Keith Flett

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Keith Flett (born 1956 in London) is a socialist historian and "self-appointed epistolary custodian of the Left" in London, United Kingdom.

Letters from "Keith Flett, London N17" are frequently published in the press, literary and political journals, advancing his favoured causes of socialism and the Beard Liberation Front. Flett appears frequently in the letters pages of Tribune, New Statesman and the London Review of Books. Flett claimed that his first published letter was in the Guardian newspaper, criticising an article by Professor Eric Hobsbawm on Soviet history.

Flett has written and edited a number of history books. He has also written for the left-wing newspapers The Morning Star and the Socialist Worker. He is an active supporter of the Socialist Workers Party and the Respect Coalition. He is convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group and the president of the Haringey Trades Council.

Flett is the 'organiser' of the Beard Liberation Front (which campaigns against the trend of New Labour politicians removing their facial hair to show a more moderate, presentable, image to the public). He is also associated with Campaign for Real Conkers. In this Flett forms part of a British political tradition (along with the likes of David Sutch) of using tongue-in-cheek flippancy to make more serious political points.

[edit] Publications

The Twentieth Century: A Century of Wars and Revolutions (ed. with David Renton). Rivers Oram Press, 2000. ISBN 1-85489-126-X.
Chartism After 1848 : The Working Class and the Politics of Radical Education (Chartist Studies series). Merlin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-85036-544-9.
New Approaches to Socialist History (ed. with David Renton). New Clarion Press, 2003. ISBN 1-873797-41-9.

[edit] References

Routledge, Paul, Bumper Book of British Lefties, 2003, Politicos (ISBN 1-84275-064-X)
BBC: Pupils wear goggles for conkers, 4/10/2004
Flett, Keith. My kind of decade in The Pink Paper, 14th. November, 1997, issue 507, page 21 qv *Knitting Circle