Matthew Kelly

@matthewjkelly.bsky.social

3K followers 840 following 250 posts

Historian of Britain & Ireland at Northumbria University. Beginning new work on the history of ornithology in twentieth-century Britain.

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Political science 33%

Sociology 31%

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Dec 23

We can all identify with this harassed fella. ‘The Minor Official’ from George Birmingham’s ‘Irishmen All’ (1913). Illustration by Jack B. Yeats.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 49m

Correction: In some ways, Funder’s engagement with Orwell’s biographers, whom she treats respectfully throughout, is the most important part of the book. She shows how their resort to the passive voice, evasive language, and wishful thinking obscure both Eileen‘s labour & Orwell’s sexual behaviour.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 57m

Finally, Eileen‘s last letters to Orwell are truly upsetting. By and large, Funder allows them to speak for themselves, and they do. Men should read this book.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Wifedom should make us read biographies differently, more sensitive especially to the representation of women, and especially wives.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

First, the central role played by Eileen’s labour, both paid and domestic which made Orwell’s work possible. Second, sanitising his sexual behaviour, especially their uncritical acceptance of his account of Eileen’s point of view, such as her supposed acceptance of an open marriage.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

In some ways, Funder’s engagement with Orwell’s biographers, whom she treats respectfully throughout, is the most important part of the book. She shows how their resort to the passive voice, evasive language, and wishful thinking demonstrate two things.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Her agency is systematically written out of Homage, Orwell repeatedly resorting to the passive voice to account for crucial and—to repeat—courageous role she played.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

In a set of virtuoso chapters about Eileen’s role in the Spanish Civil War, Funder exposes Orwell’s erasure of her activism, bravery, & centrality to the experiences he describes in Homage to Catalonia. Now hard to imagine a meaningful reading of Homage that doesn’t take account of Funder.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

But what’s really brilliant about Wifedom is how Funder shows Orwell‘s patriarchy to be manifest in his works and reproduced by his biographers, both rendering Eileen Blair invisible.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Funder relates Orwell’s behaviour, particularly his basic assumption that he was to be looked after by a wife, to her own life as a writer, wife and mother. Wifedom gave Orwell what a writer ‘needs’, and some think they’re entitled to, another patriarchal provision.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Another way of putting it, she shows how his behaviour, often inexcusable & subject to criticism at the time, still fell within permissible boundaries, boundaries that Funder argues underpinned patriarchy.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Funder loves Orwell’s work. And working on the life of his ‘invisible’ wife & Orwell’s treatment women, inc. his appalling sexual behaviour, doesn’t change this. Rather than exceptionalising Orwell, tho he is undoubtedly odd, he is treated as shaped by the patriarchal mores of his time.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1h

Thought Anna Funder’s Wifedom brilliant. Perhaps the most effective dissection of patriarchy I’ve read. Here’s some reasons why I liked it as a historian.

Anna Funder’s book Wifedom. Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life (2023).

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Tim Bale, Miri Rubin , and 1 more Jonathan Portes, Tim Bale, Miri Rubin, Matthew Kelly

Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 1d

Breaking the tax pledge is the right call...and politically sulphurous. Reeves must argue, far more forcefully, that taxes are *the* essential downpayment we all pay for a fairer society.

Patrick Diamond and I wrote for @renewaljournal.bsky.social. Key points in 🧵 👇

renewal.org.uk/blog/if-labo...

If Labour want a fairer society, they must argue for it

Labour must make the political argument: taxes are the critical downpayment we all pay to live in a fairer society. It now seems all but certain that direct taxes will rise in the forthcoming Budget...

renewal.org.uk

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

so funny I spat out my coffee / cornflakes as I went to get popcorn

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

This👆

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

I remember feeling touched by this act of solidarity. Just a few short steps from being the Mamdani of Exeter. If only I‘d realised.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

A supporter nicked a Labour banner from a front garden near the school. They thought nothing of it, I found it a bit unnerving. Moment when the sensitivities of the lower middle-class boy & the boy from the estate met in a political alliance but with unresolved questions of tactics & strategy.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

Just something historians of Ireland very sensitised to, though saying UK a Good Thing given signals Britain doesn’t technically include Ireland even under the Union, though British as a descriptor- the British Government - a can of worms that most ‘British’ historians don’t worry about enough!

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry to pedantic, but as you’ll know, Ireland isn’t outside the UK in 1909.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

Lost as Labour candidate in 92 to mate pretending to be a Liberal Democrat who promised to ban IT coursework.

No amount of pontificating about the degradations of Thatcherism was going to beat that.

Helen Sunderland @helenlsunderland.bsky.social · 17d

Did you take part in a mock election at your UK school or college between 1983 and 2001?

Share your memories for a research project on young people and democracy in modern Britain!

Write to us about your experiences here: forms.office.com/e/FNAwjfFR7f

Research Volunteers Needed for a project on the history of young people and democracy in modern Britain. We would like to hear from people who took part in a mock election at their UK school between 1983 and 2001. Write to us about your experiences here: https://forms.office.com/e/FNAwjfFR7f

Reposted by Matthew Kelly, Steven Fielding

Robert Shrimsley @robertshrimsley.bsky.social · 4d

Labour needs to stop fooling itself and lean in to the political logic of its choices. It is a high taxing, high spending government. www.ft.com/content/00a5...

Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Frank Cogliano @frankcogliano.bsky.social · 5d

What's the German word for the joy one feels when a friend publishes a book?

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Take all these points, but seems quite specific to BP. Her adherence to her brief is impressively self-controlled & articulate but refusal to be drawn on anything is a serious weakness if her ambitions go beyond a mid-rank ministerial career. She’s going to need to loosen up!

Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.bsky.social · 7d

I'm sure if any serious attempt was made to do this there would be heads on spikes. It's quite hard to transition to a higher tax and lower consumption economic model, but the current one is clearly creating lots of problems we're no longer able to grow our way out of

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 7d

Do you know that for a fact? Road shd have been reclassified by the CC but would that have overridden the HS2 schedules once in law? Nice earner for the contractors; perhaps not so surprising BCC made as awkward as possible.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 7d

Agree. I’m sure the redesignation just never happened, nobody got around to it, & then it was overtaken by the HS2 legislation, which wasn‘t based on an on-site visit but ‘authoritative’ maps. Possible the local planning process saw talk of a wildlife corridor…

wasn.mt

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 8d

Mad but fascinating.

Prob reveals legislation partly drafted based on maps rather than on-site checks, meaning Bowood ‘Lane’ effectively misclassified, creating an obligation. Can leg be amended to avoid?

Parody of a planning dispute, when local amenity society wins ‘modification’ to proposals.

Martin Robbins @mjrobbins.com · 8d

My latest: Move over bat tunnel, here’s the wild story of how HS2 were forced to build a multi-million pound bridge for a road that… doesn’t actually exist.

How HS2 built a bridge to nowhere

A state-of-the-art road bridge has been built deep in the heart of rural Buckinghamshire. Designed to carry traffic over the HS2 railway, there's just one tiny problem - there's no actual road.

martinrobbins.substack.com

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 8d

Great post! Is part of the problem that the legislation was drafted as a desk exercise, or partly, meaning Bowood ‘Lane‘ was effectively misclassified (see 1 inch OS?) creating an obligation Bucks CC ruthlessly exploited?

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