Al Carns portrays Labour politics as a form of ancestor worship

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Writing about Blue Labour in Liberator at the start of year, I suggested that:

Maurice Glasman’s target voter is a white working-class man in a manual job in the North of England in 1957.

That makes him a modernist when set against Al Carns, judging by the defence minister's resignation statement in the Commons today.

Here's how Carns began:

As honourable members know, I came into politics for one reason. That was to enact change.

But to be able to work out where you’re going, we must realise where we have come from. The Labour party I joined is one that was chiselled out of the mines of the north-east. It was hammered out of the shipyards of Govan, Liverpool and Belfast. And it was forged in the factories of the industrial revolution.

Calloused hands, sore backs, people who did a hard day’s graft and asked for one thing in return – a government that has their back.

That’s the tradition I serve in this house, and it’s a tradition that shaped that decision I took last week.

Commercial shipbuilding had largely disappeared from Britain before Carns was born in 1980 – what remains is almost all in the defence sector. Brian Potter has mapped its demise:

Despite taking virtually any order that it could get, even at loss-making prices, the UK’s shipbuilding industry continued its inexorable decline. Between 1975 and 1985, the UK’s shipbuilding output declined by nearly 90 per cent, and its share of the world market fell from 3.6 per cent to less than 1 per cent. 

British Shipbuilders began re-privatization in 1983 with the passage of the British Shipbuilders Act, and over the next several years most of those newly privatised yards would close. In 2024, the UK produced just 0.01 per cent of the commercial ship tonnage built worldwide that year. In 2022 and 2023, the percentage was 0.

Potter's whole article is worth reading. It provides evidence for the view that many of Britain's economic problems stem from the fact that our managers aren't very good.

Returning to Carns's speech, coal mining in the North East of England reached its peak in 1923, with the last deep mine in the region closing in 2005. And the Industrial Revolution is generally reckoned to have begun in the middle of the 18th century.

If these are really Carns's politics, then they have nothing to do with Labour's voters and members or with the British working class today. That class, forced to exist on temporary work and zero-hours contracts, are the very people who would be hurt by his enthusiasm for yet more welfare cuts.

So when Carns went on to talk about modernising defence, you feared he was going to demand that eight Dreadnoughts be built or call for an improved flintlock for the infantry. 

In fact he had sensible things about the need to grasp how warfare is changing, which means we can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't believe the first part of his statement either. 

But he's not the only Labour politician who, when asked to explain it, makes their attachment to the party sound like a form of ancestor worship.

Sir Walter Scott invented "The Wars of the Roses"

Here's an interesting passage from Chris Given-Wilson in a recent London Review of Books:

There are several earlier references, dating back at least to the early 14th century, to red and white roses being used occasionally as insignia by the families later associated with the Lancastrian and Yorkist causes, but it was not until Shakespeare picked up on the idea in Henry VI Part I... that it entered the popular imagination. ...

It was another two hundred years before Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, published in 1829, brought the idea of the ‘wars of the White and Red Roses’ into common usage. Since then it has become synonymous with the political turmoil which, between 1455 and 1485, saw four English kings deposed (one of them twice) and fifteen internecine ‘battles’ – some of them in reality just skirmishes – fought on English soil, from Dartford in Kent to Hexham in Northumberland to Mortimer’s Cross on the Welsh border.

There are those, of course, who would like to bin the label, but that is a vain hope. During the last quarter of the 20th century at least seven British historians published monographs entitled The Wars of the Roses, and scholars in the 21st century appear to be trying to keep pace.

Sure enough, Given-Wilson was reviewing The Wars of the Roses: A Medieval Civil War by John Watts.

Obliging reader's voice: I gather the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth is accepted as having marked the end of these wars. Have you by any chance contributed an article that touches upon it to Central Bylines recently?

Liberal England replies: Why yes! Yes I have.

The Joy of Six 1459

"For all their youthful modishness, this group is actually more conservative than their older counterparts. Many TheoBros, for example, don’t think women belong in the pulpit or the voting booth – and even want to repeal the 19th Amendment. For some, prison reform would involve replacing incarceration with public flogging. Unlike more mainstream Christian nationalists ... many TheoBros believe that the Constitution is dead and that we should be governed by the Ten Commandments." To understand JD Vance, you need to meet the TheoBros, says Kiera Butler.

Martin Barrow finds that Labour's reforms of the care system are an admission that privatisation of children's homes and foster care is here to stay: "Now responsibility for where children in care live is to be removed from local councils altogether and handed to a regional body with tenuous local roots tasked with negotiating the best financial terms with private providers."

"We talk endlessly about 'local pride', yet whenever regions like Cornwall, the north east, or Yorkshire try to express that pride politically or administratively, someone in Westminster clears their throat and steers the conversation back to something safer: 'Englishness'. As if being Cornish, Geordie, or Yorkshire were a distraction rather than part of the story." Regional identity still matters, argues John Hall, but without power and respect risks being reduced to a souvenir.

Eleanor Grant reports that lawfare is stifling student politics at Oxford: "One scandal after another, each matched by an internal, quasi-legal tribunal, has now threatened to sink the Oxford Union and a series of student articles chronicling these escapades have mysteriously vanished after short-lived publication."

Casmilus watches Rock Follies, the Seventies television series about an all-woman band that starred Charlotte Cornwell, Rula Lenska and Julie Covington.

"It’s got one of the most famous opening lines of any Murdoch novel, which takes a lot from Austen: 'Dora Greenfield left her husband because she was afraid of him. She decided six months later to return to him for the same reason.'" Miles Leeson chooses Iris Murdoch's five best novels.

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Martin Barrow reports that, following the intervention of Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, it is hard to find anyone prepared to defend the current arrangements, outside the actual 'business' of children’s homes and foster care.

"Despite the numerous inquiries that have been carried out, the lessons identified often fail to translate into meaningful, lasting change. As a result, organisations find themselves repeating the same mistakes, leading to avoidable disasters. Those impacted wait years for answers, and political impetus for reform can wane." Rebecca McKee and Jack Pannell make the case for reform of public inquiries.

The 'one chatbot per child' model for AI in classrooms conflicts with research that shows learning is a social process, argues Niral Shah.

Jo Lonsdale and Jane Downs tell the story of Mary Ann Macham, who fled slavery in Virginia and found safety in the North East of England: "Mary Ann was born in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1802, her father 'a gentleman's son', her enslaved mother raped by him. Aged 12, Mary Ann was sold at a public auction at Richmond, a 'poor puny little thing', as she later said, fetching $450."

Emma Slattery Williams on Christmas in the Victorian era: "Roast turkey remains the customary fare for Christmas lunch and we can thank the Victorians for this, too. In the early 19th century, turkeys would have been too expensive for the majority of households to afford. But the development of the railway made them more accessible and affordable, and soon they had become the star attraction at Christmas dinner tables."

"Despite their initial rejection by the Ministry of Transport, the signs were actually rather well designed. Seen side-by-side against the regulation sign that was supposed to be used ... they compare very favourably." Oxfordshire Signs looks back to the days when the county had its own unique designs for road signs.

GUEST POST Defections Update: Lib Dem Conference Special

The Conservative and Labour Parties are continuing to lose councillors in significant numbers, finds Augustus Carp in his latest survey of political defections.

Danny Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire, may be getting the headlines in the defection newsfeeds, but he’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rate at which councillors are changing their political allegiance doesn’t seem to be slackening.

Since June, 39 councillors have defected from the Conservatives and 56 from Labour. The Lib Dems are unchanged, Nationalists have lost 1 and the Greens are up 4. Reform UK has gained 29 and the Independents (widely defined) make up the balance with 63.

The pattern over recent years has usually been for defecting councillors to become Independents and then, if so inclined, to join a new party after a respectable period in the wilderness. Straight switches from Party A to Party B are not as frequent, but they do happen – 18 of the former Conservative councillors have moved straight to Reform UK, but one has joined them from the Greens.

The Lib Dems have lost one councillor to Reform UK (in Burnley). Three Labour councillors have moved to the Lib Dems, with the same number joining the Greens and one going to Reform UK. The remainder of the departing Labour councillors have aligned themselves with a variety of Independent political mini-groups, ranging from the Broxtowe Alliance to the Potteries Party.

The net figure of departing Labour councillors would have been much higher had it not been for a large number of suspended and unwhipped councillors being readmitted to the party over the summer. One hopes that the majority of them have learned their lessons regarding the inappropriate use of social media.

Some of these defections have had a significant impact on the local councils – Labour have lost notional control of South Tyneside, and the Labour group on Reigate and Banstead has evaporated. Senior figures have been involved in recent defections – the former leader of the Conservative group on Aberdeenshire Council is now an Independent, as is the former Labour leader in Caerphilly.

As Jonathan Wallace has noted in his blog, we are now also seeing defections from Reform UK – perhaps the most curious of which is a councillor in Kent moving from them to UKIP. Jonathan has provided some useful background on the defections of Reform UK office holders in the North East of England, but only elected councillors have been included in these figures.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

Defections from Reform in the North East of England

It's not all one-way traffic as far as Reform UK are concerned.

Jonathan Wallace writes on his blog:

Two of Reform's constituency chairmen in Gateshead constituencies have defected to Advance, the party that split from Reform and was created in the image of its founder Ben Habib.

According to an Advance news release, Damien Heslop, who was Reform's candidate in Gateshead Central and Whickham, as well as chair of Reform's constituency branch, has defected to Advance. He was the only Reform candidate in the local elections last year in Gateshead.

And in neighbouring Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, the chairman Paul Milburn has upped sticks and defected to Advance as well.

So it's bye-bye Reform and hello Advance for Mr Heslop and Mr Milburn. They are not alone. The news release also lists three other Reform constituency chairmen in the North East who have jumped ship: Stephen Holt (South Shields), Gordon Fletcher (Cramlington and Killingworth) and Sam Woods-Brass (Houghton and Sunderland South).

Advance UK is a far-right party led by Ben Habib, who was deputy leader of Reform before he fell out with Nigel Farage – which everyone seems to do sooner or later.

As Jonathan says, its launch, or perhaps relaunch, is taking place somewhere in Newcastle on 27 September.

The strange ride of Alan Amos

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Augustus Carp, our Defections, Principles and Opportunism Correspondent, has drawn my attention to the remarkable career of Alan Amos. What follows comes from research by Mr Carp, backed up by investigations of my own Wikipedia.

Amos was first heard of as a Conservative councillor in Enfield, sitting between 1978 and 1987. He unsuccessfully fought Walthamstow at the 1983 general election, but had more joy four years later, when he was elected for Hexham in far-off in Northumberland.

He was to become a victim of John Major's Back to Basics campaign, or rather of a briefing given to the press by the now-forgotten figure of Tim Collins - he was the Tory MP Tim Farron defeated to gain Westmorland and Lonsdale in 2005.

As far as Major was concerned, Back to Basics was about bringing back the three Rs in school and the timely repairing of pot holes. But when asked by journalists if it was also about private morality, Collins said yes.

The result was the appearance of a never-ending stream of scandals (or minor incidents dressed up to look like scandals) involving Tory MPs. And Amos was involved in one of them, having the misfortune to be arrested for what sounds like cottaging on Hampstead Heath just before the 1992 election. 

Amos was not charged, but he accepted a police caution for indecency, and stood down as MP for Hexham. Perhaps this might have been survivable by the Nineties, but in the climate engendered by Back to Basics he was toast.

While at Westminster, Amos was known for his vehement opposition to abortion and his enthusiasm for corporal punishment. So it was a great surprise when, in 1994, he announced he had joined the Labour Party. In 2000 he was the star of a Guardian article about the former right-wingers who were now approved Labour parliamentary candidates.

And he was given a seat to fight, losing to Peter Lilley in Hitchin and Harpenden in 2001. He was elected as a Labour member for the Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets in 2002, but lost four years later as the yuppies invaded the Isle of Dogs. In 2008 Amos was elected to Worcester City Council.

In May 2014, with the Council hung, he resigned from the Labour Group to become an Independent, allegedly because Labour hadn't put him up for Mayor.  At the Council AGM in June, Amos accepted the Conservative nomination for Mayor, and as Mayor he then voted for council control to change from Labour to Conservative.

A year later, hours before his tenure as Mayor came to an end, Amos announced he was rejoining the Conservative Party. In May 2024 he was to find himself returned as the last remaining Tory on Worcester City Council.

And, a few days ago, Amos resigned from the Tories to become an Independent once again.

So, over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?

The Joy of Six 1248

"Travelling to Russia to meet the head of a government under EU sanctions, which has disregarded the territorial integrity of another state, is unprecedented. Doing so in the week Hungary has taken over the rotating Council presidency is bulldozing the norms of the presidency as set out by the EU treaties." Armida van Rij says Viktor Orbán is using Hungary’s EU Council presidency to bulldoze EU norms.

Jess Brown-Fuller, the new Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester, describes her first week at Westminister: "The parliamentary estate consists of more than 3 miles of corridors, 1,000 rooms and 100 staircases. Any MPs wanting to escape the 'Westminster bubble' first need to be able to find the exits."

Mick Channon looks at the causes of an environmental crisis that people are beginning to notice: "Over the past 50 years, the global insect population has plummeted by an alarming estimate of 75 per cent. This drastic reduction is the result of a multitude of human activities that continue to wreak havoc on natural ecosystems."

The number of children's homes is soaring as the number of foster parents children falls, reports Mithran Samuel.

"The Channel 4 team accepts that the eye-catching “superhuman” branding of its 2012 and 2016 coverage was controversial, to say the least, and that many disabled people felt it did more harm than good." Lucy Webster on the channel's decision to rip up its approach to the Paralympics.

"[Paul] Hewitt said the dam-building work of the beavers had helped to create ponds, pools and mudscapes covering an area half the size of a football pitch. All of it was positive, he said. The new ecosystems are attracting so much more wildlife, including kingfishers, grey herons and Daubenton’s bats, which feed in the ponds and pools. He added of the beavers: 'They have been gone for 400 years and you soon realise what we have been missing as a result.'" Mark Brown helps the National Trust celebrates the birth of baby beaver on the Wallington estate in Northumberland.

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Andy Boddington, a Lib Dem councillor in Ludlow, explains why he won't be signing a petition on Gaza organised by a Shropshire resident: "How can you be a peace campaigner when you accuse people who won’t sign as having extreme views without knowing their views or reasons for not signing. Mr Robbins should withdraw his reckless attempt to name and shame councillors and to put them in danger. He should work towards peace in the Middle East not towards creating conflict in Shropshire."

"When I explained my situation to my manager, they said I had just two weeks off on full pay. After that, I’d get what is known as statutory sick pay from my employer, paid at just £109.40 a week. I could hardly believe it." After experiencing the financial blow that being diagnosed with cancer also brings, Danny Berry has joined the Safe Sick Pay campaign.

"The point is - there were no pro-slavery societies. People who wanted to carry on benefiting from slavery for as long as possible counseled delay and inaction - that was the only realistic course. It would not have been tenable for Dundas or any other public figure to argue in favour of slavery. In that sense, there are analogies with climate change." Jackie Kemp looks at the different ways the story of slavery is represented by Edinburgh's monuments."

Historic England considers Cornwall's under-researched queer literary history.

"Eight new villages were planned for the Forest, Kielder itself would be the largest - 'new village communities of estate workers, adequately and compactly housed, and enjoying a high standard of local amenities'." Municipal Dreams on a postwar experiment in rural housing.

Stephen Wagg likes Kenneth More far more as an actor than I do, but I still enjoyed his discussion of the sudden decline of More's career: "More ... received an offer from David Lean to play the lead in an adaptation of Richard Mason’s interracial romance novel, The Wind Cannot Read. He says he turned it down, unsure if the public would accept him in a 'Rupert Brooke-style' part; More later called this decision his biggest professional mistake."