Asian Federation competitions. And in the wider sporting orbit 40 years after the murderous Israeli hostage-taking by the Palestinian terror group Black September at the Munich 1972 Olympics, Team Palestine marching proudly behind the Palestinian Flag at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. In such spaces Palestine already exists, providing the basis for a common-sense recognition of statehood yet outside of the realm of protest politics barely noticed. 

No, like wearing badges, negotiating the 'awkwardness'; of Israel's foundation as a nation-state in 1948, welcoming the support for Palestin  of those we otherwise disagree with, finding popular and positive means to identify with and support Palestinian statehood, each on their own isn't enough. But like badges, each can be the start towards something more than the sum of its parts.  A popular process of peace, for Israel and for Palestine, no longer being a four-letter word. Now that's a badge worth wearing.

The Arabic and Hebrew 'peace' badges are available as part of a pack, with T-shirts too, from Philosophy Football here

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football  

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman and cartoonist Steve Bell get ready to celebrate the end of an era 

OK constitutionally Rishi Sunak could stretch out his Prime Ministership to January 2025 but in all likelihood there will be a General Election in 2024. With every possibility Keir Starmer will bring to a resounding end 14 years of Tory progress (ahem!) 

To put this in context whenever that General Election is held 2024's first time voters, unless they were astonishingly politically precocious during their pre-school years, will have only known Tory governments for their entire lifetime. 

We have to go back even further for the last time Labour won a General Election, Tony Blair  in 2005. Blair had won with a landslide in 1997 but by the time of his third consecutive win, 2005, Labour's share of the vote had slumped from 43.5% in 1997 to 35.2%, a government elected on the lowest share of the vote, ever. Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in 2019 has quite rightly been recorded as an electoral disaster for Labour yet his heavy defeat was with a share of the vote, 32.1%, not far off to what in 2005 returned Blair to office with a 66 seat majority. Not only is this never, ever, mentioned, but neither is much attention paid to the  perversities of our electoral system that can produce two startingly different outcomes on such similar vote shares. 

Quite where Steve Bell's inspired notion of portraying the first of 14 year's worth of Tory Prime Ministers as a condom-headed posh boy came from goodness only knows but to mix contraceptive metaphors if the cap fits.....

After Major, Hague ,Duncan-Smith and Howard the Tories finally had a leader, condom head or no condom head, who was able to make Labour look tired, running out of both ideas and time. Cameron's PMQs quip to Blair ' You were the future, once' absolutely inspired. 

Blair's long-time rival, Gordon Brown, was his natural successor. Though just to be sure  Brown and his cabal of Brownites twisted Labour MPs' arms to ensure the growing grassroots support for John McDonnell didn't result in a contest.  Never mind, yet when the subsequently much-lauded Brown entirely failed to create a popular-progressive narrative around the causes and consequences of the 2008 crash his days were numbered. Since the '97 landslide Labour had steadily cast itself as the new establishment, a safe pair of hands the country could trust. When this was shattered, first by the Iraq War for Blair, second by Brown with the crash, well why not give the new guy who hugs hoodies and drives a sled across the climate change threatened arctic instead?  

2010 was of course a close-run thing, and would have been even closer if Brown had gone beyond mouthing 'I agree with NIck' to laying the basis for a Lab-Lib coalition. Instead condom-head enters Number Ten with a little help from Nick Clegg, for the next five years hilariously portrayed by Steve as Cameron's loyal and obedient lapdog.

Parliamentary politics can be a dirty business, apart from those who entirely reject the 'parliamentary road to socialism' most of us get that and find ways to accommodate this alongside our desire for ways of conducting politics considerably better. But for the generation of 2010 the sins committed against their education were off the scale. A party that just months earlier had campaigned to abolish university tuition fees was now voting to triple them. A Lib-Dem lapdog that never barked. Revolting students, I mean that in the nicest possible way, descended on Westminster, surrounded Parliament and breaking with the well-worn tradition of marching A to B stormed the Tory Party HQ.  This was all too much for Labour, now led by Ed Miliband, who mouthed some platitudes about the betrayal of students before loudly condemning them protesting. The supposedly left-wing lecturers union, the UCU, not much better, solidarity with their students tokenistic, the sectionalism of tripled tuition fees that fill lecturers' wage packets trumping their radicalism. 

Meanwhile in Scotland Labour Unionism disconnected the party from a huge chunk of its support. Independence didn't win the 2014 referendum vote but that defeat wasn't secured by the Tories alone. Labour's support was central to that. And the Tories little-helper-in-chief? Gordon Brown. At the 2015 General Election the result was that Labour lost Scotland, reduced from 41 seats to 1, the SNP the sole beneficiaries, up from 6 to 56 MPs. 

Still, at least some good news 49 of Nick Clegg's 56 Con-Dem MPs lose their seats. Condom-head isn't able to ditch his coalition partners fast enough. Meanwhile Labour minus those 40 Scottish seats look further away from a General Election victory (note, those who claim Corbyn's 2019 disaster the worst Labour result ever, Miliband and Brown both achieved significantly lower shares of the vote than Corbyn).

Condom-head couldn't be happier, a long Premiership stretched out ahead of him, all that remained was to crush the UKIP irritant and Tory fellow-travellers who made it their business to give Cameron as little respect as they could get away with. And he would have succeeded, won the EU referendum, if he'd not allowed his side of the argument to become 'Remain'.  Reducing being European, which most of us are entirely happy with, to one institutuin we mostly tolerate. The timidity of Remain vs the boldness of 'Take Back Control'  there was only ever going to be one winner.

And the day after, condom-head jauntily walks away from the mess he had almost single-handedly created.

Thus in 2016 Theresa May, complete with leopard skin kitten-heels, becomes Prime Minister without being elected as such.The kitten-heeled footwear succeeding contraceptive headgear as Steve Bell's signifier of what the Tories march of progress represents. 

When kitten-heels showed some bite and called a snap 2019 General Election every single political commentator, and a fair few Labour MPs, confidently predicted a Labour wipe out. A divided parliamentary party, in open revolt more like, Corbyn demonised in the media, he was doomed, surely? Although its been written out of Labour's recent history, quite the reverse. For the first time since 1997 Corbyn's Labour increased the number of Labour MPs, something Miliband, Brown, Blair in 2005 and 2001 failed to do. Wipeout? No, a hung parliament.

And the consequence of this was Labour, if it worked with the other opposition parties and the increasing number of dissident Tory MPs, could block every effort by kitten-heels to rush through Brexit.  Which again written out of history, Corbyn did, leading not only his own Labour MPs but the entire opposition plus the Tory dissidents through the voting lobby again and again to thwart May's ill-conceived Brexit plans. 

Unitil eventually she was forced out by her own MPs, left to kick her kitten-heels elsewhere, a Tory Prime Minister brought down by the Corbyn-led opposition. 

And then we have bum-face, unarguably Steve Bell's greatest creation. Bum-face's mission, to get Brexit done. But despite the public school bluster he couldn't, because Corbyn maintained his Parliamentary Popular Front. If there's one thing above all else bum-face fears it's scrutiny, and in particular Parliamentary scrutiny. So what did he do? Close Parliament down, 'prorogue' a posh word for a coup.  But when he was forced to re-open the House of Commons an over confident SNP aided by Lib-Dem leader Jo Swinson, gave him exactly what he wanted. An escape route out of the rigour of such scrutiny, an early General Election, an arena in which his populism, crucially aided by a regressive alliance with Farage's Brexit Party, could only succeed against Labour's now hopelessly confused public position on Brexit. Win the General Election, send the party's Brexit Minister to Brussels for six months to negotiate the best possible exit package then hold a second referendum in which the Labour Party would campaign against its own deal. The architect of this monstrosity of a policy? Mmm, the name escapes me... 

So bum-face gets what he wants, all the advances Labour made in 2017 reversed and then some. Bum-face now has a majority to do with what he wants, while the country pays the price, a price when Covid struck which proves lethal.   

The rest is (recent) history. Despite a Parliamentary party with a near non-existent centrist group of MPs cast in awe of his bum-faced leadership even they, fearing the multiple loss of their seats, tire of Johnson's disastrous antics.  The tussling of his expensively well-groomed hair masquerading as political leadership had run out of time. 

And so, Liz Truss. No sooner had Steve cast her as a figure of crouching under-achievement and she is gone, but not before she had blown any remaining credibility of her party's fitness for government to smithereens.

Which leaves us with Steve's mini-Rishi to pick up the pieces. A task he has proved entirely unfit for.   

14 years of Tory progress. The descent of Conservative man, and woman, drawn large by the country's most well-loved political cartoonist. And when this lot is finally over next year Steve Bell will no doubt be ready to unleash his other creation, Sir Cardboard Starmer. Can't wait.

Steve Bell's 14 Years of Tory Progress mug, plus tea towel, T-shirt and framed limited edition print signed by Steve is exclusively available from Philosophy Football here  

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled ' sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction, aka Philosophy Football 

70 years on Philosophy Football 's Mark Perryman and Guardian football cartoonist David Squires revisit LS Lowry's greatest painting 

Reputedly a Man City fan LS Lowry's 1953 masterpiece Going to the Match depicted not Maine Road but Bolton Wanderers' then ground Burnden Park. A ground that no longer exists, long replaced by an out-of-town stadium named after a building products company who paid a decent sum for the right to have Bolton's home called 'The Toughsheet Community Stadium', having previously been known since 1997 as The Reebok, Macron and University of Bolton Stadium. What price the durability of history versus naming rights deals and their expiry dates? Guardian football cartoonist David Squires' 70th anniversary  recreation of Lowry's original artistically catalogues seven decades' worth of this and many other changes.    

Lowry's 1953 version of Going to the Match is of course most famous for his matchstick men Bolton fans, identically dressed, as far as we can tell all male, all white, the 1950s industrial working-class writ large. The manufacturing economy represented by factories hemming in Burnden Park from where these men exited the belching smoke for ninety minutes of unadulterated bliss.  The factories long since closed down, working practices, class uniformity and what theorists term 'fordism', an entire way of life and social organisation gone with them.

Writing a couple of decades earlier JB Priestley put into words what LS Lowry had portrayed in his painting: 

"It turned you into a partisan, holding your breath when the ball came sailing into your own goalmouth, ecstatic when your forwards raced away towards the opposite goal, elated, downcast, bitter, triumphant by turns at the fortunes of your side, watching a ball shaped Iliads and Odysseys for you; and what is more, it turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half." 

Football remained relatively unchanged until the 1970s. The Manchester  United players who lost their lives in the 1958 Munch Air Disaster weren't 'the subject of 'tragedy chants' instead Liverpool FC lent their bitterest rivals players so United could complete their season. When England won the World Cup in 1966 it didn't elevate the players into multi-millionaire celebrities. Ten years after Munich Man Utd win the European Cup at Wembley, lining up for their opponents Benfica Eusebio and Coluna immigrants from the Portuguese imperial outpost Mozambique, that rarity in those days, black players in a football shirt.  For United their European Cup winning foreign contingent consisting of a Scot, a Northern Irishman, two Irishmen and a Scottish manager. The United 1999 team that won it for them the next time ?  A starting line-up consisting of one Dane, one Norwegian, one Dutchman, one Swede, one Trinidadian and Tobagonian, one Irishman, one Welshman, alongside their four English players and a Scottish manager, bloody hell! 

But it wasn't simply the globalisation of the line-ups that had changed in those intervening year, it was the monetisation of their playing skills too. Rome 1977, Liverpool win the first of six consecutive European Cups by English clubs. John Williams, author of a social history of Liverpool FC,The Red Men,describes the scenes in Rome after their victory and what has changed since :        

“The extraordinary party in Rome after the 1977 final involved Reds supporters and the players together. These groups were still broadly drawn from the same stock, drank (and got drunk) in the same pubs, had pretty much similar lifestyles and diets, and footballers had not yet moved into the sort of wage brackets that later had them sealed off behind tinted-windowed cars the size of small armoured trucks.”

Globalisation of team line-ups, player wage rises that outstrip inflation a millionfold, and more, funded by no longer free-to-air broadcasting deals of a scale unimaginable prior to the 1992 creation of the Premier League and the Champions League, both serving to attract foreign investors to take over clubs and fund the largesse on a previously unimaginable scale. 

In 1980 sociologist Stuart Weir described the state of the relationship in English football between clubs and their supporters as:  "The clubs are under the control of local business elites who restrict the participation of their followers to separate supporters' clubs."  "The clubs are under the control of local business elites who restrict the participation of their followers to separate supporters’ clubs. " There's only one word that needs to be changed in this sentence four and a bit decades on, local becomes global. In the era of Lowry through to the early twenty-first century clubs were owned by the local butcher, baker, candlestick-maker. In Man Utd's case quite literally, the Edwards family butchers. Now such owners are almost entirely replaced by Russian oligarchs (until the Ukraine war forced their sanctioning), European, Chinese and US investor conglomerates, and Middle Eastern petro-dollar states. Many favouring the multi-club model which is the money men's  antithesis of what it means to be a fan. 'A multi-club fan' oxymoronic, and then some.

None of this however should allow an over romanticisation of football's past. 

Lowry's Burnden Park in 1946 had been the scene of a stadum disaster, 33 fans died and hundreds more injured because of a human crush caused by poor crowd management. Happened again, Ibrox Stadium disaster of 1971. By the 1980s such horrors should have been confined to the history books, they weren't. 

Last game of the 1984-85 season, Bradford City at home, they've already won the Third Division championship, a party atmosphere. In the 85th minute a fire starts in the wooden main stand. Season after season a pile of litter had built up in the space below the tier where fans were sat. An unlit fag started a fire which within minutes engulfed the entire stand. 56 fans lost their lives, simply because they'd gone to a football match.

The next day this is how the Sunday Times reported on football's part in the tragedy at Bradford City:

 “A slum sport played in slum stadiums increasingly watched by slum people, who deter decent folk from turning up."

It is scarcely credible such words were used back then, the day after 56 deaths,  but it is also scarcely credible such words would be used today to describe football, the stadiums games are played in and the fans in the stands. 

But before that would happen yet another stadium disaster, 1989 Hillsborough, John Williams, again:

" The disaster was attributable to a planned general deterioration of public facilities in Britain, a development that had also brought a range of recent disasters on public transport, as Tory policies had prioritised the private sector and devastated areas such as Merseyside. It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that the deaths were also connected to deep-seated problems in terrace culture and poor relations between some football fans and the police. The English game had gone down a fatal route and was routinely treating all its customers (sic) as potential threats.” 

The 1980s. Hillsborough, over 800 England fans arrested and deported from Euro 88, the team knocked out at the Group Stage, all English club sides banned from European competition following crowd trouble at the 1985 European Cup Final. Different causes, different consequences, but overall the game looked irrecoverable.

And then Italia 90, England the least welcome guest at the World Cup party, the draw fixed so all their group games played on the island of Sicily some 60 miles off the Italian mainland. In England's group, Holland, Egypt, amongst Africa's strongest teams, and the Republic of Ireland who'd beaten England at Euro '88. Home before the postcards reach England? That was the widely held expectation, and for our Italian hosts, hope. 

The morning of the semi-final every English newspaper led their front pages with dire expectations of win, or lose, England fans rioting. But then instead an entire nation, from a night in Turin to a night as home spent 'an evening with Gary Lineker'  and everything changed.   

Pete Davies wrote a runaway Italia 90 best seller All Played Out and coined the brilliant term 'planet football'. Nick Hornby writes Fever Pitch about what it means to be an Arsenal fan, and in his wake just about every club finds itself having a book published too about what it means to be their fan too. Pre-digital media, club fanzines are written, published, flogged outside the ground, creating another alternative narrative of our fandom.  A fanzine style football magazine When Saturday Comes on the shelves of WH Smith. The Football Supporters Association emerges as an effective and respected fans' campaign with the group's founder Rogan Taylor a hugely impressive TV and radio studio guest.  Fantasy Football League starts, is adopted by every national newspaper, goes from being a cult radio show to peak time TV. And (obligatory product placement alert) Hugh Tisdale and Mark Perryman, a pair of self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' co-found Philosophy Football.

All to the good, especially the T-shirts! But before the tournament had even begun one critic, Stan Hey, was already predicting what a successful Italia 90  on the pitch might produce beyond the touchline : 

" The global success of football has almost certainly sown the seeds for the game’s corruption. There is now a momentum which seems to be beyond control. Those of us who have retained an optimism for football’s capacity for survival and ability to re-invent itself are already checking our watches. It’s starting to feel like we’re in injury time."

Injury time? Within two years of Italia 90 we were already well past that. In 1992 the  English first division is reinvented as 'The Premier League' with the sinister Orwellian consequence that the old second division becomes The Championship, and to take the Orwellian to a ludicrous extremity the third and fourth divisions became League One and League Two, A pedant writes? No, as Orwell taught us, language matters because it is indicative of powerful forces at work behind the bastardisation of language.

And The European Cup, the finest cup competition in world football, bar none, in 1992 reinvented as a Champions and Rich Runners-up League. Purely to serve the interests of the mega clubs, the element of risk they might not make the competition's latter stages and win it, almost entirely removed.

Is there any hope that the commodification, the foreign investors the corporate sponsors, the media moguls won't have it all their own way? 

Yes because in the 2021 summer of lockdown, fans of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United, City and Spurs protested and defeated a proposal that  entirely served their own self-interest. A so-called 'European Super League' with their clubs not having to compete for qualification but guaranteed entry not via points on the board but the marketing men's co-efficients.

No, those fans didn't look very much like Lowry's 1953 stick men going to the match, but they did stand up, to be counted, to win, and save at least for now and however much already compromised, a part of football's heritage, competition. Even if it meant it meant sacrificing  a guaranteed place in Europe, where they all wanted their clubs to be. Win, lose, draw, the final score, league position, European qualification never a dead cert. Whatver the cost something every bit as valuable to those fans at Lowry's painting, sold at auction in 2022 for a cool £7.8 million.

And David Squires' version of Lowry's original? The commodification and regulation of our fandom, sponsors' logos ruining a classic kit, the scourge of ever-present betting, football on the phone, never mind the match in front of us, VAR, kick off times dictated by broadcasters at maximum inconvenience for away fans, our stadiums named after airlines and the like. Going to the match has changed a lot in seven decades, yet still we go. Thankyou LS Lowry and David Squires for reminding us then, and now, why. 

David Squires redrawing Going to the Match 2023 is exclusively available as a Philosophy Football framed print and tea towel here      

Mark Perryman is co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction', aka Philosophy Football
 

Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football explores the meaning of a game's loss

Bobby Charlton: 1966 World Cup Winner, 1967 First Division Champions, 1968 European Cup Winner. Frannie Lee: 1968 First Division Champions, 1969 FA Cup Winner, 1970 League  Cup and European Cup Winners Cup Winner. The red and the blue halves of Manchester have always been divided, yet for four years were united – no not that United – in their pomp, a shared Mancunian Supremacy. Never before, never since, always been one, or the other, or neither. Only the city of Liverpool – no not that City – can boast anything similar, not that any Manc would  admit as much. From seasons 1981-82 to 1989-90, just once did Arsenal break the Liverpudlian First Division Supremacy of Liverpool's six league titles, Everton's two.  Clubs, cities divided, but united by these shared periods of quite extraordinary success.

Northern too. London clubs have had their moments, well Arsenal and Chelsea, but it is different in a two-club city when fans are for one and, against the other. Add the geographical antipathy to all things southern, and London in particular, how much all this meant to the fans is obvious.

This Sunday, City visit Old Trafford for the Manchester derby. Tuesday’s Champions League fixture at the ground came too soon for all the pomp and circumstance to mark the passing of undeniably United’s greatest, arguably England’s greatest too. Sunday will be a uniquely poignant moment for the vast majority of fans, red and blue, perhaps for a vocal minority the opportunity to offend too. Hence the emergence of the phrase ‘tragedy chanting’, indicative of a rotten element within all that is so magnificent about fan culture. Never a majority, or even close to, but ever-present nevertheless, it justifies itself by the warped morality of love for our lot, hate the other lot.  It’s amplified by, cliché alert, though clichés are almost always borne out of a shorthand description of reality, the 'toxic masculinity' uniquely generated by a very particular version of male football fan culture.

But for the vast majority of fans, whether we follow United, England or not, the passing of Bobby Charlton has been marked by a sense of loss. The opportunity to connect this loss to a collective experience as part of a stadium crowd makes it all the more poignant and powerful. In a way almost no other act of mourning comes close, stands packed with the loudly raucous, transformed into universal silence and then the release of a huge shout when the moment ends.  

Sunday’s derby will of course have an extra edge. City are enjoying a period of absolute dominance over United in terms of trophies won for an extended period. The reign of Guardiola is condemning the Ferguson era of even greater success to the history books and to date there is not much sign of a new edition. To extinguish this rivalry is to remove what makes football’s fan culture so uniquely special. The ingrained loyalty, the warm feeling inside that when the other lot chant “Where were you when you were shit?” we were there with our team, never forsaking them. keeping the faith, and now able to enjoy the success, the promotions, the cups and league championships won all the more, thank you very much.

Of course, none of this ‘being shit’ applies to either the period of Bobby Charlton’s greatest success, 1966-68, nor City legend Frannie Lee’s, 1967-70, the pair of them overlapping in life, and now in death, Frannie having passed away this month too. And they shared something else too. They were undoubtedly stand-out stars of their respective clubs, yet very much part of teams of all the talents too. Denis Law, George Best and Charlton at United. Lee, Colin Bell and Mike Summerbee at City. The site of Law, Best and Charlton‘s statue at Old Trafford is currently besieged by fans’ wreaths and tributes.  City are currently finalising their own stadium statue for Lee, Bell and Summerbee. Football, however modernised, commodified and globalised it has become, can never escape from its history, good.

This history, however, shouldn’t be the subject of a hagiography. In those halcyon days of the 1960s it was a parochial game, a foreign player back then a Scot, Welshman, a Northern Irishman. It was a  mono-cultural game too, black players almost entirely absent. In the stands by the seventies there was a racist layer of support that was to take shape in large numbers of votes for the fascist National Front and streetfighters for the neo-Nazi British Movement. The women’s game was close to non- existent, and where it did exist was frequently banned from using men’s pitches and facilities. None of this should be extinguished from our memorialising. 

The greats of the 1970s and 197os for an older generation loomed large in our growing up as fans while for the fans of today feature as a star-studded cast of our club’s history. Whatever our age group the remembrance for all that they mean must be multi-dimensional if it is to connect past with present and future. There’s a need to frame what we miss in this moment of loss, the forces behind the changes from then to now, because as the philosopher Hegel so wonderfully put it, “Nothing is constant but change".  And when the minute’s silence is over, to use Hegel’s maxim, we must loudly understand why our present, good, bad and in-between, is so vastly different to the past represented by those we mourn.

The memorial T-shirts Law, Best & Charlton and Lee, Bell & Summerbee are exclusively available from Philosophy Football

Mark Perryman is co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football 

Philosophy Football's  Mark Perryman argues the need to mend the popular-political disconnect 

England and Scotland have each qualified direct for Euro 2024, with Wales having more than a shot of joining them after the November round of qualifiers. 

Not Team GB, the UK or Britain, but three nations sharing one small island. It has always been ever thus, since 1872, the very first football international, England vs Scotland, a dull 0-0 draw by all accounts.  On the football pitch not only have Scotland and Wales secured what their respective nationalist parties strive for, independence, but England receives the independent recognition our political class endlessly deny us. The latest example?  Labour Party membership cards in Scotland emblazoned with the saltire, in Wales the Welsh flag, in England no sign of St George but the Union Jack all over. Not only Englishness denied but subsumed into a Greater-Englishness and sod the Scots and Welsh.

Yet any politician who campaigns for the merger of our football teams into one, well an electoral death wish beckons not even Rishi could match. But surely all this only has one conclusion, an ugliness bordering on xenophobia? OK former Welsh legend Mark Hughes would be regaled from the stands all over England with the near-universal allegations of the carnal acts he was alleged to commit with sheep, well he's Welsh, isn't he? And England's national anthem (sic) booed so loudly by Scotland fans it is barely audible. 

Nice? No, but worthy of some unpacking. 

Was Mark Hughes, and for that matter Denis Law, George Best too, most of all p'raps Alex Ferguson ,any less loved by Man Utd fans because they  weren't English? Of course not.  And while his managerial career has now hit the rocks, for a good while, certainly fans of Blackburn Rovers, Man City and Fulham welcomed Mark Hughes as their manager and the success he brought them. Many no doubt having previously shouted their allegations about what he got up to with sheep!  Kenny Dalglish, a Scot, ex-Celtic to boot, an all-time Liverpool legend another case in point. A Greater-Englishness co-existing, competing, with a more receptive, welcoming, localism. 

And Scotland fans booing God Save the King, widely reported as showing disrespect to England's National Anthem? Which of course it isn't, because England doesn't have any such anthem to call its own. Rather it is the National Anthem of the United Kingdom, but Scotland, and Wales have  independently, that word again,opted out to sing their own compositions.  OK it is a bit of stretch to read too much into all this booing but the English should perhaps have more cause to look at the root cause, Britishness as a Greater-Englishness, the latter paying lyrical tribute to a system in two lines of the anthem's first verse, thankfully the only one ever sung.' happy and glorious long to reign over'. There we have it, Englishness as subjecthood which we then seek to inflict on others, the singing of, and worse. In all our interests, to deconstruct, loyalties getting in the way of.

Andthere is another dimension to all this, where England and Scotland are heading, the Welsh possibly, Germany, Europe, the Euro's. 

The year Britain voted to leave the EU England and Wales were battling to stay on the continent, in the shape of Euro 2016. The Welsh having their best ever campaign to do so, reaching the semis. Yet none of this earned a single mention in the ill-fated 'Remain' campaign.  Europe thus reduced to a single institution, the European Union, which apart from those strange individuals who go on Remain marches in their EU flag berets, most of us endure but haven't got a massive beef to remove ourselves from either.  Jeremy Corbyn was lambasted during the course of the campaign when asked what he'd give the EU out of ten, his answer 'seven'. Apart from those beret-wearers, I'd suggest where most of us are.   

But think of the line-up-of our clubs' first team squads, for a fair few clubs, managers and coaches, the beers we drink on the way to the match or while we watch on TV, the fast food we wolf down, the supermarket shelves for our suppertime afters, and more drink,  where we holiday, but most of all the one place we dream of all our clubs getting into, E-U-R-O-P-E. Then search in vain throughout the referendum campaign for any sort of expression of any kind of version of such a popular Europeanism.

Or irony of ironies the one time the EU flag makes an appearance in sport, the Ryder Cup. Golf, standard-bearer of  a popular Europeanism, who'd have thought it?  

The absence of all this, from the 'Remain' and now 'Rejoin' campaign, there's no worse example of the political class - popular culture disconnect.  

Will Euro 2024  be another missed opportunity  to make this  this connection between the  popular and the political?  As an England fan I can't wait for the supremely gifted Jude Bellingham, from Stourbridge in the West Midlands - via Birmingham City - to Borussia Dortmund in Germany - and now to Real Madrid, young, gifted, black, English and European, to light up next summer's tournament as a big up yours to all the small-nationhood, stop the continent we want to get off, Faragism would to my country. And along the way, I admit it, wishing those neighbours of ours on this one island, all the best as they celebrate a nationhood. A nationhood the English outside of a tournament summer are denied, before its back to the old regime of a Union and the political baggage this Greater-Englishness brings with it, the martial, the imperial . Not much good for us, not any good for our neighbours, and absolutely no use to Europe either.  

But before we get too lovey-dovey just keep Scotland, and if they're there Wales, away from us in the draw. OK? 

The Philosophy Football England and Scotland Euro 2024 shirts are available from here   

Mark Perryman is co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football 

Mark Perryman offers a highly personal reading guide to the last Labour conference before the 2024 General Election

After an unlucky, for the many very unlucky, thirteen years, the first five 2010-15 with a little help from Nick Clegg's Lib-Dems, of the Tories in power, a Labour government now beckons. In preparation all things Keir, bright, shiny and new gather for Labour's final party conference before a General Election at some point in 2024. Well perhaps not that new, not if we allow history to get a peep in to the proceedings. Here's ten books to help us do precisely that.

1. Richard Toye Age of Hope:Labour, 1945 and the Birth of Modern Britain

If Labourism was a religion the source of its faith would be Attlee and all things 1945. From the NHS, the welfare state and comprehensive education to the nationalisation of public utilities, coal, gas and electricity. A faith that helped establish a post-war consensus until 1979 when Thatcherism brought all this to a shuddering end, and never restored since. Richard Toye offers no hagiography of the 'Spirit of '45', rather an historical context of what came before, what came after, and leaves us thinking about the extent Labour can restore what has been lost. 

Available from Bloomsbury Continuum here

2.  John Williams Red Men Reborn:From John Houlding to Jürgen Klopp

The north-south divide of party conferences used to be the alternating duopoly of Blackpool/Brighton, now the former for Labour replaced by Liverpool, with the greatest respect to Evertonians, a 'red' city. For a less conventional start to conference revisit the survival of Bill Shankly's 'The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life'  ( product placement alert, words proudly worn, of course on a Philosophy Football T-shirt) as an ever-present in this otherwise entirely modernised club. A lesson for Labour? Read John Williams' superb social history of Liverpool FC to see if any lessons can be learnt.

Available from Pitch publishing here  

3. Shabna Begum From Sylhet to Spitalfields:Bengali Squatters in 1970s East London 

The 1970s, institutionalised racism in (mainly Labour controlled) council housing while on the streets a revived East London fascism in the shape of the National Front. Caught in between a Bengali community from which emerged a squatters movement barely acknowledged by more conventional histories of both the area and the period. Shabna Begum challenges such an omission and begs the question when watching the 2023 Labour conference proceedings do such omissions remain today?

Available from Lawrence Wishart here       

4. Lynne Segal Making Trouble:Life and Politics

Another take on the 1970s and omission is provided by Lynne Segal's autobiographical account of the period. Wilson vs Heath,Thorpe getting a look-in, two great Miners' Strikes, the 3-Day week, the vote to join the Common Market, the emergence out of all this of Thatcherism. While on the margins, the growth of social movements, most potently feminism, were never enough to transform the mainstream yet had too much of a potency to ignore, however hard some tried. To achieve such weight in the 2020's there's some awkward lessons to be learnt from this most splendid read. 

Available from Verso Books here  

5. Anthony Broxton Hope & Glory:Rugby League in Thatcher's Britain

Perhaps it is a little unfair to judge Labourism's relationship with popular culture via the deliberations of Labour Party Conference. But as the single biggest gathering of party members in one place I'd argue it's as good a place to start as any. Compare what we hear in the set-piece speeches from Keir and senior Shadow Cabinet members with Anthony Braxton's innovative account of Thatcherism, resistance and Rugby League. Or tour the conference fringe in search of anything like Anthony's grasp of class, popular culture and politics. No joy? Read this book for a sense of what Labour is missing out on.  

Available from Pitch Publishing here  

6. Ed Gillett Party Lines:Dance Music and the Making of Modern Britain

Or how about music and dance? Ed Gillett charts a movement of resistance and change that existed almost entirely outside of the party political. Labourism is surely the weaker for not finding the means to engage, and be changed by such an engagement. In part this is generational, Ed's book centres on the radical potential of 1990s dance music, the era of illegal raves, huge open-air gatherings and the 1994 Criminal Justice Act. But several decades on the fear remains that in Keir's dash for respectability the gap between party and parties will simply widen to turn into mutual hostility. What a waste.

Available from Picador here  

7. Alwyn Turner All In It Together:England in the Early 21st Century

 Alwyn Turner is the unrivalled historian of late twentieth century Britain with Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s followed by Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s and concluding with A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s.  A splendid trilogy though reading one's youthful teens through to thirtysomethings as history is enough to make baby boomers feel old. Now it's the turn of millennials to start feeling the same way as Alwyn turns his attention to the Blair, Brown and Cameron years. Under the influence of Blair this period as primer for Keir at Number Ten?  We won't have too long to find out.

Available from Profile Books here 

8. David Broder, Eric Canepa and Haris Golemis  (Eds) Facing the State:Left Analyses and Perspectives 

 The days of 'Pasokification', an analysis pioneered by James Doran, appear to be long gone. In the 2010's Syriza, Die Linke, Podemos, Bloco, Rifandazione and Mélenchon challenged Europe's previously dominant social democratic parties from the Left. Without Proportional Representation a forlorn task in Britain, instead such a challenge came from within Labour, Corbynism. The annual Transform Europe! collection brings together writings and ideas from what remains of this challenge across the continent. The standout essay for me however is from these shores, Hilary Wainwright on the greening of socially-useful production. An absolutely vital argument in the face of trade union sectionalism that resists just such a change, aided and abetted, despite Ed Miliband's best efforts, by an over-cautious Labour leadership. 

Available from Merlin Press here

9. Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Thomson (Eds) She Who Struggles:Revolutionary Women Who Shaped The World

Ellen Wilkinson, Barbara Castle, Audrey Wise, Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam, Diane Abbott, Angela Rayner and plenty more from where that lot came. Part and parcel of Labour's past, present and future too? With Keir in the space of twelve months expected to be Prime Minister, and a whopping majority enough to virtually guarantee two terms, barring some kind of upset the next Labour leadership election could be a decade away. The long wait for Labour, unlike the Tories, Lib Dems and Greens, to have a woman leader continues. Would this change the party entirely? No, but neither is this absence irrelevant. For an idea of what a difference women can make to movements they are central to She Who Struggles will inform and inspire in huge measure.  

Available from Pluto Books here

10. Colm Murphy Futures of Socialism:Modernisation, the Labour Party and the British Left, 1973-1997

For my top pick Colm Murphy's hugely impressive account of Labour's transformation out of the lows of a crushingly disappointing end to being in government, followed by  years,and years of defeat (sounds familiar?) cannot be faulted. Was where Labour ended up, Blairism, a self-fulfilling prophecy after Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock's failings plus the Bennite retreat? Not at all, this book is no 1990s tribute act, rather the debates, and alternatives, tracked and critiqued. To be read as a cautionary accompaniment to the irresistible rise of Sir Keir post-Corbyn. One plea though to author and publisher. This book has a sizeable potential readership from a broad spectrum across Labour and beyond. It should be snapped up in Liverpool by delegates but is only available as an £85 (!) hardback edition designed for university libraries. When will academic publishers ever escape from their crushing lack of ambition? C'mon, a mass market paperback edition pronto please.

Available from Cambridge University Press here

Note No links in this review are to Amazon. If you can avoid buying from a tax-dodging platform which exploits their low paid workers please do.      

 Philosophy Football Shankly 'socialism' T-shirt availble fromhere    

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction, aka Philosophy Football 

An unrivalled legacy of films summed up by Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football

Ken Loach's latest film The Old Oak, opening in cinemas this weekend, is being widely reported will also be his last. At 87 if it really his time for Ken to hang up the clapper board and exit across the cutting room floor there is little doubt that apart for his bitterest critic (see below) this is a moment to mark an unrivalled career in film. 

Documentaries, thrillers, historical pieces Ken's made the lot but what makes most of his films which exist outside of these genres so special is their mix of comedic socialist-realism. An unashamed socialist a Ken Loach film always provides a compelling exposure of society's failings while never omitting a lighter touch to lift spirits and aspirations. It was the left wing writer David Widgery who was the first to name a fundamental cultural failing of the politics he uncomfortably belonge to, 'miserabilism'. Without exception Ken's films, however depressing the circumstances they depict, confrotnted this failing, always finding the means to go above and beyond leaving his audience feeling miserable. That's not to say he's a hopeless romantic in the manner of many films that seek to portray the sunny side up of capitalism. Instead, his work is rooted in an unapologetic, some would say unreconstructed, class politics centred on the liberatory potential of collective action, in particular trade unionism. 

Compare and contrast to Richard Curtis, a latter-day contemporary. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill(1999) and Love Actually (2003) a trilogy it would be a tad miserabilist to deny chuckling along to, but this was a twee, middle-class version of England entirely disinterested in anything apart from its unchanging self. The coincidence with the ascension of Tony Blair surely not coincidental. And plenty of others from where that ilk came ever since.

Of course, there are films that share Ken Loach's cinematic ambition. Brassed Off (1996) and Pride (2007) two obvious examples, both depicting the 1984-85 miners strike in a Loachian manner and along the way a counter-narrative to Blairism. But these were pretty much one-offs, fondly enjoyed because they were so rare. Steve McQueen's extraordinary  Small Axe (2020) five-film anthology,  each film revolving Immigration, racism and resistance, the shared location London, is perhaps the closest thing yet to what Ken Loach has managed to achieve. Let's hope for more. 

But what, to date, makes Ken unique is the scope and longevity of his work, he has kept on, keeping on, making films for the best part of sixty years. An incredible achievement, and while the values he champions, and to some extent the subject matter, have remained unchanging, never, ever, samey.

The early days classics Up the Junction (1965) Cathy Come Home (1966) and Kes (1969). The 1990s Riff Raff (1991). His first Palme d'Or for The Wind that Shake the Barley (2006). Featuring Eric Cantona as himself in Looking for Eric (2009) followed by the late flowering of I Daniel Blake (2016)  and Sorry We Missed You (2019). Homelessness and poverty, the 'gig economy', Irish republicanism, mod£rn football, the cruel indignities of the social security system. What other film-maker can match Ken for this kind of subject matter and damn good films to boot. But don't take my untutored word for it. Just a short selection from an impressively long list of awards Ken Loach has won. The 2006 Palme D'Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and in the same year he was awarded the accolade of a BAFTA Fellowship.  In 2012 the Cannes Jury Prize for The Angels Share. In 2016 he became one of the few to win a second Palme D'Or, this time for I Daniel Blake, the same film also landing the 2017 BAFTA for outstanding British film of the year.

Film reviewers greet his films with near universal praise. The Guardian has made The Old Oak its 4-star film of the week describing it as 'a ringing statement of faith in compassion for the oppressed'. While the Evening Standard  welcomed The Old Oak with this ringing endorsement 'we need someone with Loach’s righteous fury to make films about the deplorable treatment of Britain’s often invisible and maligned underclass'. 

Not a single reviewer, not a single awards jury, his films have won an astonishing 117 awards in total has ever cited Ken Loach for antisemitism. And as an occasional filmgoer I can't for the life of me remember a single anti-semitic trope appearing in any of his many films. Which rather leaves the Labour Party expelling him for antisemitism a lomg way out on a limb does it? And begs this question – what does the Labour Party know that legions of film reviewers, film award panels, and filmgoers don't?

Endlessly repeated Labour figures claim Ken's expulsion was for antisemitism, but it wasn't. Most recently Rachel Reeves made precisely this claim until unlike most she was corrected by her interviewer Simon Hattenstone, who happens to be Jewish. Yes, Ken signed a petition protesting against members – a high proportion who are Jewish – being expelled under the charge of antisemitism. That's a protest, not a trope. A celebrated former Director of Public Prosecutions is presiding over the replacement of this right to protest, to replace it with guilt by association. And along the way as under Sir Keir Labour expels more Jewish members than any other time in its history, the title of a much celebrated account of antisemitism, Jews Don't Count, is reinvented by Labour as 'Some Jews count more than other Jews.'

The absurd scale of Labour's demonisation of Ken Loach became apparent when earlier this year Labour North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll was banned from standing for selection to become the party's candidate for North East Mayor because, checks notes, he did a live interview with Ken Loach at one of Newcastle's leading arts venue about the film, The Old Oak, and two previous I Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You he'd made in Jamie's patch... the North East. The supposed reason for the ban? By interviewing Ken Loach Jamie Driscoll was allying himself with anti-semitism.

Has Ken ever erred to such an extent to deserve being ostracised by Labour, and only by Labour, to such an extraordinary extent? In 1987 Ken directed the play Perdition written by his long-time collaborator Jim Allen, which was then withdrawn before opening at the Royal Court Theatre. The play centred on a much-contested suggestion that one branch of Zionism sought to negotiate with the Nazis free passage to enable some Jews to escape being sent to the concentration camps. In typing those words the very obvious explosion of anger that giving any kind of platform to such a tale can act as a means to legitimise anti-semitism is startlingly obvious. In my personal opinion Ken's was a bad choice, but enough to disqualify his entire legacy of work? I don't think so. At the time, 1987, Neil Kinnocks' Labour Party leadership, not exactly backward at expelling known Trotskyists and others, didn't think so either, taking no action against Ken who'd been a party member since 1962. Is the suggestion therefore that Kinnock, was soft on anti-semitism? Well if he was why does he continue to sit in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer? Put simply, none of this adds up and outside the world of the current Labour leadership few would countenance a blanket ban on Ken Loach or any kind of association with him.

So, this weekend as Ken's film opens what is it to be? 

A Labour Party three-line whip barring the Shadow Cabinet, MPs and members from a crafty looksie at The Old Oakaccompanied by Constituency Labour Party picket lines (oh I forgot Labour MPs are barred from those too) outside the flicks to collar any waverers. Because that is the logical conclusion of where Labour's strictures on Ken Loach have ended up.  Anything less and we're tempted to suspect all the huff and puff about Ken's anti-semitism is for show, surely not?

Or a celebration of a much-loved maker of films that fire up indignation and hope in equal measure.  Films that depend not on a star-studded line-up but jobbing actors we've never heard of, and for most parts those who've never even acted before.  The Old Oak follows this uniquely Ken Loach tradition and is none the poorer, quite the opposite, for it.  And Ken Loach is most certainly the only director who would choose (spoiler alert) as the happy ending to his final film Syrian refugees and a former mining community coming together to make a banner they then march behind together at the Durham Miners Gala. The words they choose for their banner?  ' Strength, Solidarity, Resistance' in English, and Arabic. What a way for Ken to close his final film. Makes a great banner, and a great T-shirt too, available from...

Exclusive, and strictly unofficial Philosophy Football Ken Loach Old Oak Banner T-shirt from here

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football 

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman makes his annual selection of holiday page-turners 

OK with southern Europe temperatures approaching sub-Saharan levels while England's south coast summer heat is close to Mediterranean a 'long hot summer' may be the last seasonal request on most of our minds. But then of course the phrase is more associated with 1968 and all that , the continental predecessor of our domestic version, the decidedly Anglicised 'winter of discontent.'

A top ten to read, revolt, and in between recline.

1. Leon Rosselson Where Are the Elephants?

One of the founders of folk as protest Leon Rosselson weaves his own musical and political journey into an extraordinarily powerful account of how with acoustic guitar and a good tune while we may not be able dance to it the spectacle of how and why we must change the world is more than enough to have us humming along.

Available from PM Press here

2. Suzanne Wrack A Woman's Game : The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Women's Football

Until the 20th August Final the Women's World Cup will dominate the sporting summer, maybe. Jostling for position through the Group Stages with the Ashes and then as the knockout matches ensue the start of the men's season will likely dominate. The time difference doesn't help either. Suzy Wrack's book brilliantly explores the causes of such inequality and the force for liberation women's football can become. The Lionesses lifting the trophy wouldn't do any harm, and then some, either.

Available from Faber & Faber here

3. Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore Crickonomics : The Anatomy of Modern Cricket

Co-author with Simon Kuper of the groundbreaking Soccernomics Stefan Szymanksi has partnered with cricket writer Tim Wigmore to do something similar for a sport that long departed the village green to become a quasi-global Behemoth. 'Quasi' in the sense that more than any other sport cricket remains framed by the legacy of Empire. Yet uniquely this sport is being reinvented from the global south, in the shape of the Indian Premier League. This is the book to get to grips with such a tasty contradiction.

Available from Bloomsbury Sport here

4. Raymond Williams Resources of Hope

Folk music, football, cricket, what about some so-called serious reading matter? We have the theorist Raymond Williams to thank for the counter-argument 'culture is ordinary' which he brilliantly developed into the argument that it is culture that provides not only the tools for creative effort but also the means for a way of life. And crucially the latter wasn't the preserve for just 'high' culture. Want to understand idealism, gender, the post colonial?  Start with music, football, cricket. Resources of Hope helps to show how.

Available from Verso here

5. Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time

What characterises the writings of Raymond Williams is a practical utopianism rooted in both a sobering assessment of the present with an abundance of hope for the future. At a super-micro level this is precisely what After Work provides, what could be more micro than the home? Yet in this space much neglected by a meta-politics our lives are shaped, relationships negotiated, prospects over-determined. As a building block for change this splendidly written book makes a most powerful case for the opposition.

Available from Verso here

6. Dan Evans A Nation of Shopkeepers : The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie

A rather good phrase that Keir Starmer has been using of late is the 'class ceiling' though whether he has the politics to shatter it remains a point of considerable conjecture, and that's putting it politely. The starting point to arrive at such a moment of change must always be a rounded understanding of class relations. Ruling Class? Tick. Working Class? Tick. The bit in the middle (sic)? Much neglected, the middle classes, Dan Evans puts that right with an extended polemic that combines the sharply critical with how such criticism can be the basis of a transformative politics to the benefit of all.

Available from Repeater here

7. Polly Toynbee An Uneasy Inheritance : My Family and Other Radicals

Covering similar ground, but in an entirely different way Polly Toynbee, the doyen of the tofu-eating Guardian-reading wokerati. Mixing her own family's background with a powerfully written account of Polly growing up this is the feminist maxim 'the personal is political' writ large, and very well. A soft touch compared to the Dan Evans polemic? Not at all, a plural left learns to appreciate how different contributions complement one another precisely because they are different.

Available from Atlantic books here

8. Jo Littler Left Feminisms : Conversations on the Personal and Political

The mix of left, feminism, personal and political in many ways first erupted in that faraway long hot summer of 1968 and all that came with it. A mix, an eruption, not always a happy one as documented by three of Jo Littler's interviewees Hilary Wainwright, Lynne Segal and Sheila Rowbotham in their trawl through the left ten years on from 1968 and how it (mis)treated the women involved, Beyond The Fragments : Feminism and the Making of Socialism.A superb collection of interviews but two gripes. First, described by the publisher as interviews with 'key feminist academics' this is too modest, these are women central to what left politics should look like. And second given the heritage of Soundingsjournal where these interviews first appeared some curious omissions, namely Anne Showstack Sassoon, Beatrix Campbell, Rosalind Brunt, Suzanne Moore. Why? For the second volume p'raps.

Available from Lawrence Wishart here

9. Dexter Whitfield Challenging the Rise of Corporate Power in Renewable Energy

The 1968 long hot summer was heated by strikes, protest and a generational revolt. The summer of 2023 has all three but only in bits 'n bobs and without the sense of being on the edge of epochal political change. Instead our hot summer marks a different sense of such change, record-breaking temperatures for the umpteenth year in a row, southern Europe now approaching a sub-saharan climate while the sub-saharan itself is becoming uninhabitable, Northern Europe including the English south coast enjoying the Mediterranean heat. An enjoying' accompanied by soaring summertime mortality rates, the connection barely remarked upon. Greenwashing aids and abets such obfuscation. Dexter Whitfield offers an alternative, a renewable energy programme rooted in saving the planet not saving the fossil fuel industry from itself. More than enough to brighten up any beach read.

10. Andreas Malm How to Blow Up a Pipeline : Learning to Fight in a World on Fire

And if all else fails Anders Malm's book has the title, and as they say major motion picture, to put paid to all our nightmares of where long hot summers, and flood strewn other seasons, may be leading us to. This is a book as weapon, a manifesto for forcing change framed by the legacy of the suffragettes' direct action, civil rights movement protests , anti-apartheid boycotts, national liberation armed striggles. And updated to force us to consider how far we would go to save our planet from itself. If in doubt of the the answer ask the question how each and every one of those struggles was won.

Available from Verso here

Note no links are to Amazon, if low-wage employer tax-avoidance corporations can be avoided to purchase books, please do so.

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football