Six of the Best 754

Rob Marchant believes Labour's only hope is that the trade unions will turn on Jeremy Corbyn over the threat that Brexit poses to workers' rights: "Even Corbyn’s great ally on the hard left, Len McCluskey of Unite, is being weakened by the legal challenge to his election as General Secretary, this week announced as being a little more serious than many had expected, now his case will be heard by a former High Court judge."

"The British are catching up with an American awareness of the intertwined political influence of the secretive super-rich, social media, and the Kremlin," argues Anthony Barnett.

Cicero does not mince his words: "It is a basic contention of this blog that Donald J Trump is not fit for office. A crooked real estate developer with a dubious past and highly questionable finances. he has systematically lied his way into financial or other advantage. His personal qualities include vulgarity, sexual assault allegations and fraudulent statements on almost every subject."

Lord Patel says it's now or never for Asian engagement in UK cricket, says Huw Turbervill.

Martin Salisbury introduces the work of the artist John Minton.

"On the Slaughden peninsula near the Suffolk fishing port of Aldeburgh, there were said to be lights associated with nameless "things" that pelted you with shingle." Matt Salusbury on the mysterious lights of the East Anglian coast.

On the track of the old Southwold Railway

It's been a Suffolkrailwaytastic day as I have discovered Twitter account for the people dreaming of reopening the branches to both Southwold and Aldeburgh.

This video follow the route of the former from Southwold to Walberswick - I have a feeling I once walked it.

And if the water towers at the start look familiar, they featured in Peter Greenaway's film Drowning by Numbers.

More information on the Southwold Railway Trust website.

Marion Thorpe and Benjamin Britten

Respect to JFK and Doctor Who, but today's most significant anniversary for me is the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth. I must have listened more to his music than that of any other classical composer and, alongside Bach and Schubert, he forms one of my trio of favourites.

Today's Guardian editorial reminds us of the central place Britten occupied in British culture - a place hard to imagine today:

Imagine an English classical music composer who is so famous in his own lifetime that his name is known throughout the country, who is the first British composer to end his life as a peer of the realm, a composer from whom the BBC uniquely commissions a prime-time new opera for television, and whose every important new premiere is a national event, a recording of one of which – though it is 90 minutes long – sells 200,000 copies almost as soon as it is released, and a musician whose death leads the news bulletins and the front pages.

I hardly knew anything about classical music in 1976, but I was 16 and it surprises me that I can remember nothing about Britten's death.

There is an extraordinary amount about Britten and his music to enjoy and explore this weekend - Radio 3 had decamped to Aldeburgh en masse - but one item may particularly interest Liberal readers.

Marion Thorpe - Jeremy Thorpe's second wife - was a lifelong friend of Britten and she has recorded the interview above about that friendship for Radio 3.

Tom Service describes it as follows in a Guardian blog:

What you'll hear from Marion is an insight into a rarely seen side of the composer's character: his humour, his "terrible schoolboy jokes", his generosity, his competitive streak – he hated losing at tennis, which he would play on his grass court at the Red House in Aldeburgh – and what it was like to play duets while sitting next to him on the piano stool. Marion – who first married George Harewood, and after Harewood left her (Britten supported Marion throughout), married Jeremy Thorpe – was herself a fine pianist who would go on to found the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition.

Six of the Best 319

Liberal Democrats against Secret Courts has Jo Shaw's reply to Nick Clegg's latest Letter from the Leader: "The government amendments were a test of the good faith of those who support this Bill. That test has been failed. The government amendments make this Bill worse, not better."

The Conservatives should stop obsessing about constituency boundaries and try to broaden their appeal, argues David Skelton on Platform 10.

D.J. Taylor, the author of Orwell: The Life, talks about George Orwell’s attitude to free speech and his encounters with censorship in a podcast on the Index on Censorship site.

"The SWP are not socialist. Their only powerbase, in the redbrick universities, suggests the term ‘workers’ is a little suspect too. They are dangerously wrong about everything, from the Middle East to gay rights. They could be easily dismissed, like people who think they’re white witches, if not for their capacity to hoodwink young people who genuinely want to change the world, and instead send them out to sell papers outside Tescos." So says Paul Richards on Progress.

"Wanna tell the whole Wagner/Verdi 2013 bicentennial onslaught to suck it?" asks Opera Chic before advising us to head to the Suffolk Coast this summer for the 66th edition of Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival."

Floydsworld photographs the magnificent ruins of Kirklinton Hall.

Benjamin Britten: Cuckoo! from Friday Afternoons

As I wrote the other day, 2013 sees the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth and the Britten 100 website has been launched in preparation for the celebrations. So this Sunday's music video sees a rare excursion into the classical world.

Friday Afternoons was a set of songs that Britten wrote to be sung in schools.They are settings of poems, many of them collected by Walter de la Mare in his anthology Tom Tiddler's Ground. Cuckoo! was written by Jane Taylor, whom I assume to be the same woman who wrote the words to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

This performance by the choir of Downside School, Purley, was recorded around 1960 and is used on the soundtrack of the recent American film Moonrise Kingdom.

In our post-Savile world we shall, for better or worse, hear a great deal about Britten and boys next year. For the time being let us just remark on how superlatively well he wrote for children's voices and how much we have lost with the decline of the tradition of singing in schools.

But the people behind the Britten centenary celebrations are trying to do something about this with their Friday Afternoons project:

Friday Afternoons is a nationwide singing project led by Aldeburgh Music, culminating on Britten’s birthday – 22 November 2013. The initiative, which forms part of Aldeburgh Music’s Britten Centenary programme and the worldwide Britten 100 celebrations, is based around the set of 12 Friday Afternoons songs that he composed for the school in Prestatyn where his brother was schoolmaster.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Rutland International Arts Festival

Lord Bonkers' latest Diary was written on the final day of the Rutland International Arts Festival. At his suggestion, I am reproducing the whole Diary as single blog post now that the new edition of Liberator is with subscribers.

I sit on the terrace at Bonkers Hall, enjoying a hard-earned macaroon and cup of Darjeeling as I survey the crowds in their Sunday best and the trim marquees erected by the Queen’s Own Rutland Highlanders under the supervision of Regimental Sergeant Major Carmichael. Yes, you join me on final day of the Rutland International Arts Festival.

As ever, the Festival is taking place in the Hall and its grounds, as well as at numerous locations across the village and beyond. The performance of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, for instance, took place in the Bonkers’ Arms and, though the double booking with the darts match was inadvertent, I am told that, if anything, it added to the drama.

If I may offer an unbiased opinion as Chairman of the Organising Committee, Patron and occasional performer, our annual cultural festival is widely recognised by the world’s leading arts administrators as being a unique event. There is Edinburgh, they often say, and then there is Rutland. In short, it is the eel’s eyebrows.

I could not be present at the Marat/Sade myself as I was at the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans to cheer on their now traditional play. Good as it was, I must have a word with Matron in the morning as there was an awful lot of noise from under the stage towards the end of the performance and the little mites did not reappear to take their bow after it was over.

I have also had the rare pleasure of going to the pictures in my own cricket pavilion. The film I saw was Mulholland Drive, which has certainly made me see the more affluent suburbs of Leeds in a different light (high tea with the Wainwrights was never like that), even if the reels were obviously exhibited in the wrong order. Such are the riches of the week that I could equally well have seen Annette Brooke’s Lord of the Flies or The Outlaw Ian Swales at the same venue.

Elsewhere there has been a traditional huppert show on the village green for the children and, of course, there has been a rich diet of theatrical performances on offer in the Village Hall. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of office mean that the parliamentary party has been unable to put on its usual performance of Shakespeare – for many years, people would come for miles to admire Cyril Smith’s Bottom – but there has still been much to enjoy. Tomorrow I shall be taking in a production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Anyone Can Birtwistle, which I imagine offers a guide to those ambitious to gain Labour seats in the North, and a musical by one Willy Russell entitled: John, Paul, George, Ringo... & Lorely Burt.

This year I have taken the precaution of staging all the musical events on an island in the middle of Rutland Water. It is not that I object to Susan J. Kramer and the Dakotas playing their “rock and roll” for the young people: the problem is the jazz. Meadowcroft, naturally, was all for there being a large jazz component in this year’s festival, and when I ventured to demur he started leaving copies of the Horticulturalist’s Journal about the place with various job advertisements ringed in red crayon. I took his point, which is why I shall be staying well clear of the shores of the Water this evening. For Meadowcroft will be playing in a concert with the former members of Earl Russell’s Big Band. (You may recall that I offered them sanctuary here on the Bonkers Hall Estate after their leader died. Charitable as we Bonkers have always been, I still think his brother Bob could have Done More.)

Elsewhere on this final evening of the Festival, you can hear the Elves of Rockingham Forest and their “plangent melodies and Aeolian cadences (no money returned)”, while I shall be at the performance of Beith in Venice (Benjamin Britten’s controversial last opera) that is being staged in my own Ballroom.

Some will then take their refreshment in the Bonkers’ Arms – rest assured: extra casks of Smithson & Greaves’s Northern Bitter have been laid in – or at the hog roast on the village green. Miss Fearn will be on hand to offer her assorted fancies, while Mrs Patel from the shop will no doubt be offering her delicious Norman Lamb rogan josh.

The most discerning lovers of the arts will have bought tickets for the Festival dinner, at which I happen to be the guest of honour. Talking of the celebrated Aldeburgh composer, I have a feeling that during the meal I may be prevailed upon to retell my celebrated anecdote about the chamber concert that we put on in my boathouse many years ago. There was a high tide on Rutland Water that night and strong winds; the result was that the waves burst into the boathouse, sweeping away performers and audience alike. I had the foresight to snatch up a double bass as it floated past and paddled myself to safety (accompanied by Benjamin Britten on the piano).

If that were not treat enough, the evening and the Festival will close with the traditional firework display. I like to keep the most spectacular effects under my hat – not literally, you understand – but I fully expect to see such pictures as the Bird of Liberty and a likeness of Nancy Seear painted in the midnight skies. On evenings like this, there is nowhere else one would wish to be but Rutland.

Lord Bonkers, who was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10, opened his diary to Jonathan Calder.

Gordon Brown in Southwold: "Drowning by Numbers"

Our prime minister is certainly doing his bit for the Union by spending his summer holiday in Southwold. As the town's website says, "Southwold is a quintessentially English resort town".

It is also "charming", as that website claims. By contrast, Aldeburgh, just down the coast, is rather a bleak place and would not be such a tourist destination were it not for the Festival and the Britten connection in general.

But, in line with the view of Englishness held by this blog, Southwold has its sinister side too. This was brilliantly brought out by Peter Greenaway in his film Drowning by Numbers. As a website dedicated to his work says:

This is a picture that offers so much to the viewer. It is beautiful, but also, at times, grotesque. It is intriguing and complex, and covers a cornucopia of subjects. The film has an elegant Englishness about it. It is a film that always requires your attention and one that you will want to return to.

The story is about three women, all with the same name, Cissie Colpitts, each from different age groups, who have something in common, they each murder their husbands by drowning them. escape punishment from this by consenting to the needs of an amorous coroner, Madgett. Madgett's young son, Smut, tells us about different games, each of them rather odd. The film has a wonderful surreal feel to it.

Mr Brown should be careful in Southwold. As Smut says: "A great many things are dying very violently all the time."

100 years of women councillors

Thanks to Paul Hulbert for reminding us that:

the first women councillors were elected in this country, at the elections of 1 November 1907, following the Qualification of Women Act. They started taking office at the first meetings of the new councils, 100 years ago this week.

Paul also tells us that the pioneering woman doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became Britain's first mayor in 1909 when she took office in Aldeburgh in Suffolk.

Incidentally, her father, Newson Garrett, built the Maltings at Snape, which are now the principal home of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Opening Line of the Day

From my favourite classical music blog, On An Overgrown Path:

I suspect that last night's Snape Prom was the first time that the music of Frank Zappa has been played at Aldeburgh.

It was 30 years ago today

Benjamin Britten died on 4 December 1976.

To mark this anniversary, Tony Palmer's Prix Italia-winning documentary about Britten, "A Time There Was", has been released on DVD.

Digitally restored, it features a wealth of performance extracts and interviews with a host of Britten's friends and colleagues, including Leonard Bernstein, Imogen Holst, Janet Baker and Peter Pears, as well as his siblings, staff and Aldeburgh associates.

A history of Liberalism and music

Tonight sees the highlight of the Liberal Democrat Conference in Blackpool: the Glee Club. Party members will gather to sing political songs and enjoy the occasional turn from the great and the good.

To enjoy the Glee Club to the full you need a Liberator songbook. And this year's songbook has an introduction by my old friend Lord Bonkers. With his permission I reproduce it below.

I have long been a lover of music. I recall visiting the Aldeburgh festival during the East Coast floods of 1953 and enjoying a recital of British folk song. Just as Peter Pears was giving "The Bonny Earl o' Moray" both barrels, the sea overwhelmed the coastal defences and flooded the concert hall. In the resultant confusion I had the presence of mind to straddle a double bass that floated past and paddle myself to safety (accompanied by Benjamin Britten on the piano).

Nor am I alone amongst Liberal Democrats in my enthusiasm. One thinks of Susan J. Kramer and her Dakotas, of Andrew "Boy" George and of Lembit Öpik who, as a tribute to his patronage of the nascent Estonian rock scene, is known in every Baltic port as "Öpik of the Pops".

Other Liberals have been immortalised in song. Who does not know the jazz classic "It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Ming"? Then there is that candid tribute to the member for Southwark North and Bermondsey by the 1910 Fruitgum Company: "Simple Simon Says". Above all, there is the delightful Miss Sandy Denny's performance of the traditional air "The Lowlands of Mulholland".

So at the Glee Club, when you buy your songbook from one of those amusing young people who produce Liberator magazine and treat yourself to a foaming pint of Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter from the bar, remember that you form part of a living tradition of musical Liberalism.

Back from Suffolk

After a couple of days in Southwold I realised where I had seen its lighthouse and sinister water tower before. Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers was filmed there.

I also recommend the lost town of Dunwich and Snape Maltings. Aldeburgh itself grew on me, but is probably not at its best over a bank holiday weekend. Let's hear it for Benjamin Britten anyway.