Beard of Winter Shortlist
Luke Littler, darts player
Liam Dutton, weather forecaster
Prince Harry, personality
Paddy McGuinness, personality
Idris Elba, actor
Sean Dyce, football manager
Owen Jones, journalist
Joe Root, cricketer
An on-line vote will open shortly. There will be two preliminary Close Shave rounds and a Beard Off Final. The winner will be announced on 31st January 2026
Wapping dispute started 24th January 1986, 40 years on…
Like the miners’ strike of 1984/5, the Wapping print strike of 1986 was one of the iconic labour movement battles of the Thatcher era, and one of the biggest defeats.
Rupert Murdoch sacked thousands of printers and other skilled workers who produced the S*n, the Times and the Sunday Times. He moved operations to Wapping in East London (part of the start of the ‘renovation of the docklands…) and introduced then new technology. The papers were then produced by scab members of the EEPTU the old electricians union, now part of Unite (which is not responsible for that clearly).
The dispute led to regular Saturday night mass pickets with the aim of stopping lorries going out with the Sunday Times (Murdoch later learnt that lesson. The News International production plant is now on the M25 at the intersection of the ‘red route’ that runs up from Tottenham Hale).
I was 29 in January 1986 already a seasoned socialist and an activist in the Society of Telecom Executives (now part of Prospect) which despite the name and arguably because of the managers and professionals represented, was a left leaning TUC affiliated union.
My memory of the Saturday pickets was that they were a tumultuous affair with struggles with the police which tbh were very familiar from the miners strike. The other abiding memory was having a beer in the nearby Artful Dodger pub, where Keir Starmer was also to be found (I didn’t meet him I don’t think though we have mutual acquaintances)
The strike resonates 40 years on because it was a battle for how the world of work was going to develop. The new technology was coming but was it going to be on the employers terms or on the terms of the people who would operate it. The same battles are now being faced over AI
In one of the least surprising pieces of news so far this year Nigel Farage’s appearance at Davos this week was not paid for out of his own substantial funds but an Iranian venture capitalist, who is now based in London.
Farage was previously a fierce critic of Davos but clearly the thought of being somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of Donald Trump (who he did not meet) overcome any shred of previous principle.
The Guardian which has been very good at digging around under Farage’s patio as it were has the story
On the face of it the story would appear to be fake news or AI generated slop. However it comes from a report in The Times (22nd January). While the Murdoch press is not beyond printing lies (!)
Johnson is doing four lectures at the University of Miami of four hours each in the Spring Term 2026. There is a half-time break at two hours for the students to recover, although according to The Times reported Johnson’s usual mixture of bluff and BS has been well received.
The lecture series is titled ‘Britain’s Boris Johnson. Leadership, Legacy and Lessons Learned’.
One suspects the main thing Johnson has learned is that he can make a lot of money from doing this kind of thing.
Paramount Retail Group, who brought Saltaire Brewery in 2023, have acquired Black Sheep Brewery in Masham which had been on the verge of administration. This means that venture capitalists Keystone have exited the beer business.
Along with the Black Sheep Brewery, Purity Brewery in Warwickshire is also included in the deal and possibly North Brewing although it appears unclear if they are still brewing.
Then there are a range of brands that Keystone acquired in recent years including Magic Rock, Fourpure, Brew by Numbers, Brick.
Hofmeister which had a UK distribution deal with Keystone have switched to Heineken.
It means that 145 at risk jobs are safe and brewing will continue at Black Sheep and Purity.
It might be argued that the continuing issues and the failure of Keystone underline the crisis in the brewing and pub trade. No doubt that is true but a wider picture points to the difficulty that independent breweries- even those owned by smaller players in the market- struggle to get on bar tops in a trade dominated by the likes of ABInBev and Heineken
Farage has spent years denouncing Davos but in 2026 he turned up to speak on the US House platform and back Donald Trump. Unfortunately while Farage was backing the invasion of Greenland and tariffs Trump did his trademark TACO.
Farage however was modelling a new image for plans for a UK version of ICE the US paramilitary State grouping that echoes the Italian Squadristi from the early 1920s…
The Traitors Series 4. Agency & Class
Series 4 of the Traitors ended on 23rd January. Viewing figures have been lower than for the Celebrity version but still decent 6 million plus.
There has been a good deal of media comment. The Guardian has run several articles and The Times (22nd January) has a piece looking at the possible biases in the programme on race, gender and age. One might think, guilty, given these are significant biases in British society as a whole.
I’ve had a look at a few other angles. One was suggested by Barbara Ellen in the Observer. Namely that some players familiar with previous series have agency. That is they are running their own agenda on how to play the game rather than just reacting to events. Rachel is perhaps the most obvious example.
I also pondered whether there might be a London bias (I am a Londoner of course) to the 22 players. That is not where they came from but where they live now. If you include Essex and Brighton in a wider London diaspora (see house prices) it still doesn’t get above 30%. So that doesn’t fit.
Class is a more interesting angle. Those who have had the clearest (if often wrong) analysis of who might be a Traitor, the two QCs, the DCI and of course Rachel who is some kind of senior professional are firmly middle class.
Jade is a PhD student and Ellie a psychologist but neither offered a compelling perspective, perhaps deliberately- see agency above.
The more proletarian players, gardener, builder, hairdresser, one might think would have some views on how someone like Rachel might not quite be what she says she is. Apparently not.
I won’t be applying for the next series but as a long time union officer who represents members and negotiates with employers you do need to have a reasonable sense of who is telling the truth, the whole truth etc, and who might not quite be on the level.
So next time as well as QCs and retired police officers what about one or two people from the labour movement. You can of course take a view. At the end there would either be no traitors left or only one…
French leader Emmanuel Macron has been rude about Donal Trump calling him a bully.
Shortly after this became public Macron appeared at Davos wearing a pair of dark glasses, which have subsequently gone viral as a fashion item.
Officially Macron has a temporary eye issue. As likely he was trying to disguise his appearance from US Special Forces. Dissing Donald doesnt go down well in Trump’s New World Order.
The glasses are however not enough. Macron needs a beard to complete his disguise.
Post the Ashes debacle the England cricket team, ODI version, are back in action in Sri Lanka ahead of the T20 World Cup. Both Rob Key and Brendan McCullum remain in place for now as does of course Harry Brook as Captain.
Below is a link to a Test Match Special podcast (21st January)which has a long-ish interview with Brook.
Jonathan Agnew and Stephan Shemilt are the BBC hosts.
It covers the midnight curfew now imposed on the England team, the lifting of the ban on players having a bacon sarnie for breakfast and Brook’s enthusiasm for golf..
Aggers seems to be of the view that Jacob Bethell should replace Brook as the short form captain while Shemilt appears to have a temperance influenced perspective in England cricketers and drinking. The point is made that the England fitness regime is well behind that which now applies in top rank football and rugby (although one suspects darts..)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0mw94p2
Sri Lanka won the first ODI by 19 runs despite Jamie Overton’s final overs efforts
Trump’s rambling speech at Davos seems to have caused a shifting of the tectonic plates in British politics.
Allister Heath, the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph, is somewhere on the hard to far right political spectrum. However in a comment piece for the Telegraph (22nd Jan) he makes it clear that no right-wing or fascist political leader can now back Trump. It is a significant fissure, although Enoch Powell was also strongly anti-American in an earlier period.
Nigel Farage’s byline regularly appears in the Telegraph (as he made clear earlier in the week he doesnt write the articles) and on Wednesday Farage was to be found speaking at the ‘US House’ at Davos. He backed Tump’s plans to invade Greenland and levy tariffs on Europe. Unfortunately for Farage a few hours later Trump did his usual TACO.
Allister Heath, Daily Telegraph 22nd January 2026
Defcon 3, here we come. The world is a powder keg, and Donald Trump is flamethrower-waving like a famished pyromaniac. He desperately desires Greenland, and will incinerate any relationship, however special, that stands in the way of his imperial delirium.
His speech at Davos was incendiary, a torching of the West by the supposed leader of the free world. The blackmailer-in-chief now claims he won’t use force to seize Greenland, but if America’s “immediate negotiations” are underpinned by the kind of techniques that would have made a New York mobster proud, what difference will it make?
His threat to tariff Britain, his grotesque bullying, have obliterated any residual goodwill towards Trump among the Right-leaning British public, even when they agree with him on Chagos, net zero or his scathing assessment of Europe. No Western conservative leader, from Jordan Bardella to Giorgia Meloni to Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch can afford not to condemn him.
There is a real danger that Trump’s imperialistic overreach could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction. A concerted boycott of US treasury bonds, as some are demanding, would destroy not just America but the European and world economy.
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