Mark Perryman examines the prospects for Farage vs Binface

Is a self-styled aristocrat with a dustbin for his head the stuff of Nigel Farage's worst political nightmare?  There's plenty who would like to think so, but the only ones who can make Farage's nightmare, our dream, come true are the voters of Clacton-on-Sea come polling day, Thursday 13 August.

The Reform Party leader, or more correctly, sole owner, had planned the by-election as rebel with a cause vs the political establishment, or more accurately everyone else. As allegations mounted of multi-million-pound donations which seemed destined for his back pocket Farage played the victim while declaring in classic populist style 'let the people' decide, in his favour, naturally.  

But in an avalanche of cross-party co-operation Labour, Tories, Lib-Dems, Greens all declared Farage's manoeuvre as nothing more than a stunt to draw attention away from the far more important matter of the donations never having been declared. Even Farage's deadliest political rival, Rupert Lowe MP, formerly of Reform now striking out on his own with the Restore Britain party and chipping away at Reform support from the right, joined the boycott. 

So, can Binface do it, finish off Farage's political career?

On the surface it doesn't look impossible. In 2024 Farage had an 8500 majority. Not a marginal, but not exactly safe either. His vote 21,225, add up all the parties' votes from 2024 not standing, total 24,219. Easy-peasy?  Yes, but by far the biggest chunk are Tory voters, 12,820, and presumably the least likely to get the joke and vote for a dustbin vs a man who they politically agree with more than most.    

To counter such despondency, we get into the realm of speculation. Turnout in Clacton at the General Election was 58%. A by-election in mid-August won't be anywhere near that. Makerfield was, with the 'Burnham Bounce' 58.8%, Gorton and Denton 47.6%, considerably less so. 

Clacton has had to endure Farage for a bit over two years now as their representative.  Local reports characterise him as not a good constituency MP, a place that has the feel of 'off the map' resenting his grandstanding for himself not them. But would a bin do any better?  

The hope is that the temptation to put two fingers up to Farage's self-centred political ambition with the most dramatic by-election result ever will override all other considerations and reservations. Maybe, but hopes aren't exactly high.  

However for Farage this remains a lose-lose campaign.  He had counted on humiliating his sworn enemy, the 'political establishment.' Instead, as in Rachel Reeves' immortal words when signing off Farage's resignation as an MP to trigger the by-election: "If he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won't stop him."   In a contest of Farage vs Binface, there's only one winner, and it isn't Nigel. Add the very strong possibility of a reduced majority and not only humiliation but even worse for a man with the size of inflated ego Farage possesses, endless ridicule.  You lost votes to a dustbin, really?!  

Yet behind all the joking around at Farage's expense there's a serious political point to be made.

Official Labour Party eve-of-vote campaign materials

Reform lost the Makerfield, Gorton and Denton by-elections and the Caerphilly Welsh Parliament by-election.  All three Labour defences of previously Labour safe seats. The three seats won by three different parties: Plaid Cymru, Greens and Labour.  In both Caerphilly and Gorton Labour made entirely spurious claims, right up to polling day, that 'Only Labour can beat Reform here'.  This wasn't an error, the Labour canvassing returns would have provided the campaign with the real picture, to make such false claims isn't just demeaning with a Reform defeat at stake, it's dangerous. Yes, yes, other parties do the same. Doesn't make it right.

Starmer's Labour ' landslide 'in 2024, y'know the one based on a 33.7% share of the vote, just 1.6% more than Corbyn's Labour vote share in 2019,  6.3% downon Corbyn's in 2017, was of course anything but. Instead, it was a highly disciplined campaign to bypass 'non-battleground seats' that Labour couldn't win but the Lib Dems could, with the Lib Dems returning the favour in Labour targets they couldn't win. Add Reform actively contesting every Tory-held seat whereas in 2019 its predecessor the Brexit Party stood down in every Tory seat but contested all Labour seats.  Landslide? Or Tactical win?

Binface victory or no Binface victory in Clacton, the likelihood remains Reform will be a serious challenger at the 2029 General Election. Yet the chances of an electoral pact to stop Farage are next to zero. And a resurgent left-leaning Green Party threatening to take Labour seats further complicates matters. Nevertheless, a non-battleground seats operation remains the most likely way to stop Reform. 

Reform's Top 50 target seats (see here) consist of an almost equal split: 27 Labour, 23 Tory. In almost every case a 'non-campaign' by those opposition parties destined to finish third or worse in these seats would seriously reduce Reform's chances of winning these first 50 seats. Allied with a well-organised and independent tactical voting campaign, if this combo can work in Reform's top target seats the impact will be multiplied many times over in those further down the list it needs to win and, deep breath, form the next government. 

Either that, or we leave it to Binface to mop up the mess. 

Just £9.95 'Put Farage in the Dustbin of History' T-shirt is available from Philosophy Football here.   

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

Mark Perryman looks backwards, and forwards, from the day the Spanish Civil War broke out  

90 years ago, 17th July 1936, the mutinous General Franco launched his coup, with the substantial numbers of the Spanish army he commanded, to overthrow the elected Spanish government. Franco was almost immediately backed by his fascist co-thinkers, Hitler and Mussolini, with decisive military support to follow. 

1936 was the height of a politics known as the 'Popular Front', uniting whoever was against fascism, all those involved willingly putting their own politics aside for the single cause of stopping the march to power of fascists right across Europe. The recruitment poster for the Ejercito Popular was emblematic of this.  Ejercito Popular, a 'people's army.' Todas las milicias fundidas en el Ejército Popular, 'all militias merged into the people's army.'  

This wasn't simply a political unity, the Popular Front was deeply rooted in popular culture too. 1936 was also the year of the Berlin Olympics, the Nazi Olympics, presided over by Hitler, on the eve of the holocaust the International Olympic Movement in full collaborative mode. Meanwhile in Barcelona the ' People's Olympics' was taking place. The Spanish Republican government had refused to send a team to Berlin Olympics which they correctly surmised would be used to sanitise and propagandise the Nazi regime. Instead, they organised a 'People's Olympics' in Barcelona which 6,000 athletes joined from across the world. The day before the opening ceremony Franco launched his murderous attack on the Republic to start the Spanish Civil War. The Barcelona Games were cancelled; the athletes were forced to leave but some chose not to return home but to join the International Brigades in their battle for Spain's land and freedom. Sport, popular culture, recognised and mobilised by the Popular Front as resistance. 

Within months, and without the communicative aid of television news let alone the internet and social media, the stuff then not even the wildest imaginings of science fiction had dreamt up, Spain became the global epicentre of the Popular Front. The Ejercito Popular joined by the International Brigades, volunteers making their way from across Europe, America, Canada, Australasia. Invaluable reinforcements yet like the Spanish volunteers mostly with little or no military experience. It is hard to imagine now the extraordinary act of courage involved in taking up arms to fight the trained army Franco had at his disposal. An act of bravery framed by political commitment or desperation, or both. 

Add to this the significant and sophisticated support for Franco provided by Hitler and Mussolini. Guernica 1937 a bloodied dress rehearsal for the blitz the Luftwaffe would inflict on London and other English cities just three years later 1940-41. Picasso's painting of what Guernica suffered is the most powerful painting imnaginable of the devestating consequences the inhabitants of the city suffered. But for Picasso this wasn't simply about 'great art' but framed by his own politics: "Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." Art at war, with war. The Popular Front a Cultural Front too, not as an added extra but theorised and practiced as a central part of 'doing' politics. 

In this regard it is entirely fitting to mark the 90th of the Spamish Civil War via an artful recruitment poster for the Ejercito Popular  designed by Emetrio Melenderas, a Spanish graphic artist who produced posters for the Republican cause during the Civil War. Menderas like many artists, poets, musicians, writers and more, put his art at the disposal of the Popular Front, not in an instrumental way but to add another dimension to the resistance. Ejercito Popular, his most famous work neatly comprises the breadth of the Popular Front, from Communists and Anarchists via Basque and Catalan separatists to Spanish republican nationalists. For once, together as one, on a helmet, worn to save lives whatever their differing beliefs.  In later work during the civil war Melenderas used his artistry to celebrate the Popular Front unity of nationalism and internationalism when in October 1936 the International Brigades were formed to join Spain's battle to defeat Franco's insurgency.  And again, the breadth of this resistance reflected in his ¡Movilizacion!  poster beautifully capturing a desperate need, to recruit women for a vital part of the resistance as farmers to grow and harvest the crops would feed the Republic. A vital effort repeated just a few years in Second World War-torn Britain with the Women's Land Army. 

Didactic, instrumentalist, purpose-driven, yes, such art was all of those things. But at one and the same time of the highest imaginable quality, beautiful on its own terms not anyone else's, drawn, painted, produced for the cause in its own unique way not to serve as a necessary add-on. Such a dialectic, for want of a better word, all too rare in the political culture of then, and now. In a word, or three to be precise, it shouldn't be. ¡ Viva Emetrio Melenderas!  ¡ Viva Ejercito Popular!

Ejercito Popular T-shirt is available 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 recommends ten reads that reveal the tournament at its best, and worst.

After three weeks the World Cup finally gets down to the serious business. The starting 48 teams whittled down to the last 16. Win or go home. Yet the 'serious business' of a World Cup for the best part of a century has from the beginning, Uruguay 1930, always stretched way beyond the touchline. The only truly global sporting event, the Olympics don't even come close. To mobilise the passions, partisanship and shared community of a worldwide fan base.  Uniquely combining both a popular nationalism and popular internationalism politicians and activists struggle to comprehend.  The joyfulness of the tournament more often than not surviving in spite of, not because of, FIFA, the multinational sponsors, host nation political leadership. The World Cup that if we look carefully enough shakes the world.

Dancing in the Streets: Tales from a World Cup City  Don Watson 

The last time the USA was a World Cup host it was on its own and England had failed to qualify. All the joy of Italia '90 and England's barnstorming run to the semis came to naught with Graham Taylor's mishap strewn management. Meanwhile 1966 World Cup winner Jack Charlton who had been snobbishly overlooked as England manager because he didn't quite fit what the FA thought the holder of the post should look, sound, behave took the Republic of Ireland to their second successive tournament, USA '94. 

Don Watson, previously best known as a music writer on the 1980s weekly must-read the New Musical Express in '94 turned his hand to football to write a book that not only captures the unique experience of following your nation to a World Cup. For Scotland 2026, read Ireland 1994, But also how this hopelessly and joyfully intersects with the globalism of both the host nation and fellow World Cup competing nations. Of course we can get a flavour of this via the media coverage but nothing like the experience itself. With Dancing in the Streets Don captured this brilliantly and along the way both coins and develops the term 'World Cup City.' My dog-eared copy was what helped convince me to be there the next time, France '98. 

Available from second-hand copies at Abe Books here 

Going Oriental: Football after World Cup 2002 Mark Perryman 

And you could say, just like tens, hundreds, of thousands of other England fans promptly caught the World Cup travelling bug. A bug given an injection of full-blown footballing  global internationalism by England in Japan World Cup 2002, Japan. Unlike France '98 this was a country few travelling England fans had visited before and knew next to nothing about, including me. 

So how to do a book? Japanese, and South Korean contributors,, my favourite footgball writers to fill in the blanks. England fans' reporting on their own experiences. Political and cultural writers to provide the broader context. England went out at the quarter-final stage so no happy ending on the pitch, but thanks to this brilliant range of contributors with Going Oriental I did my best to provide one off it. 

 Available fromsecondhand copies at World of Books here 

The Other Side of the Hand of God : Inside the Most Notorious Match in World Cup History Asif Burhan 

Are World Cups all sweetness and light? No of course not. Any World Cup is made up of a complexity of rivalries, some the product of a history off the pitch, some down to events on the pitch, most a potent mix of a bit of both.

Mexico '86, preceded by the small, or rather, the big, matter of the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war. An episode that, for both sides, has become hopelessly confused with events on the pitch ever since. Ahead of the Spain 1982 World Cup FIFA fixed the draw so that unless the two teams made the final they couldn't meet. Sorted, or so they thought. 

Asif Burhan, whom I first met as a fellow travelling England fan, in his debut book The Other Side of the Hand of God tells in fascinating detail how the football and this short war became hopelessly mingled. Argentina, their armed forces a humiliating defeat off the pitch, only able to win on the pitch by bare-faced cheating. What's to like? Not much. Asif helps us to understand this moment in two nations' shared football history.  One that can't be divorced from the contrary fact that all but the most embittered England fans would gladly, if a little grudgingly, recognise. Notwithstanding his 'hand of God' Maradona as one of the world's footballing greats. 

Available from  Pitch publshing here 

Football and Fascism: The National Game under Mussolini  Simon Martin

Sport and fascism? Oh, you mean Berlin 1936, the Nazi Olympics, the Olympic movement's co-habitation with Hitler, his infamous walkout when Jesse Owens wining four gold medals humiliates Adolf's fervent belief in the absolute superiority of his master race. A familiar enough episode for most sports fans.

Yet Mussolini's connection with Italian football is in many ways much more significant. The inaugural World Cup was held in Uruguay, 1930. The second, Italy 1934, at the height of Mussolini's power, Italy won the competition, the first European nation to do so.  And at France 1938 they became the first team to win the World Cup away from home.

Mussolini unashamedly exploited these victories for their propaganda value, at home and abroad. But more than that, Italian football was reorganised under Mussolini's leadership, he created the first  Italian national league, Serie A. Sounds familiar? In Rome, Turin, Bologna, Como clubs' stadiums were rebuilt, featuring Mussolini's name in their title, or a statue in his honour, or both. This was a regime that absolutely knew, and exploited, the power of football to promote fascism. Simon Martin's book reveals a history that football would rather forget. An account to leave reader feeling thankful that Trump apart from no doubt showing up to spoil the World Cup Final, unlike golf ,shows zero interest in football. A tournament in spite of his worst efforts instead has shown the power of football to unite in joy not divide with hate, or worse.  

Available from  secondhand copies at  World of Books  here

The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup Jonathan Wilson

For dedicated followers of the World Cup and a certain vintage the late Brian Glanville's History of the World Cup has always been a must-read. First published in 1973 updated editions appeared in 1974, 1980, 1984, 1993, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2014 and 2018. Brian passed away in 2025. 

Jonathan Wilson is perfectly placed to continue this there-or-thereabouts quadrennial tradition. A learned writer on the evolution of football tactics, a historian of the game and as founding editor of The Bllizzard steeped in football as culture. The Power and the Glory showcases Jonathan's rich mix of talent to chonicle the cultural reach every World Cup produces. Can't wait for the 2030 updated edition, yes please.

Available from Abacus Books here 

 World Cup Fever: A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments Simon Kuper

Simon Kuper made his debut in 1994 as an author with Football against the Enemy. It won the hugely prestigious William Hill Sport Book of the Year. A kind of Fever Pitch, published two years earlier in 1992, goes global, or if you prefer, on tour.  I don't mean this in a derivative way, rather Simon like Nick entirely understood how football's meaning is located in the deep-seated attachments, and sometimes antagonisms, it ignites. He's subsequently explained this via books on Ajax and Barcelona and expanded his reach to explain, with Stefan Szymanski 'Soccernomics', and further afield an English class and political system rooted in Oxbridge. 

Simon combines all this to produce World Cup Fever made all the more special via his own travelling tales to World Cups 1990-2022. Four of these I've been to, 1998-2010, at one I shared a pre-match lunch with Simon, 2002, Sapporo (I think) prior to England v Argentina.  By then he was travelling with media accreditation. But Simon, who's first World Cup Italia '90 he went to as an escapee student, absolutely gets what a unique experience for fans the tournament is. FIFA, governments, sponsors, do their worst to police, monetise and ruin this experience but my unforgettable World Cup tell  me they never entirely succeed in their endeavours. Fans from every competing nation and the hosts have the time of their lives, in spite of.  Warning, after a read of this book the irresistible inclination will be to want to join in the next time. Start saving now! 

Available from Profile Books here 

What Is FIFA For ? Alan Tomlinson

I've probably learnt more about the politics of sport from Alan Tomlinson than any other author.  As a critical thinker he is simply peerless. Most, including me, would answer the question, 'What is FIFA for?'  With two words. Eff all. Fair enough. An explosion of anger  at FIFA's purposeful ineptitude is entirely justified. Alan's short book perfectly captures the deep-rooted rooted reason why so much of what FIFA does is wrong: clientelism which inevitably breeds a rush for revenue generation at any cost to fund and corrupt practices to service. But at the same time football is by some considerable distance the most global of sports. It functions as such thanks to FIFA, so credit, where credit is due, is properly recorded to balance the critique of FIFA with appreciative understanding of its much understated role. 

Available from Bristol University Press here 

Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing and the FIFA Greed Machine Jules Boykoff

Jules Boykoff 's critique of World Cup 2026 is unashamedly agitational, an adjective I use entirely positively. A former international footballer, academic and campaigner, the anger leaps off the page to drive the reader on from one murky episode of World Cup 'sportswashing' to the next. If there was a 'man of the match' award for sportswashing there is little doubt Jules would dishonour Infantino with it, job done. But the difficulty remains, once the games kick off the joy of the spectacle takes over. The answer Jules provides is much like a match: 

"We're living a pick-a-side moment in history when one must choose democracy or authoritarianism. If someone refuses to choose, then in reality, they have chosen. To that battle, I say game on." 

Off the pitch, in the land of Trump, or indeed Farage, such a binary opposition is understandable. but with football the lines are blurred. The global carnival of joy a World Cup produces  isn't 'false consciousness' rather its is very a welcome break from all the world throws at us the rest of the time. How to make that connection critical as well as joyful? The answer lies in a quote Jules opens his book with from Stuart Hall, the political theorist not the disgraced former TV commentator:

 "Politics does not reflect majorities, it constructs them."

1-0 to Hegemony United. 

Available from OR Books here 

Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency David Goldblatt

Of course, World Cup 2026 doesn't stand in (un)splendid isolation. The kind of critique Alan Tomlinson and Jules Boykoff provide of FIFA and the tournament come mid-August will be just as necessary to apply to the domestic game. There's no one better to provide precisely this than David Goldblatt. 

David excels as a writer by combining both a counter-history of football with identitying an alternative present to the one we've been lumbered with. While at the same time providing a detailed  understanding of the system that has produced the state football is in.   

His most extraordinary achievement? None of this leaves the reader depressed, instead intellectually armed with the belief that another football is possible, if right now implausible.

Injury Time ranges far and wide, choose to dip into chapters for insights into how football frames Europe, economics, racism, national identity, the climate crisis. Or reverse the process, how Brexit, the decline of authority, nationalism, covid, the changing geography of club ownership frame football. Either way, or a mix of both, once World Cup 2026 is over this is a book to focus minds and hopes for season 2026-27. That's if England haven't won the trophy, in that eventuality all critical thought might need to take a gloriously-earned rest 

Available  from Mudlark here 

FIVE STAR BOOK CHOICE 

All Played Out: The Full Story of Italia '90 Pete Davies 

For my Five Gold Star choice of a book to shake the World Cup I've gone all the way back to Italia '90. In one beautifully crafted sentence author Pete Davies summed up precisely the meaning of that, this, any World Cup. 

" Planet Football - it's a place where the simple dreams of boys kicking a ball between coats on the ground are force-nurtured, under floodlights and cameras, to the most mutant and enormous dimensions."  

Pete's book, was his first book on football, a novelist he came to Italia 90 afresh, and left it bewitched. Italy, Bobby Robson, Gazzamania. Lineker, missed penalties, he gloriously captures the lot. It is no criticism to note that swiftly following the success of the tournament 'Planet Football' became 'Mod£rn Football', in 1992 both the Premier League and the Champions (and rich runners' ups) League were founded. The rest is history.

But before all that All Played Out describes a World Cup at its very best. When I set out to edit a collection The Ingerland Factor: Home Truths from Football about the first World Cup I travelled to, France '98, I was chuffed to bits Pete agreed to contribute a chapter. And again for my World Cup 2002 collection. Never mind my own modest efforts, those two chapters of Pete's are the finest ever achievement of my football books. If you haven't read it grab yourself a copy of All Played Out and you'll understand why.  

Available from secondhand at Abe Books here   

Note  No links in this review are to Amazon, if you can avoid boosting the obscene wealth of tax-dodging billionaires please do.   

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

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman explains how despite the worst efforts of FIFA and the White House three hats symbolise what remains of a fans World Cup 

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Or their more free-thinking predecessors the International Socialists.  But I've always had a sneaking regard for their slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism" first coined by the International Socialists at the height of the Korean War.  Why? Because in just seven words it decries loyalty to either of two brutish behemoths in the cause of something better. Hence my adaptation to reflect my feelings about Trump, Infantino and World Cup 2026.  For they are doing everything possible to monetise out of existence the popular internationalism a World Cup produces and in turn robbing this and future World Cups of precisely what makes the tournament so uniquely special as a sporting event. Or to mobilise another far-left quote in my critical cause, Karl (Marx) himself: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."

A football World Cup holy? Isn't that putting it a bit strongly? But the scale of football's importance is there's nothing as global as football. The English language? Yes, spoken as a second language worldwide but mostly by social elites. The rules of science and mathematics, shared only by specialist professions.  Middle and long-distance running, yes, a global sport but one that doesn't have a popular following outside of the Olympics. Professional boxing, a global sport too yet World Champions who attract a global fan base few and far between, Muhammad Ali the obvious exception, not the rule. 

It's 'International Footballism' which makes football, and since 1930 a World Cup, unique as a sporting, indeed cultural event. Football, apart from the blessed offside rule, a game of the simplest possible rules, a spherical object to cross a line between two vertical objects and below a horizonal bar. There is not a continent on earth where the game isn't played.  Professional leagues attract a global audience and fanbase. European domestic league club teams made up of umpteen nationalities. And every four years all of this brought together for a World Cup. 

This is what Infantino and Trump, if we're generous, simply don't understand, but ignorance is no excuse for the mendacious threat that together they pose. 

Of course, Infantino, like previous FIFA Presidents Havelange, and Blatter, speaks the language of the global game and its international inequalities with Europe and South American interests dominant. Havelange won the vote and ousted Sir Stanley Rous in 1974 largely on the promise to give better representation and support to the fast-emerging African and Asian football nations. Rous in contrast was both a post-war administrator still in imperial mould and dogged opponent of FIFA banning Apartheid South Africa from international football. But any principled solidarity first Havelange, then Blatter and now Infantino might have once possessed soon enough turned into a politics of transaction, ensuring FIFA Presidents bought a bloc of support via patronage that made their position of absolute power impregnable.  

And a World Cup should be globally representative. Its growth reflects this from 13 at the first tournament Uruguay 1930, 16 teams from 1taly 1934 to Argentina 1978, then 24 teams from Spain 1982 to USA 1994 and 32 teams France 1998 to Qatar 2022, and now 48 at World Cup 2026.

In 2013 Sepp Blatter set out the reason for tripling the size of the tournament from its early days: "! would like to see globalisation finally taken seriously, and the African and Asian nations accorded the status they deserve at the FIFA World Cup. It cannot be right that the European and South American confederations lay claim to the majority of the places at the World Cup."

However compromised Blatter's intentions few would disagree with the sentiments. Yet European and South American domination of the tournament has barely changed. Morocco in 2022 finally becoming the first African nation to reach the semi-final stage, following South Korea becoming the first, and to date only, Asian nation to do so in 2022. Whatever the basis of Blatter's and now Infantino's intentions it is absolutely the case that competitive sport isn't a representative democracy. 

Pretending that it is means World Cup 2026 will be lumbered with a full month of scarcely meaningful games until the quarter-finals take place. There might be the odd upset along the way but the chances of any of the countries filling those 16 extra places featuring amongst the eight teams in the Quarters are very long indeed and scarcely any shorter for the last 16 a few days earlier. Continental competitions, the African Cup of Nations, the Asian Cup in particular, are key to the globalisation of football. The dogged resistance of the European leagues releasing players for these tournaments the polar opposite to what should be football's global solidarity. Following the Arab Cup model by expanding the number of sub-regional competitions would further extend the participation in international tournaments of nations less likely to make it to a World Cup. Closer to home reinstating the Home Nations tournament for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales would help make up for when the latter three fail in their World Cup qualifying campaigns (ouch!).

All previous World Cups have been defined as much by the host nation as the action on the pitch. This is almost as true for those watching at home as the travelling fans. It was Euro 96 that turned me into a travelling England fan. But despite attending all of England's games it was being taken by a mate to Italy v Germany at Old Trafford that convinced me. The streets and pubs surrounding the stadium packed with German and Italian fans. The Germans mainly travelling fans, the Italians mainly second and third generation migrants, one group with their huge banner ' The Azzurri from Norwich greet the Azzurri'. A popular internationalism. And so it proved. France '98, the Danish fans joyfully partying the night away on a Nantes campsite despite just being at the wrong end of a 3-2 against Brazil which meant the next morning they'd be homeward bound. Japan 2002, where countless Japanese wore England shirts with 'Beckham 7' on the back, us England fans loved not as had been more usually the custom loathed. Germany 2006, hearing the guilty admission of so many England fans that as the Germans seemed to like us wasn't it about time we stopped hating them? South Africa 2010, a country I'd spent my twentysomething years protesting against and here I am at a huge party in Soweto watching South Africa's opening match on a big screen. Framed by the host nation, practiced by fans worldwide, home or away, this is a popular internationalism writ large by what both unites and divides us, football. And to date there's never anything quite like it.    

 An expansion of dubious purpose and doubtful positive consequences for the so-called beneficiaries threatens to destroy this. The number of countries of sufficient size with the stadia and infrastructure to host a 48-team tournament are very small indeed, and that assumes any of these precious few have any interest in doing so. A World Cup host nation is a very special responsibility, both awarding that privilege and carrying it out. We will see in future World Cups split across two, three or more host nations.  Canada and Mexico will no doubt do their best but in reality will be bit part players, to Trump's USA, leaving their citizens to ask what's the point, why did we bother, how much did that lot cost. Japan and South Korea were the first, and to date, last Asian nations to host a World Cup, if FIFA was truly committed to a global game rather than one dominated by Europe and South America it would be doing everything possible to persuade China and India to be future hosts. Morocco will co-host the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal. Good, but again it's a bit-part, this time in the centenary World Cup. A tournament which if FIFA had any understanding of its own history deserves to be where it all began, in 1930, the first World Cup, Uruguay. Not a very commercial proposition so the money spoke and one hundred years of World Cups swiftly dumped by for financial reasons. .

Neither Trump nor Infantino?  Not all that is rotten in how we arrived here can be dumped on them, but enough can to make them more responsible than most. Trump's politics are about both monetising everything he can get America's hands on and demonising anyone he chooses to disagree with armed with the most destructive forces available. His exclusion of a world class referee simply because he came from Somalia emblematic of a President only too ready to be at war with the rest of the world. He will self-evidently use the tournament explicitly to his own political purposes and never mind the consequences for what many of us still, if a little romantically, cherish as the global people's game. FIFA has for some considerable time proved an inadequate defender of any such version of our game.  But making it as difficult as possible, in many cases impossible, Trump doesn't like the ideological, look of, opening up the tournament to ticket pricing based on the very most anyone is willing to pay, while at the same time removing the kind of help for fans, including cheap transport and accommodation options previous tournaments have provided the message is clear. High-priced ticket holders welcome, the rest, get used to it.  Oh, and if you complain too loudly, Infantino's response? Quit moaning.  

Neither Trump nor Infantino, most certainly. But, despite every one of their mis-steps becoming more evident and their self-serving attempts to grab a portion of the World Cup's reflected glory fans whether at the World Cup or watching worldwide will treat them with the contempt they deserve, good. And we'll do this by celebrating with Americans, Canadians, Mexicans what we share, our love of football. For six weeks only, a bobble hat replaced by a Stetson, a Sombrero and the unique headgear of a Canadian mountie. Hats off, or rather on, for International Footballism because with it another World Cup is always possible.

Three Hats World Cup 2026 T-shirt is available 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 questions who this 'we' is Harold Wilson declares has only won a World Cup under a Labour Government 

In March 1966 Harold Wilson's Labour Party won a landslide victory and just four months later Harold was there to celebrate when England for the first, and to date last, time lifted the World Cup. Never mind the (disgraced) Peter Mandelson, England's victory spurred Harold to the greatest piece of Labour spin-doctoring ever. 

At the Wembley Final Harold infamously he sent one of his advisers to the BBC matchday studio to suggest the Prime Minister ,and lifelong Huddersfield Town fan, join commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme for some half-time punditry.  An invitation that was promptly turned down. P'raps the adviser lacked the (disgraced)silky charm of Peter Mandelson?! 

Four years later most unwisely Labour risked their 1970 General Election chances by choosing a date slap-bang in the middle of England's defence of their World Cup at Mexico '70.  The quarter-final defeat to West Germany  was widely blamed for Labour's defeat just four days later. 

Yes, really. Wilson's Minister of Sport, and former football League referee, Denis Howell, was better-placed than most to justify the impact. "The moment goalkeeper Bonetti made his third and final hash of it on the Sunday, everything simultaneously began to go wrong for Labour for the following Thursday," 

Labour and football, eh? Be careful what you wish for. Still at least 1970 General Election victor Ted Heath and his sundry Tory Prime Minister successors have proved incapable of robbing Harold's sound-bite of its enduring truth, 

But any kind of relationship between politics and international football in the particular context of England has a broader context than simply an England victory, defeat or draw supposedly being dependent on the party in government at the time. 

To understand this, take note of one crucial word that Harold gets spectacularly wrong, 'we'. Great Britain is unique in international football, represented by four - and for the purposes of football at least- independent nations. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  It doesn't require either pedantry or nationalism to recognise this. The fact neither Harold nor Keir, who every time a summer football tournament comes around will very publicly choose an England shirt for his go-to leisure wear, fail to understand the significance of football's multinational Britain tells us, or at least it should, everything we need to know about Labour Unionism. 

As a Scot Gordon Brown might have thought he was being helpful travelling out to support England at World Cup 2006 in Germany as the British Prime Minister. But precious few England fans were won over by this particular Scot's new-found England fandom while in his native Scotland it went down like a lead proverbial. Of course, not all Scotland fans are nationalists. But in 1992 when Jim Sillars lost his Govan seat he'd won in an infamous 1988 SNP by-election defeat of Labour he angrily denounced the Tartan Army as '90-minute nationalists' it was a very different era to now. The SNP are no longer a minor party via the Scottish Parliament it is a governing party with a formidable number of MPs at Westminster too.  Never mind 90-minutes ,a significant proportion of Scots today are 24-houes 365-days-a-year nationalists while in Wales and the North of Ireland Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein are both in government. Whatever the rights and wromgs Harold got away with 'we' in 1966 he certainly couldn't today. Yet Keir wears his England shirt regardless of what it says to our breaking-up Britain. 

Such confusion is both muti-faceted and deep-rooted in Englishness. World Cup Quiz question: which is the only team at this summer's tournament to line up before kick-off without a National Anthem of their own for them and their fans to belt out? England! God Save the King is the National Anthem of the United Kingdom, not England and just try asking the Scotland team to drop Flower of Scotland to join in too. 

This isn't pedantry, it gets to the core of Englishness, a contradictory mix of nationalism and unionism. The most vivid example of this recently has been  the spate of hanging flags, Union Jacks and St George Crosses, off lamp posts in a movement to 'Unite the Kingdom'. Much of this wrapped up in a version of English patriotism which does little to distinguish itself from bad old-fashioned racism. 

Contrast this to what Harold's 'we' has become. The Wembley 1966 final was full of Union Jacks, the St George scarcely present. The tournament mascot  'World Cup Willy' wore a Union Jack. Yes, the only time England has not only won, but hosted too, a World Cup and the FA got our flag wrong.  Few England fans this summer will make this mistake, the St George Cross universal, home and away. And in sheer numbers will absolutely dwarf those of the lamp post hangers too.  And the purpose dwarves them too. A St George Cross celebrating a multicultural team managed by a German on its own doesn't make for an anti-racist, Europeanised England but given the popular-political will are very welcome first steps in both directions. 

In July 2024 Keir Starmer's Labour Party won a landslide victory and just two years later Keir was there to celebrate when England for the second time lifted the World Cup at the New York New Jersey stadium. 

Well, that's one Labour pledge all of England can get behind. 

T-shirt The Philosophy Football Harold Wilson T-shirt is available here

Mark Perryman  has written a number of books on football, national identity and Englishness including 1966 and Not All That and is the co-founder of the self-styled ' sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman portrays John Robertson as a symbol of all that was good about the European Cup 

OK England's relationship with European football didn't exactly begin well.

1955 the first European Cup. Chelsea, the First Division champions, are banned from entering by the FA, the competition is not considered as in the best interests of English football.

The competition itself is a knockout competition, two legs home and away, league champions only, no seeding. The classic FA Cup model before it too was bastardised, but that's another sad tale to tell. 

The first five years marked by dominance, Real Madrid win all five competitions 1955-1960. The birth of a popular, Europeanised, football culture. The 1960 Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt final, Hampden Park, crowd of 127,671, 7-3, BBC televised it, across Europe an estimated 70 million watched the game (terrestrial, no satellite TV). The greatest football match ever? And expansion, 26 nations league champions entered, up from 16 in 1955.

But tragedy too. In 1958 The Munich Air Disaster, Manchester United 's plane crashes on the way back from playing Red Star Belgrade in the quarters. Liverpool yes Liverpool, lend United players so they can complete their season. The following European Cup in another act of footballing solidarity United are invited by UEFA to enter. No such compassion from their own FA mind, who quite extraordinarily refuse to allow United to do so.

Through the 1960s the competition continues to expand. The champions of Norway, Malta, Albania. Iceland all join the competition. In 1966 Yugoslavia’s Partizan reach the semis, the first team from Communist Eastern Europe to do. 

1966-67 The Champions of the Soviet Union enter for the first time. Celtic win against Dukla Prague from (East European Communist) Czechoslovakia in the semis having beaten Yugoslav (ditto) side Vojvodina in the quarters. In the final, they beat previous champions Inter. The first ‘British’ side to reach the final, and win. But this was of course an entirely Scottish victory, shaped by the sectarian divide. tho’ famously the entire Celtic team was born and grew up in Glasgow. In the first 12 years of the competitiion there had been Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and now Scottish champions of Europe.

And in 1968 Man Utd, become the first English Champions, winning the  trophy, after extra time. At Wembley, incredibly exactly ten years on from Munich Air Disaster.  

United's goal-scorers in the Final?  Bobby Charlton (2) Brian Kidd and George Best. The core of the team:  Bill Foulkes David Sadler, John Aston, Nobby Stiles, Shay Brennan and Tony Dunne. As Eamon Dunphy puts it in his superb book on Matt Busby and the troubled succession years (an essential read to understand the troubled Ferguson succession) A Strange Kind of Glory "all had graduated from Busby’s School of Excellence, the car park at Old Trafford.” 

Today United's support comes from all parts of the British Isles, not to mention the entire globe on a national and international scale that their latterday rivals, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, and in recent years, more successful too, can only dream of is put down to a better marketing operation. But its origins lie not in the antics of marketing gurus, instead in the national outpouring of sympathy following 1958 and a nationwide celebration of recovery via victory in 1968 that all but the most embittered would join in. I can still remember my cub scout Saturday morning football side the autumn after all turning up in red shirts, white collar and cuffs. Not ridiculously expensive bri-nylon replica shirts plastered with sponsors' logos in those days, but young boys pestering our parents all summer long to find a top that would make us look like, if not play like, our heroes, in deepest Surrey!  

But it wasn't all good. By the 1970s a growing reputation for English hooliganism was crowned by Leeds fans when in 1975 their club reached the European Cup Final, only the second English club to do so, only to fill the stadium with a riot following defeat by Bayern Munich. Other countries had equally bad reputations for football hooliganism domestically, the difference was England exported it.

However happier news was to come. 1977, Liverpool beat Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Rome final.  Foreign players? Joey Jones Wales, Steve Heighway Republic of Ireland. English manager Bob Paisley. The first of six consecutive wins by English league champions.

John Williams, Liverpool fan and author of the definitive social history of the club described the post-match celebrations: “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.” 

Liverpool won a second consecutive European Cup in 1978 and again in 1981. But in-between unarguably the greatest European Cup achievement of all.

1978-79 Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest knock out holders Liverpool in the 1^st round. Forest win the first of two consecutive European Cups with three foreign players, all Scots Kenny Burns, John McGovern, John Robertson, two more Scots as unused subs plus Northern Ireland’s Martin O’Neill.   

1979-80 Forest's unique record is that they have won the European Cup more times than their domestic league Forest's tea in the final, three foreign players, all Scots, plus one sub, English manager, beat Hamburg. 

 And John Robertson, one of those Scots, was central to this incredible achievement. 243 consecutive games for Nottingham Forest December 1976 - December 1980. In that amazing run he scored the winner for Forest in the 1978 League Cup Final, was key to the team winning the 1977-78 First Division, provided the cross that Trevor Francis put away to win the 1979 European Cup and the winner to retain it in 1980.

Daniel Taylor, football writer and Nottingham Forest fan, sums up the magnitude of the achievement John was such a major part of, perfectly: 

“Forest’s rise to the top, lest it be forgotten, took place when only the champions of each country and holders could compete in the European Cup. There was no safety net of multiple group stages to guard against the occasional defeat here and there and the legacy, thirty-five years on, is that Nottingham had won the competition more times than London (now equalled), Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome – with a combined population of 30.4 million- altogether. It took Manchester United, champions in 1968, another thirty-one years to win the European Cup for a second time – Ferguson’s win in 1999 coming at his fifth attempt – and it was 2012 when Chelsea finally notched one up for London. Arsenal, Tottenham and all the others are still on the waiting list.” 

And what we have now is 'The Champions League.' In a feat of newspeak that would do Orwell proud UEFA has rewritten the entire history of the European Cup as The Champions League when until 1992-93 it wasn't. A 'Champions' league which isn't any such thing. 'Champions and Rich Runners-up League' might not attract such high value sponsors yet stands as an infinitely more accurate description. Or in its latest expanded incarnation, ' Champions, Rich Runners-up and Also-rans League.' On what possible basis can a club that has finished 4th, 5th or even 6th be described as a 'Champion'? Wealth, of course. The purpose of replacing the European Cup with a league format was absolutely explicit.To protect and multiply the wealth of what are what are already the wealthiest clubs and leagues.

A knockout competition, teams drawn randomly to play each other,  no seeding, home and away legs, threatens all of this. Tough, its called sport. And what this means is that John Robertson's achievement, a player for a club outside the very wealthiest, of two European Cup Winner's medals will almost certainly never be repeated. And that is the absolute antithesis of what a European Cup should be about. . 

John Robertson tribute T-shirt available from Philosophy Football

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

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman calls time on the forthcoming Thatcher Centenary

Margaret Thatcher's 13 October 2025 centenary is a moment to reflect on how she, or more accurately 'Thatcherism', so decisively shaped the 1980s. And for ever more too, the post-war consensus she deconstructed and to date never to return. 

The Labour historian Jim Fyrth describes what framed this consensus that had previously so decisively shaped British society and economy 1945-79.

"A mixture of Socialist, Labour, Keynesian, Fabian/Liberal and anti-Fascist ideas that was strongly anti-establishment and anti-capitalist, and was hostile to those who were held responsible for poverty and unemployment and for appeasement of the Fascist dictators." 

Wow! It was this combination that was the basis of Labour's 1945 strength, what Fyrth admiringly dubs a 'popular front of the mind' the plurality of influences and ideas, the breadth of support. And it is this which produced an historically unique moment:

" It looked as though Conservative supremacy in society might be quite overthrown and a new hegemony of the Left be established." 

But despite the populist idealism of Aneurin Bevan 'We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, and now we are the builders' any likelihood of a ' hegemony of the left' was replaced by the early 1950s, and thereafter by a consensus between right-wing Labour and progressive conservatism. Popularly known as 'Butskellism' fusing Hugh Gaitskell, Labour leader 1955-63. with Tory Cabinet Minister Rab Butler 1951-64.  Better than what followed when another '-ism', Thatcherism, dismantled that consensus but by no means as good as it might have been.       

Stuart Hall prefaced the entrenchment of Thatcherism that would commence with her leading the Tories' rout of Labour in the May 1979 General Election with an essay for the January 1979 edition of the magazine Marxism Today. It was this essay 'The Great Moving Right Show' that would spark a wide-ranging debate not only on Thatcherism but what Hall argued facilitated it, a deep-seated structural and ideological crisis of the left.

As Hall developed his description of the Thatcherite project it became more and more terrifying, but inspiring too. Terrifying in so far as what Thatcher was able to achieve, inflicting defeat after defeat on her opponents most spectacularly the miners' strike of 1984-85. Inspiring, in so far as what Labour, and the wider left, could achieve with a hegemonic project on the scale of Thatcherism. 

Hall listed those elements required for a hegemonic project to succeed:

" The attempt to put together a new 'historical bloc'; new political configurations and 'philosophies': a profound restructuring of the state and the ideological discourses which construct the crisis and represent it as it is 'lived' as a practical reality; new programmes and policies, pointing to a new result, a new sort of 'settlement'."    

Of course, none of this appeared in the Tories' manifesto nor in Thatcher's campaign speeches and broadcasts. And no I'm not suggesting that because they didn't appear on Blair's 1997 pledge cards nor in and amongst Starmer's 2024 missions this is the damning evidence required that 'The Great Moving Right Show' has never been superseded by 'The Great Moving Left Show' But read through Hall's list and ask yourself is this what Blair(ism) and Starmer(ism)'s politics amount to?  

And if they don't is it enough when Labour achieves the kind of landslide victory Blair did in 1997 and Starmer in 2024? Hall's argument was that Thatcherism had all the makings of success, her utter destruction of a post-war consensus that had lasted since 1945. In contrast the complete failure of Blair, and Starmer, to replace Thatcherism/Neoliberalism. Helpfully Hall detailed what elements would be required for such a break:

" These do not 'emerge': they have to be constructed. Political and ideological work is required to disarticulate old formations, and to rework their elements into new configurations."  

Blair's legacy, Starmer's prospects, should be judged precisely in how far they fulfil this task. For all the good, and there was a lot, that Blair did, and all the good that Starmer will do, which I entirely expect there will be, this surely is the least we can expect of Labour governments. But to use a now favourite word in Labour's lexicon 'change' without that construction, disarticulation and reworking, no new consensus will be established. What a waste. 

Following the 1979 General Election, in his essay 'Thatcherism: The Impasse Broken?' the editor of Marxism Today,Martin Jacques, mapped out why the Thatcherite hegemony was as much a product of a crisis of what the 1945 Labour vision, 'Now Win the Peace',  had turned into, as a victory of the right. 

Jacques described this shift as from a project of transformation to an ever-increasing emphasis on modernisation, sounds still familiar? The newly elected Labour leader, Harold Wilson had prefaced this change in his speech to the 1963 Labour conference: 

"In all our plans for the future, we are re-defining and we are re-stating our socialism in terms of the scientific revolution. But that revolution cannot become a reality unless we are prepared to make far-reaching changes in economic and social attitudes which permeate our whole system of society. 

The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry."

Jacques set out what this produced in turn:

" The strategy of modernisation it sought to carry through - aimed at a major transformation of the economy and society - proved not only completely inadequate relative to the nature and scope of the problem but, crucially, it also involved a new kind of attack on the position of the unions and, more widely, the working class, that is on its own social base."

The effect wasn't immediate, Labour's 1945 election-winning vote share of 47.8% was still as high as 47.9% when Harold Wilson won in 1966, an impressive holding of the electoral ground. But after that the decline was non-stop, coming to a shuddering halt on 36.9% in 1979 (note Starmer's 'landslide' was an even lower Labour share of the vote,  33.7%.) Likewise, Labour membership reached a post-war high of 908,000 in 1950 but after 1964 fell every year to 676,000 in 1978. The current 2025 figure is under half that, 333,235.

The reason for the decline and Labour's defeat in 1979?  Jacques argued:

" Labour has become identified with the increasing use of the state in an administrative, impersonal, bureaucratic and even authoritarian manner." 

He described the implications as 'profound':

"The Labour Party for many people, especially young people, is no longer seen as an effective oppositional, anti-establishment force; on the contrary, for many it has become an establishment party, partially incorporated into the state structures....

... Inevitably, this has undermined the position of the Labour Party as a party, rooted in society, enjoying a popular activist base, and committed to reforming society."

The post-war consensus which Labour had founded in 1945 followed by Labour's 1960s flirtation with a technocratic modernism was ignominiously ended by the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent. An outpouring of angry strike action as layer after layer of low-paid workers resisted the poverty imposed on them by Labour's state-sanctioned programme of wage restraint. Be careful what you wish for? Sure, but own a crisis that was every bit Labour's making as Thatcher's windfall. Statism that was once the glorious shock of the 1945 new replaced by an alien, bureaucratic, inefficient state that was no match for the right to buy your own home, become a shareholder in an unfettered public utility, bring bright, shiny, new management practices to a failing NHS. This was modernisation, and then some. To which Labour had no effective answer because it had helped create the need for such drastic, if disastrous, action, in the first place. What a gift, the consequences we've been living with ever since. Time to wish Happy Birthday Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! With the inevitable Out! Out! Out!

Thatcher Centenary Steve Bell design exclusive to Philosophy Football and available as a mug, tea towel,T-shirt and framed print here. 

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of Philosophy Football. 

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman selection makes sense of a party in trouble

The 04.07.24 landslide seems like a lifetime ago in the lived experience of this Labour government and attendant party.  A Prime Minister elected on a record-breaking low share of the vote, 33.7%. A victory secured by the split in the right's vote between the Conservatives and Reform UK. Further aided by the unwritten pact that meant Labour effectively withdrew from seats where the Liberal Democrats were best placed to oust the incumbent Tory MP, and where Labour best placed the Lib-Dems doing likewise.

Once victory secured however, what has been dubbed the 'loveless landslide' could, should, have been turned into an era to inspire and give hope. But nothing of the sort has appeared, instead Keir Starmer is achieving record lows in polls measuring favourability. Meanwhile Reform UK has such a big and consistent lead in the polls Nigel Farage as the next Prime Minister has moved from a nightmare to realistic possibility.

As Labour meets for its annual party conference how might we make sense of a party in such trouble? My selection finds the top ten books to help in this venture.

The Starmer Symptom : Mark Perryman 

OK I have to declare an interest here ...  Nevertheless, The Starmer Symptom written in the year since the landslide is the first book to account for how those twelve months have shaped Labour's prospects. This is a collection of essays, edited by me, with a foreword by Clive Lewis MP, the collective thoughts infinitely more incisive than anything I could have come up with on my own. Comprehensive too, mapping the 2024 vote, measuring the fallout for the parties, a critique of Labour's response to the key issues facing it in government, and an outline of the alternatives to a party in impasse.

The Starmer Symptom from here

The Most Dangerous Man in Britain? : Tony Benn

Labourism has a terrible habit of always looking backwards rather than forwards. But a modernisation so intent on appearing forward-looking at the expense of learning everything from the past is every bit as bad, if not worse. In the early to mid 1980s 'Bennism' was a hugely popular movement in and around the Labour Party, never dominant, its rise bitterly contested by the Labour Right it was nevertheless part and parcel of Labour, and a wider left. Benn however wasn't just a leader, a thinker too, this new collection of his political writings testament to that. Agree or disagree with Benn's thinking there are few Labour figures who have matched him since for his boldness and originality including the one figure from that Bennite left to lead the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

The Most Dangerous Man in Britain? from here

Run Zohran Run!: Theodore Hamm

Looking for a sign of present-day hope? While the Green Party under Zack Polanski show all the signs of a party with the potential to repeat their successes winning inner city seats off Labour in Brighton andBristol and the civic-nationalism of the SNP and Plaid Cymru continue their revival those who have promised a left alternative to Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana offer only that well-worn experience of the internecine and the warfare. Hopeless? Theodore Hamm's book is a gripping account of how Zohran Mamdani defeated his party's machine from within to win the Democrat's nomination for November's New York Mayoral Election. If he proves victorious in the election itself an addition for Andy Burnham's bookshelf, and all who'd back him to win the Labour leadership. 

Run Zohran Run! from here  

Gaza The Story of a Genocide :  Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro  

Beyond the looking-glass world of Westminster politics and the ups, or mainly downs, of Labour's poll ratings Gaza has provided the basis for a generational shift. In much the same way as Hungary in '56, Vietnam in 1968 and Iraq in 2003, Gaza since the murderous Hamas attack in 2023 followed by Israel's deadly assault on Gaza which is now internationally recognised as genocidal,  is a conflict that has come to define the current era. 1956 had dire consequences for the Communist Party but was hardly an issue to affect Labour. Vietnam, despite the huge pressure to do so, Harold Wilson refused to send British troops. Iraq damaged Blair, deservedly so, yet his 1997 landslide recorded a huge 43.2% of the vote,  which meant unlike Starmer he had a sufficient cushion to ride the declining support for Labour in 2001 and 2005 to victory. Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro's collection is a wide-range of cultural responses to Gaza a hugely imaginative breadth of anger, and hope. A testimony to a shift that a tin-eared Starmer seems almost entirely oblivious of and Labour will pay the price for.                

Gaza The Story of a Genocide from here

The Next Crisis - What We Think About the Future : Danny Dorling

The latest from the extraordinarily prolific Danny Dorling, and like all his other writings this book doesn't disappoint, anything but. Combining empirical analysis with originality of insight is Danny's style, together they make for a convincing argument, but does he have the ear of a government minister, or two?  He should! Across key issues, including the cost of living, immigration and the climate crisis, the book digests polling data to uncover a range of universally powerful anxieties that don't fit either the conventional picture we have of voters or the limited range of responses politicians choose their responses from. An essential read to map out any kind of Labour recovery.

The Next Crisis from here

Eviction - A Social History of Rent : Jessica Field 

For many voters the number one issue will be housing. The lack of, rising cost to rent, treatment by landlords. Labour's response is build, build, build! Yet almost entirely absent from that project is the issue of ownership. A party more identified than any other council housing, where ownership lies with the local state instead of the weasel word language of 'affordable housing' and 'social ownership.' Jessica Field mixes the historical with the personal to document the central social conflict in contemporary Britain, tenant vs landlord. Council housing was never perfect but it remains the only way to inject a democratisation founded on accountability into that relationship because it isn't founded on the profit motive but a social objective. This is the book on which to found such a switch.

Eviction from here  

Radical Abundance - How To Win a Green Democratic Future : Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell 

Ed Miliband is one of the Cabinet Ministers who it could be said doesn't fit the Starmerite yes-man, or yes-woman, mould. He has made arguments around energy and climate change  very much his own as the 'Green New Deal' morphed into 'Great British Energy'. But despite those best efforts none of this can amount to much so long as the government's one word response to all matters economic is, growth. And never mind the consequences for, the climate. 'Radical Abundance' is the answer the authors of this wonderfully engrossing book offer. Not hair-shirted socialism but a flourishing of pleasurable possibility via the democratic control of the green means. Framed by actually-existing examples of how, this is a handbook for a new economy, and society. 

Radical Abundance from here

Between the Waves - The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 : Tom McTague

Keir Starmer was only elected as an MP in 2015, prior to that with his responsibilities as Director of Public Prosecutions any involvement in the Labour Party would have been minimal. Despite this, and not being a 'Corbynite' he was trusted by Jeremy Corbyn post the 2016 Referendum with steering Labour's response to Brexit. A 'steer' which he successfully directed in the direction of Remain, to be enabled by a second referendum. Alongside positioning himself as the Corbyn continuity candidate it was this which helped him win the 2020 Labour Leadership Election.  The break with the Corbynite pledges has been widely noticed. Much less so the breach with Remain, a far more awkward switch for many of his supporters. Tom McTague's book is a brilliantly-written explanation of why despite Keir Starmer's worst efforts, and the 'Lexit brigade', this is an issue that won't disappear, nor should it. A history of a present the Prime Minister would prefer didn't exist.

Between the Waves from here   

Friends in Common - Radical Friendship and Everyday Solidarities : Laura C. Foster and Joel White

Freed from the limits of Labourism, outside the conference hall stage-managed politicking, in nooks and crannies of civil society there are disparate forces seeking to re-imagine how we 'do' politics. The late 1970s book Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism remains the key text for those engaged in this almighty endeavour, it is superbly fitting that one of the book's authors, Lynne Segal, is quoted on the back cover welcoming this latest addition to the literature towards that end. How can friendships framed by political co-operation become the foundation for ever-expanding and dynamically inclusive communities? And in the process reinventing an old value 'solidarity.' Friends in Common, a most welcome handbook of audacious ideas.

Friends in Common from here

FIVE STAR CHOICE 

How to Defeat the Far Right : Nick Lowles

Whatever happens at Labour conference, however good the speeches, wherever the votes end up (not that these have any impact on Labour policy whatsoever nowadays) one thing is certain. Reform UK will still lead the opinion polls, Nigel Farage will remain a credible contender to lead his party to winning the next General Election, and 'Tommy Robinson' will continue to whip up a tidal wave of popular racism.

Nick Lowles has form in stopping all of this.  A combination of undercover work exposing the murderous intent of neo-nazi grouplets, the huge effort to defeat Nick Griffin's credible effort to win Barking in the 2010 General Election, research, surveys and community-based initiatives to challenge the far right in the localities they would seek to lead. 'Hope not Hate' a campaign like no other, and all the better for that. Free of the placard-waving and name-calling in order to make a difference. This book should have been given to every Labour conference delegate, Keir give up his party leader's slot for Nick to address conference, campaign workshops replace the rituals of resolutionary labourism. For this is an emergency.
 

In the absence of any of that grab yourself a copy, it might just be our last chance to prevent a nightmare becoming a reality.

How to Defeat the Far Right from here

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Note No links in this review are to Amazon when purchasing, if you can, avoid giving money  to billionaire tax-dodgers.

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

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman welcomes a footballer exposing the truth about Gaza 

Following the death of Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid UEFA tweeted sorrowfully:

“Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the ‘Palestinian Pelé. A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times."

Fair enough, nice of them, many must have thought. Not Mo Salah who with three questions exposed the moral dithering over Gaza not only in football but wider across popular culture, society and politics.

“Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” 

The answers were easy enough to find, the fact UEFA hadn't provided them tells us so very much.

He died, like tens of thousands of others as a result of an Israeli armed assault which was purposefully and lethally indiscriminate.  We can argue the toss over whether or not to call this 'genocidal' what is without question is these killings are by no stretch of imagination, or Israeli government denials, accidental. Of course, avoidable tragedies occur in any war, the entire history of warfare is full to overflowing with human tragedy. But such killings on such a scale reveal what is clearly Israeli military policy.

What was Suleiman doing to put himself in such a precarious position? Queuing like thousands of other Palestinians for humanitarian aid. Even being the 'Palestinian Pelé' didn't mean he and his family could avoid such a necessity if they weren't to starve. These aid distribution points are easy enough to identify and ensure free of the gunfire, and worse, all around them. There is a long tradition, originated by the Red Cross, of such sanctuaries in war. Not in Gaza, not from the excesses of the Israeli military.

OK in a tweet UEFA might not have been able to explain all of this. But simply to bid Suleiman 'farewell' tells us plenty, and none to UEFA's credit. 

To date authoritative sources have recorded over 60,000 Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel, including the Palestine FA report over 400 footballers. 

The 'darkest of times' well put, but without anything resembling the reason why, the sentiment becomes entirely meaningless.

And Israel has faced no consequences for its actions from FIFA. 'Keep Politics out of Sport' is the well-worn mantra but of course sport, especially international sport, is unavoidably political. Whatever the country the 'national team' represents the nation on a global stage and politics via national identity is entirely indivisible from that. Eric Hobsbawm's words " A nation of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people" is generally used as a positive, but it is equally applicable as a negative.  A point often missed is Hobsbawm wrote those words recounting his experience as a Jewish schoolboy following football during the rise of the Nazis in Austria before he escaped as a refugee. Sport not political? When England played Germany in the 1930s the team were instructed by the FA to give the Nazi salute when they lined up for the anthems. Sport not political? When Tottenham Hotspur hosted England v Germany at White Hart Lane in 1935 the club flew the swastika from the flag pole on the roof of the much-loved East Stand. 

Sport has always been used, sometimes more subtly, in such ways. And on occasion FIFA has in turn used its status as football's world governing body to police this too. In 1961 South Africa was banned from international football because of the ruthlessly racist state policy of apartheid.  A ban that was dropped in 1963 when the last English President of FIFA, Sir Stanley Rous, following his negotiation that South Africa would field all-white and all-black teams at alternating World Cups. Yes, really.  A gross insensitivity to global opinion, particularly in Africa. Rous out-voted, South Africa was suspended in 1965. Two years later in an unprecedented move Rous was deposed, mainly due to African countries' votes, South Africa expelled, a suspension lasted 25 years until the ending of Apartheid. An ending marked by the country's triumphant hosting of World Cup 2010. A happy ending, of sorts, and intensely political.

In 1992 the bitter ethnic conflicts, eventually descending into all-out wars, that accompanied  the break-up of Yugoslavia led to the country, despite topping their qualifying group, being suspended on the eve of Euro 92.  With just ten days to prepare lucky old Denmark replaced them, going on to win the tournament.Today all the Balkan nations compete independently in UEFA and FIFA competitions, Kosovo the most recent to do so.

Following their hosting of World Cup 2018 Russia after invading Ukraine was banned from both the 2022 and 2026 World Cups. England, Poland and Sweden pre-empted this decision, unilaterally declaring they would refuse to play Russia. The ban continues while both the Ukrainian national team and club teams, despite being mostly in exile, continue to play in both UEFA and FIFA competitions, providing a vital focus of hope and identity for Ukrainians in their war-torn country and as refugees across the world.

Which leaves another question concerning UEFA's tweet. Why is Israel a member of football's European confederation, unlike its neighbours Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine all members of the Asian confederation (Egypt is a member of the African confederation). A question I've never once heard asked in any football commentary, or raised in a match report, of an Israeli club or the National Team competing in European competitions or World Cup Qualifying. Not once, ever, let alone since the current conflict. 

The Israeli FA, the successor organisation to the Palestinian FA which included both Jewish and Arab club sides, joined the Asian Confederation in 1956. And their membership proved successful, Israel was runners-up in the Asian Cup of 1956 and 1960, hosted the tournament in 1964 which they also won. But off the pitch Israel was a site of major conflicts, most notably the 1967 Six-Day War and 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Arab and predominantly Muslim nations more and more refused to play Israel. In 1967 Israel was summarily expelled from the Asian Confederation. 

UEFA admitted the Israel National team in 1991, Israeli club sides in 1992 and as a full member in 1994. This is despite Israel not being in any sense a European nation. It was a decision with absolutely nothing to do with events on the pitch and everything to do with events off it. This is an entirely political decision, which neither UEFA nor the attendant football media seem at all willing to admit. 

So, should we despair, give up all hope? No, not ever. At the 1972 Olympics this conflict collided with sport in the most tragic of manners. Israeli athletes taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. In the ensuing shoot-out most of the athletes lost their lives, either killed by Black September or in the crossfire with the police sharpshooters. 40 years later Palestine featured again at the Olympics, at London 2012 Palestinian athletes marching for the first time in an Olympic Opening Ceremony behind the Palestinian Flag. For good or bad, sport is always political, given the will the outcomes can be positive not negative. Mo Salah shows us how to shift the balance now, when we need to so much, from the latter to the former. Hope 1 Despair 0.    

Philosophy Football's Suleiman al-Obeid & Mohamed Salah T-shirt is available here.

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

Philosophy Football's Mark Perryman eclectic summertime reading 

The summer, a time for the beach, sunshine, sunglasses and in between whatever takes our marine fancy for a holiday read. A bit of escapism, something for the fast-approaching start of the new season, a challenge to prejudices old, and new, words to inform and inspire as tools of subversion. My selection aims to provide all of this, and more. 

Red Menace: Joe Thomas 

Joe Thomas was a beach read discovery last summer via White Riot a novel that brilliantly weaved its way around the late 1970s growth of the National Front, a resistance led spectacularly by the Anti Nazi League and Rock against Racism. And then into the early 1980s featuring the rising number of young black men dying in police custody. A political thriller with a left wing bent, the added twist being it is written from the perspective of a spycop. Oh my! Red Menace the second in a promised trilogy, this time taking us from the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham to the Wapping Picket Line. I'm not sure there's ever been novels written with such political insight and rollicking plot lines. A writer top of my pile, second summer running. 

Red Menace from here

Pitch Invasion: Karen Dobres

Karen Dobres is the face, brain and unstoppable energy behind the reinvention of non-league Lewes FC as the global trailblazing Equality FC.  To declare an interest, I'm a supporter of Lewes FC and don't always entirely agree with the detail of the direction Karen would take the club, or indeed football, in. But that's not the point. It's the direction that is right, arguing over the detail shouldn't distract from that. Where the two collide is the almost unremarked upon dominance of women's football by the same 'big' clubs as the men's game. And in the process the almost complete extinction of autonomous women's clubs of the sort of the glorious Doncaster Belles. Pitch Invasion provides the kind of rounded view that if applied could resist both these unwelcome developments. 

Pitch Invasion from here

Planet Patriarchy: Beatrix Campbell and Rahila Gupta

Long-standing feminists, writer Beatrix Campbell and Chair of Southall Black Sisters Rahila Gupta deliver an outstanding and up-to-date analysis of patriarchy, worldwide. Much has changed in and around feminism since the heady days of the 1970s 'second wave'. But as this politucally spiky duo reveal much hasn't. Their survey of the inequality and discrimination women face globally proves that but also the enduring commitment to change all of this of its foe, women's liberation. A movement founded on sisterhood, solidarity and resistance. The sheer variety of expressions of this mix the authors uncover quite breathtaking, the scale of what societies produce to deny these women liberation staggering. A potent combination for a powerful read.

Planet Patriarchy from here

The Activism of Art: Dipti Desai and Stephen Duncombe

Stephen Duncombe is one of those rare writers who combines the study of how culture shapes politics with an accessible way of describing how. The often indecipherable  language of cultural studies academics stripped bare, to produce a new common sense. In his latest book, co-authored with Dipti Desai, these two wonderfully gifted writers chronicle the intersections between art and politics that the sheer scale of the dullness of the conventional versions of 'doing politics' from the parliamentary to the protest ignores, at their and our peril.  As self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' something Philosophy Football has sought to deconstruct from our very beginnings.  In this regard, a book not only to read but also to practice.

The Activism of Art from here

Sound System: Dave Randall

If there's one space where the fusion of the cultural and the political has revealed the popular potential of the mix it is music.  Dave Randall is both a professional musician and a skilled interpreter of his mix.  In Sound System, sub-titled 'the political power of music' he has written an intellectual how-to guide for a movement of change in which a soundtrack is every bit as vital as the more customary baggage of worthy texts. Historical, international and practical, the three ingredients of not only this very fine book but the reasons for the huge impact of the current most obvious example of what the book might aspire to, Kneecap.

Sound System from here

The Carnation Revolution: Alex Fernandes

The kind of political fusions in their different ways Dipti Desai, Stephen Duncombe and Dave Randall describe take their most vibrant forms in revolutionary moments.  The trouble is despite the worst efforts of Saturday morning Socialist Worker paper-sellers those moments for most of us are either few and far between, or faraway, or both. Yet for those heading to the Algarve coast for the beaches and sunshine, or Lisbon for a summer city break Portugal was the setting of a revolution just a generation ago. The Carnation Revolution by Alex Fernandes records in thrilling detail how in 1974 Europe's last remaining fascist regime was brought to an end, daring deeds, the courage of crowds, the rebellion of young army officers. Those were the days, a regime and its empire ended by R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-ON. 

The Carnation Revolution from here  

The Fiery Spirits Popular Protest, Parliament and the English Revolution: John Rees 

Detailing the leadership and ideas that would lead to the deposing of King Charles (no not that one) and his eventual execution in 1649 (ditto) The Fiery Spirits is a hugely readable account in the tradition of a 'people's history' of Christopher Hill and others. This was English republicanism on the march, at war with all things regal. Yet as John Rees details this was a movement that knew it needed to make allies, to use the inspiration of their republican, revolutionary ideals to inspire others. No, despite the execution, it didn't end the monarchy but it did strip them of almost all their powers, if not riches. Which left me asking after reading this very fine book, time (minus the execution) to finish the job?  

The Fiery Spirits from here

A People's History of the Anti Nazi League (1977-1981): Geoff Brown

If English revolutions are in historically short supply, the same, thankfully, cannot be said of mass movements on these shores that effect social change. In the 1930s the Popular Front against Moseley and his black-shirted British Union of Fascists, the International Brigades who went to Spain to defend the Republic against Franco's fascists.  In the 1950s the rise of CND, in the 1960s the anti Vietnam War movement and in the 1970s to stop Apartheid South Africa via stopping their cricket and rugby tours. The Anti Nazi League absolutely stands in this tradition as detailed by Geoff Brown in his 'people's history'. Unselfishly galvanised by the organisational skills of the Socialist Workers Party the ANL worked because it was unimaginably bigger and broader than the self-styled 'revolutionary left'. And everyone could be a part of it, from wearing a 'Scholl Kids Against the Nazis' badge, pogoing at a Rock against Racism gig, dishing out leaflets, going on marches and if push came to shove stopping the fascists, the National Front, in their tracks.  A rich and plural variety that not only makes a very good read but powerfully illustrates all kinds of lessons for how we resist today the rise of the populist right and their attendant far right too.    

A People's History of the Anti Nazi League from here      

Palestine A-Z: Kate Thompson

The Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were the movements that provided a generational moment in the late 1970s the Miners Strike did the same 1984-85.  The Iraq War 2001- 2005, the student tuition fees protests of 2010, #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo (fill the gaps with your own memories and experiences) and now without any doubt Gaza. This last has by no means ended and the abject betrayal of Palestine by the political and wider establishment, most notoriously by this Labour government, has created a cleavage which (quite rightly) won't be closed in a hurry. But this cannot be an excuse for narrowing the cause to the fully signed-up left.  Palestine is absolutely not a left/right issue the cause crosses all such divisions, it must appeal, not only to those who will march and those who don't. The potential is huge and broad yet nowhere near reached.  Kate Thompson's delightful A-Z will convince anyone why it needs to, if not, how?

Palestine A-Z from here

FIVE STAR CHOICE 

The Leopard In My House One Man's Adventure in Cancerland: Mark Steel

My 'five star' choice for this summer's top beach read is a comically inspirational real life read out of real-life potential disaster, cancer. No, it doesn't sound like quite the book for long-awaited summer hols but in the hands of the one and only Mark Steel anything is possible.  Cancer touches the lives of all sorts, ages and sizes, it requires all the skills the NHS can provide to detect and diagnose. The treatment often lengthy, sometimes intrusive.  Most cancers can be moderated, few extinguished entirely, some, too many, prove lethal. Men on the whole aren't very good talking about much, or indeed, any of this. Mark Steel is, and provides bucketfuls of laughs along the (happy ending alert) road to recovery. An absolutely superb beach read.  Five gold stars fully deserved. 

The Leopard In My House from here   

Note No links in this review are to Amazon, if you can avoid buying books from tax-dodging billionaires please do so.  

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of Philosophy Football, his new book The Starmer Symptom is published by Pluto in August, here