About This Recording

As 2025 comes to a close, despair overshadows hope for 2026. It has been a year of harsh economic and geopolitical cruelty. The ongoing cost-of-living crisis makes food, housing, and small joys unaffordable. This year, genocide was normalised, and fascism became mainstream politics in the West.

It’s doubtful that we can escape the cul-de-sac neoliberalism pushed us into without a bloody revolution. However, if there is a way forward, it will be achieved by honestly remembering our working-class history — without interpretation or reinvention by the entitled, who dictate the ebb and flow of even popular culture. We can use our past to revolutionise the future, so it can be for the many rather than the few.

On an audio tape, Harry Leslie Smith recalled Christmas in 1930, when he was seven years old and working-class Britain struggled through a harsh Great Depression hunger crisis. My dad’s words are redemptive and contemporary, considering how many bairns in 2025 will undergo a similar Christmas, thanks to a cost-of-living crisis created by the 1% to increase their wealth and power over us.

Harry Leslie Smith was an ordinary man who lived through extraordinary times. He was born during an era when the working class lived in destitution, and the entitled classes lived lives of excess and narcissism. His life’s journey was a voyage most of his working-class generation undertook through the Badlands of poverty and war. But the sacrifices they made in their youth weren’t in vain — from those struggles, my father’s generation created the Welfare State.

Before Harry Leslie Smith died in November 2018, he dedicated the last decade of his life to warning ordinary society not to make his past their future. He wrote books, made speeches, and undertook exhaustive speaking tours in pursuit of this goal. His last project, The Green and Pleasant Land, was unfinished at the time of his death.

It’s a working-class Remembrance of Things Past, as well as a political testament about democracy’s need for a Welfare State.

For almost two years, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now finished and ready to find its audience. If you’d like a beta copy, just send me a DM.

A Note from Me

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has stayed the same for all four years and will continue to do so.

There’s also a tip jar if that’s your preference.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith — a voice that still matters in this era of political and moral amnesia.

If you can’t contribute, that’s fine too. We’re all in the same boat. Please share this Sub stack so it reaches its widest possible audience.

Take care, and Happy Christmas, John

The videos were about his memories of the refugee crisis in Europe following the defeat of Hitler’s Germany. The images from those last months of the war — and the months after peace was declared — still haunted him seventy years after he first witnessed them. It compelled him to go on the road and visit modern day refugee camps when he was in his 90s.

On the road to Hamburg, an endless procession of refugees trudged past: forced labourers, ex-prisoners, survivors from concentration camps, and Germans fleeing the Soviets. Some carried worn luggage held together with rope; others walked with nothing but the clothes on their backs. With eyes cast down, they plodded along that dusty road in search of home. (Excerpt from The Green And Pleasant Land.)

If he were alive today, Harry Leslie Smith would have given no quarter to Britain’s morally bankrupt Labour government or its self-serving Prime Minister, Keir Starmer who is the 1%’s most loyal lickspittle. The government’s plans to overhaul the asylum system — making it the most draconian in Europe — put Britain on the road to becoming, the most fascist government on the continent.

The refugee crisis continues to expand, driven by conflicts that enrich powerful Western elites and by the climate emergency, which accelerates displacement. Starmer’s government appears determined to dismantle Britain’s asylum protections not for pragmatic reasons but out of self-interest, prioritising power and privilege over humanitarian responsibility.

We live in an age of intolerance, superstition, superficiality, and hubris. The downfall of the West is no longer a question of if, but when. There is no pulling back from it. Britain, it seems, is determined to keep pace with Trump’s America as both nations race toward their own destruction.

The uploaded UNHCR video, although seven years old, can be taken as my father’s response to Starmer’s inhumane changes to Britain’s asylum laws.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Outro:

This month marks the seventh anniversary of my dad’s death, and the fourth anniversary of my Harry’s Last Stand newsletter going live. In these past four years, this blog has grown to over 3,400 subscribers, with more than 700 posts published.

Harry Leslie Smith’s voice matters more than ever in a time when we need to remember our working-class past — and what ordinary citizens achieved when they united as one to demand, and then build, a Welfare State.

For the past eighteen months, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now finished and ready to find its audience. If you’d like a beta copy, just send me a DM.

There’s no paywall here. Every piece not only speaks to the present moment but also keeps Harry Leslie Smith’s working-class legacy alive. That’s only been possible because of your paid subscriptions and tips. Your support has kept the wheels on the bus, the lights on, and me housed.

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has remained the same for all four years and will continue to do so.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith.

Take care,John

Thanks for reading and supporting Harry’s Last Stand.For the past eighteen months, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now done and ready to find its audience.

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has remained the same for the last 4 years and will continue to do so.

Or if you prefer there is a tip jar.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith — a voice that still matters in this era of forgetfulness.

If you can’t contribute, that’s fine too. We’re all in the same boat — rowing together through a cost of living crisis sea.

Take care,John

People no longer know why they should care for humanity's displaced. Not a day, week, month or year reserved for Refugee Awareness can alter the xenophobia that now consumes society.

In Gaza, famish people are lured into zones where they are promised food and then are shot by Israeli soldier or American mercenaries posing as food aid workers. Many escape these daily massacres, but many don't. It's something straight out of the annals of the Nazi Holocaust. But Israel has been granted impunity by the West to exterminate Palestinians. So it is normalised, sanitised and even propagandised as actions done by Palestinians themselves.

Refugees die in their hundreds off the coast of North Africa or are sold for slavery in Libya but no one cares. For a decade, the news media portrayed refugees as grifters, rapists and terrorists, so a dog drowning in a river gets more sympathy than a child drowning with their parents off the coast of Calais.

My Dad donated the last years of his life attempting to make Refugees Welcome. At my Dad's deathbed, Canada’s Minister for Refugees came to pay his respects.

In his typical fashion, my father said the minister's time should not be spent on him. "I am a goner, but the refugees can be saved."

As it turned out, Canada decided not to prioritise saving refugees. Instead, Canada became a cruel place for refugees to find sanctuary. Many live on the streets others are deported to the USA, where they are then shipped to concentration camps in El Salvador or elsewhere. The ones who remain in the USA, UK, EU or Canada face racism, violence and outright hatred by citizens who have been taught that the cost of living crisis is the fault of a society's most vulnerable rather than its wealthiest inhabitants.

In June of 2018, Harry Leslie Smith predicted he would be dead before Christmas. He was 95, and his body was tired from old age and the relentless work schedule he undertook during those last years of life "to not make his past our future."

He was exhausted and physically weak after being battered by an unforgiving and persistent lung infection. Despite his diminished health, my Dad agreed to appear in a video for UNHCR Canada. It was to help make refugees welcome. My dad knew his time was short, but he didn't want to be selfish with the time left to him. Harry Leslie Smith used his last few months to advocate for others because he was still haunted by the refugee crisis he'd witnessed in 1945 following WW2.

Please share my Dad’s video as widely, as possible.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

For the last 18 months, I've been piecing together my Dad's Green and Pleasant Land, which was unfinished at the time of his death. It covers his life from 1923 to July 1945 concluding with Labour winning the General election. The book at least in its beta form is ready and shortly its final chapter excerpt will be posted. Let me know if you want a copy as I am compiling a list.

Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other comorbidities, which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost-of-living, tariff war crisis times. So, if you can, join with a paid subscription, which is just 3.50 a month, or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it is all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

Keir Starmer will kill it in Britain. Canada's provincial premiers are killing it with the speed of drowning a kitten. Neoliberalism corrupts any politician who manages to grab hold of the greasy pole of power of government. Canada's Federal government, which does have the ability to save it- won't because they are also part of the problem rather than the solution.

I am not resigned to its death. I am enraged by it as if it was one of my kin dying prematurely. I know once it's gone, so too goes any hope for civilisation.

I found this unedited audio file today on my computer. It was recorded in 2015 by my Dad.

It's good because it lays out what happens to us once public healthcare is owned again by the 1%. It's not pretty now what we are living through. In a short while perhaps eighteen months, we will think of this time as the good old days for public healthcare.

The Harry’s Last Stand project, which I worked on with my Dad, for the last 10 years of his life, was an attempt to use his life story as a template to effect change and remake a Welfare State fit for the 21st century.  Below is one of the many essays from that project that are still relevant to the battle we wage today to stop his past from becoming our future.

Your support in keeping my dad’s legacy going, and me alive is greatly appreciated. I depend on your subscriptions to keep the lights on and me housed. So if you can, please subscribe, and if you can’t -it is all good because we are fellow travellers in penury. But always remember to share these posts far and wide.

There is now a tip jar available if you are so inclined. Cheers, John.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Racism in England is a long-standing chronic societal cancer. It was only partially mitigated by the post-war Welfare State. When neoliberalism tore apart the social safety net of nations like Britain, for privatisation by the 1%-it was done as if were ship wreckers breaking apart an obsolete tanker for salvageable parts. Nothing remained afterwards except the skeleton of a compassionate society. The tolerance of a fed stomach was replaced with rabid xenophobia from those hungry for a decent life. It wasn't an unintended consequence of neoliberalism but deliberate because if you hate those beneath you for allegedly stealing your chance for the good life, then you won't be looking for the real thieves of your right to a prosperous and purposeful existence, the entitled.

England is seriously fucked up, and not because of refugees or Muslims. But by a news media class who earns their bread by telling the public their hard-knock life is because of the vulnerable, the refugees and Muslims and not the wealthy.

The participants of these riots by fascist mobs across England and in Belfast are the most heinous, knuckle-dragging lowlifes. Yet on many occasions, I have encountered people like them at parties, weddings and even family gatherings, over my lifetime. I remember a distant relative from Halifax who lamented the ancient guillotine on Gibbet Street couldn't be brought back to life to chop the heads off of the f*****g (insert racist epithet). The rage of the broken, the stupid and the poor is so easily harnessed to do evil.

Extreme violence against refugees and migrants might be a minority position in Britain. But antipathy, bigotry and dehumanising of them is an accepted mainstream position.

The news media and political class have created environments for Islamophobia to grow along with intolerance for refugees to make society fearful, less equal and ultimately an authoritarian state that increases the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. 

Over these last few days, Muslim women have been attacked in the streets because of the accoutrements of their faith. Muslim shops have been trashed and burned. There are reports of an acid attack against a Muslim woman while an Asian man was stabbed and another dragged from his car to be beaten up. A library was ransacked and a hotel that houses refugees was set on fire.

Mainstream Britain grew feral, and some of it was years in the making. Other reasons- are more recent and also more heinous because the press and politics dehumanising Palestinians to enable genocide against them in Gaza is also the reason for intolerance to run amok on the streets of England.

Over the next few years, refugees across the world will be murdered in their millions by Western nations. It will be a Holocaust that will rival Hitler's against the Jewish community of Europe.

I have little optimism for how this ends. I can see the lights dimming everywhere around me for civilisation. But maybe if we work earnestly, we can preserve some shards of human decency.

My father, now long dead, offers me hope that sparks of empathy can remain eternal.

One example is the video attached. My dad made it a few short months before his death to highlight the refugee crisis. It was a plea for reason, compassion and humanity.

No one will remember us or are deeds for long when we are gone. Yet, while we live, we must do our best to defend the vulnerable because not doing so makes our time on earth such a waste of potential. 

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I am offering a 20% reduction in a yearly subscription to ensure my prescriptions can be purchased today. One new subscriber covers that cost. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* On Trump becoming president.

Trump will be the beginning of a revolution that will spread throughout the world and maybe end civilisation. I am dreadfully scared, believe me

-Al Jazeera, 20172

Comparing refugees arriving in Britain in the Second World War with today.

It was such a different world then. Britain was a different country. It was a country with a heart. We have lost some of our early love for each other

-Al Jazeera, 2017

On how to live your life.

Life is more than a budget holiday in Spain or a new car on tick; it's about creating legacies that can outlive your natural life

The Independent , 2018

On why he started writing.

In 2008, the world's economy crashed. And the following year, my middle son, Peter, died at the age of 50. y 2010, my grief was uncontrollable and I knew that the only way I could expiate it was through writing about my early life - in a book and also on social media. I needed to let people know that the economic and political storms coming our way, I'd seen them before

Reader's Digest Canada

On the future of the NHS

I am convinced it will not exist in 20 years. Not because it's too costly but because the entitled, and the politicians who serve them, are too greedy. In Canada, universal health care does not cover prescription drugs or dental care. Only 30 per cent of Canadians can either afford or have the luxury off working for a company that provides health insurance. When I go into stores here staffed by workers earning minimum wage, their teeth remind me of those of the poor in 1930s England

Reader's Digest Canada

On our society.

I find our cities forlorn places in the evening because the canopy of night is obscured by steel and glass condo palaces built on the hubris of speculators' credit. From them a sad luminescence is emitted from the glow of millions of flat-screen televisions that burn reality TV programmes, news updates and sitcoms into our collective consciousness. Their light is like the campfires of ancient men, used to ward off the beasts that lurked in the shadows

From his book Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save It

On austerity.

Sadly, that world my generation helped build on a foundation of decency and fair play is being swept away be neoliberalism and the greed of the 1%, which has brought discord around the globe. Today, the western world stands ar its most dangerous juncture since the 1930s

The Guardian, 2018

On Brexit.

Britain also has nothing to be proud of. Since the Iraq war our country has been on a downward decline, as successive governments have eroded democracy and social justice, and savaged the welfare state with austerity, leading us into the cul de sac of Brexit. Like Trump, Brexit cannot be undone by liberal sanctimony – it can only be altered if the neoliberal economic model is smashed, as if it were a statue of a dictator, by a liberated people.

The Guardian, 2017

On rebuilding Britain.

I have almost a hundred years of lived history pulsing through my blood and memories. So when I tell you that this is the best of times for the one per cent and the worst of times for everyone else, heed my words. It is now time that you gather the spirit of my generation into your hearts to begin the task of rebuilding this country, Europe and the world as it should be. It is time to make our Britain a green and pleasant land for all who live here.

The Independent, 2018

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading and supporting my Substack. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I have included a podcast now on my Substack because I want to preserve in one place my dad's audio recordings. I believe it is essential that voices like my dad's and mine have a platform where subscribers can listen to opinions, memories and ideas which stem from intellectual and emotional zones- located far from our current status quo.

I named this podcast New Grub Street. The title is derived from a 19th-century novel self-published by its author George Gissing, in 1890. He wrote about the desperate lives of people who lived on the margins during that other age of unfettered capitalism.

The first episode is from a podcast- my dad and I created in 2017. In this episode, my father talks about how- without public healthcare- the civilised society is for the happy few who can afford a doctor's care.

For me, rent day approaches like the headlights from a truck with an unsteady load on its trailer. It leaves me stuck in the middle of the road, transfixed by it, or perhaps I am too tired to react this time and jump out of its way.

A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent because all I need is 8 to make June’s payment. But with 3 days to go, it is getting tight.Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

He was exhausted and physically weak after being battered by an unforgiving and persistent lung infection. In July, despite his diminished health, he agreed to do a video for UNHCR Canada to help make refugees welcome. My dad knew his time was short, but he didn't want to be selfish with the time left to him. Harry Leslie Smith used his last few months of life to advocate for others, and that is not only remarkable but heroic.

Before the breakfast hour strikes tomorrow, Neimoller's poem about 1930s German fascism coming for one's neighbour before coming for you will be Britain's 21st-century reality. The Rwanda Bill is law, and those concentration camps paid for by the UK but in an African nation won't fill themselves. Across the country, the Home Office with the police will smash open doors with battering rams and people who have experienced war, sexual abuse, unimaginable economic privation, perilous journeys through strife-torn countries, and dangerous voyages sea voyages will have their hands zipped tied together and transported to immigration detention facilities for deportation with no real access to legal counsel. It only took a decade from Theresa May's Go Home Vans to shipping refugee claimants to concentration camps in Rwanda. It didn't just happen. It was part of a deliberate takeover of society by the entitled that whether politically right or centre are at their core fascist. The compassionate society was ground down by austerity, an ongoing cost of living crisis and corporate news journalism doing fascism's heavy lifting by dehumanising anyone who lacks wealth. 

 Refugee claimants don't have a hope in hell of ever finding freedom or a peaceful life in Britain Europe, North America or Australia.   

It is time for us to resist through strikes, sit-ins, boycotts and public demonstrations the treatment of refugees. Voting Labour isn't going to fix things because they are just as bad as the Tories. There is no safe space for compassion in our societies owned by the 1%. If we don't resist our repression will be just as brutal as what is happening to refugee claimants.  

Thanks for reading in this case viewing my Substack. It’s an SOS because the end of the month approaches and I am short on rent with only 3 days to go. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent and I am looking for 6 of them. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John

To you, my faithful subscribers, I provide a voice recording of Harry Leslie Smith, recalling his Christmas in 1930 when he was seven working-class Britain struggled through a harsh Great Depression famine. My dad's words are redemptive and contemporary considering how many bairns in 2023 will undergo a similar Christmas, thanks to a cost of living crisis created to better the profit of the 1%.

Harry Leslie Smith was an ordinary man who lived through extraordinary times. He was born during an era when the working class lived in destitution and the entitled classes lived lives of excess and narcissism. His life's journey was a voyage most of his working-class generation undertook. It began in poverty was consumed by war then in peace was renewed with purpose and kindness by the elimination of want through the creation of the Welfare State. It wasn’t an easy road taken but my dad like his generation knew- socialism was the only path to take.

5 books were written before Harry Leslie Smith died in November 2018. However, there was a large book unfinished at the time of his death which he titled the Green and Pleasant Land. It’s working class Remembrance of things Past as well as a political testament in defence of the Welfare State. I've been piecing it together from all the written notes, typescript & index cards my father left behind. It is almost ready for publication. If I wasn’t in such a scramble to keep a roof over my head, I think it would have been done by now. But to be fair to myself, I have gotten much done over these last few years despite a worldwide pandemic, and my own severe health limitations including a bad bout of cancer in 2020.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts because I really need your help Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John

There is no climb down from this. It is just like in 1914, just like in 2003, and just like every other unnecessary war in our lifetime. The criminal mediocrity of our leadership in all of the capitals of the Western World has led us into this cul-de sac of war. The lights are going out because this war is going to get big really fast. The butcher's bill for October will be so great humanity's pockets are to be pulled inside out in search of change to pay it.

You and me along with the whole world await for that shoe to drop in the next few hours in a place mislabelled the "Promised Land." The terror, the hunger, the thirst and the desperation for the 2.2 million people trapped in Gaza anticipating their death from the sky, land or sea is unimaginable.

My father as a young man was like millions of others a participant in as just a war as you can get for our age. World War Two at least in the European theatre was about a battle between light and darkness. Since then, no war fought between nations has had that moral clarity.

In the attached audio you can hear my father talk about what it felt like to have endured the Second World War and been alive to witness the return of spring in 1945. He sounds sad because he was- even just wars have a great deal of pointless death to them.

Our longing in October for spring to return in 2024 is immense because our winter to come will be harsh, austere and mournful.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts because your help is really NEEDED. Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed which has become tenuous since my cancer diagnoses 3 years ago. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Even sharing my posts helps the cause. Take Care, John

"I refuse to remain quiet while the world my generation built turns feral in the hands of right-wing populists and capitalists indifferent to the wellbeing of ordinary workers. Too many people died, and too many lives were cut short or mangled by the Great Depression and the Second World for me to not speak out. I will oppose to my the last breath the 1% and their politicians who destroyed liberal society constructed on the foundation of a Welfare State and are now attempting to erect a fascist, authoritarian society."

My dad wanted his memories used as a weapon against those who were privatising healthcare, waging never ending wars, dehumanising refugees and making life a sun up to sundown struggle to exist on wages not suitable to afford the expenses of modern times. He would have been profoundly saddened at how prescient his predictions were for democracy.

*************************************************

It's a big ask, I know, but I need your help. I got sick with a mild infection last month. Even being slightly ill put me financially behind. I know how bad it was recovering from cancer during covid but then I had some savings. If I get another major illness, I will sink like a stone.

So, if you can subscribe to a paid membership, thank you. I appreciate the loyalty of each subscriber. You have allowed me to build a community.

Next month, my early pension begins. It is not much,. I couldn't live off it but it adds to the base that keeps me housed.

Right now, at around 1100 subscribers, with 10% as paid, I need to increase my subscription base to 3k or double my paid subscriber base for an income of $14k (Canadian).

So, if you can please subscribe. It is appreciated by me and it ensures the work of Harry's Last Stand has a working beachhead.

Take care, John

Thanks, for listening.

It's a big ask, I know, but I need your help. I got sick with a mild infection last week, which slowed my scramble to find the cash for rent. I am shorter than normal this month.

So, if you can subscribe to a paid membership, thank you. I appreciate the loyalty of each subscriber. You have allowed me to build a community.

Next month, my early pension begins. It is not much,. I couldn't live off it but it adds to the base that keeps me housed.

Right now, at around 1100 subscribers, with 10% as paid, I need to increase my subscription base to 3k or double my paid subscriber base for an income of $14k (Canadian).

So, if you can please subscribe. It is appreciated by me and it ensures the work of Harry's Last Stand has a working beachhead.

Take care,

John

Transcript

Hi there, it's John here.

I'm going to steal 10 minutes of your time trying to experiment and see if we can do a podcast on the sub stack.

I don't know if it's going to work, but I'm not well this week.

So I figured what the hell I got some sort of skin infection above my nose or below my nose, above my lip and then on my lip and I've been scrofulous.

So we've got that out of the way.

The other thing is too, and I have to always keep on asking for this, but it is important, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe if you can.

And if you can, do it with a monthly or yearly subscription or if you can't, just do it for free and try to spread the word of Harry's Last Stand.

And it is important for so many reasons and

Some of it is to keep me going and keep me housed and others is because what my father and I did for the last eight, nine years of his life does have meaning outside of our own relationship.

It was a fantastic, wonderful odyssey I took with him to try to deconstruct his past

with his assistance, with his guidance, and make it something palatable to other people so they could understand how important socialism is, how important it is that we get rid of neoliberalism and return back to our working class roots, which makes everyone count in the economy rather than just the 1%.

And getting to that, I want to talk about

the first year of Harry's Last Stand when it was being written and how that relates to Russell Brand, arsehole that he is, was, and shall always be.

Because my dad never met Russell Brand but he was a thing in 2013, 2014, and the years before that.

He was the person

that somehow was connected to left-wing thinking, even though this man couldn't think his way out of a paper bag.

Having said that, he, Russell Brand, wrote a book called Revolution, and it was at the same time that Harry was doing Harry's Last Stand and getting it ready for the publisher, who had paid him a reasonable amount of an advance, which I think was about 13,000 pounds, the most he ever received.

It was, it's not a great sum, but it showed that the publisher had faith in the book to at least hit $20,000 in sales, which is pretty impressive for somebody that was not connected to the publishing world, was not connected to the political world, was not connected to the entertainment, sports world, or any other world except his little patch.

And because I had helped market my dad

with his with his help and his guidance again to talk about the destruction of the NHS and all of this stuff sort of exploded and people got excited by it and he got the book deal after having written three books before then which although were wonderful brilliant books

had no traction because they were not backed by the big publishing houses or by the big news media conglomerates.

Anyways, in Harry's Last Stand in the first drafts for the publisher, Harry was much more negative to Russell Brand than in the final print edition.

and it went back and it said you know like are you really you know there are suggestions always made and it was like are you sure Harry you know like he's popular and he does care about working class people having come from the working class now my dad thought it was bollocks I thought it was bollocks but it was not a deal breaker and that's what happens in publishing because no matter what your idea is you will make compromises to get that book out there

and or or to help sales and all of this stuff and it's dilution of the messages all the time so it was diminished slightly and that was just so that it would not be flagged up or make him the antithesis of Russell Brand even though I did suggest that he was and should be because Brand's ideas in Revolution that book are b******t and they're b******t from somebody that's a false guru

and they feed into a narrative you're going to make me rich and I'm going to give you faux ideas about how a revolution should be won because there will be no revolution but I will get a continuous stream from spouting non-revolutionary talk

and pretending it's revolution, which is centrism at its best.

And it's also what the right wing does, although the right wing really does want a revolution.

And they did get it because this is why we have fascism today.

But generally, most people that are publishing stuff for the left don't want any serious transformative change, because a transformative change on the left means that these people that have a considerable amount of wealth

for writing about politics and wanting change will then not have an income stream.

They will have to find other employment if utopia comes.

And that's the absolute joke about most things, that in my opinion, most people, politically speaking, that are writing about politics are loathe for that change.

And that's how they get their books published in the first place, because most of them are not for radical change.

These are not the Communist Manifesto.

These are how to put a smiley face on neoliberals and act outraged.

And the same thing is too is that when he was doing this book, there were suggestions of saying, you know, just read some more Pauli Toynbee essays, and that will give you the idea of the Zeitgeist of the times.

And we knew that this was b******t.

We knew that Polly Toynbee has been selling out workers and ordinary people since she was born because she does not come from a class that has any understanding, even if they are pretending to be left wing, about what being left wing is about.

Because it means you need to lose all of that wealth and become like us, or you need to raise everybody up like you.

And they want to do neither.

So,

Russell Brand was there and it was this entire idea in 2014, you could see it everywhere because he was in the Guardian, he was on television, he was doing his trues and all of this stuff and it was just forcing it down that people started to collaborate because that's what they do because they want that fame and fortune, that stardust to fall onto them to sell more books and whatever.

So I'm very pleased that with my dad and

anything to do with Russell Brand, he generally politely told people to f**k off.

And that he would complain about Russell Brand saying people shouldn't vote.

And at that time, people should have voted.

Because even with Miliband, and his setup, it would have been a farsight better than what came afterwards.

And the other thing is, at that time, Labour still had left wing politicians in it.

so that it had some hope of change but that all ended and this comes to my final point which is when my dad was forced to do things or compelled or argumentatively asked to do some things it always ended with him going I told you so because after he gave that speech at Labour

It was suggested by the Guardian that he write an essay saying that Ed Miliband would save the NHS and was a Prime Minister that would be good for Britain.

My dad at that time, seeing his speech there, having met him, didn't think he was up to the job.

but to have said something like that at that time would have completely disallowed him from participating in the election and being known by a greater group of people.

So the decision was made yes we will do this but this is how everybody collaborates in politics and in publishing and in journalism and all of this stuff to the detriment of

The Greater Good, in my opinion.

And I think he felt that too, which is why after he did it, and this is what I loved about him, he went and he did it in an interview with the International Business Times, where he completely said, you know, if Ed Miliband does become prime minister, he's going to backtrack on most of his pledges because he's a centrist and a neoliberal.

at least he was right there because had Ed become Prime Minister I am quite sure that he would have broken most of his promises as he is now by working for Starmer because the point is is that there is going to be nothing done in my opinion and I think the opinion of anybody that thinks through this by Starmer on the environment and they're just using Miliband as a beard right now to pretend that they will be effectively different

than the Tories on the environmental front.

Because they won't.

Because look at where they're getting their money from.

And it's from big business, the 1%, and giant energy consortiums.

Having said that, I have talked for over 10 minutes, and I'm going to leave it there, and hopefully this entertained you, or made you think, or made you like me a little bit more.

I am wanting you to subscribe to my sub stack, because I really do need your help.

I appreciate it and I will be back in the next day or two with an essay because I prefer those to speaking.

Anyways, have a good day, take care, and thank you again.

I am not surprised all this happened, and neither would my dad, Harry Leslie Smith, the World's Oldest Rebel. He spent the last ten years of his life warning us not to make his past our future. Sadly four years after his death, many political and news media influencers who once championed him now ignore his legacy.

But that is insignificant in the long game because ordinary, struggling people didn't forget my dad. There are thousands who remember him, his books, speeches or his cry that democracy lives or dies on the strength of society's social welfare system.

Since 2009 when my dad's Harry's Last Stand project began, I have sought to promote, preserve and expand upon the history and working-class wisdom of Harry Leslie Smith. It's why; I am always looking for unique ways to get more people to learn about him and my advocacy.

What you are about to listen to is a small sample from an innovative project I am working on with some fantastic, people; who, like me, believe that Harry's work and writings need to be revived for the troubled times we live in now.

The project is me, in conversation with my dad talking about the essential struggles of our era, public healthcare, affordable housing, Brexit, the Refugee crisis, the Climate Crisis and the cost of living crisis.

But it is also about the voyage I took with my father in those last years of his life. That odyssey was the greatest political, emotional and spiritual journey of my life, and it profoundly changed me. This is a very open and honest series that deals not only with politics but the tragedies, triumphs and f**k ups in my family.

The series is about saving what's left of our democracy and returning it to the people. How do we do that? By each of us becoming more like the world's oldest rebel and his 1945 generation. We must become angry in a constructive manner and fight for our right to exist in a society where the needs of the many take precedence over the few. The project won't be available for broadcast until October and hopefully it will be out around the time of my 60th birthday. But until then I will be sharing snippets and updates. Fingers crossed because maybe even by then my Essential Harry Leslie Smith's Rebel Handbook will be published along with the updated edition of his memoir 1923: The Green and Pleasant Land.

Your subscriptions help keep me housed but they also keep the Harry's Last Stand Project moving forward. So if you can, a paid subscription is appreciated. But if you can't, a free subscription is also appreciated. Take care, John

Thanks for reading my susbtack because your support is my life line. Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. This month is proving to be real scramble to get next months together. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. And if you can’t join for free and spread the word. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John

By Christmas of that year, my dad was sick with pneumonia. It was with him on and off until he died in November of 2018. This podcasts of his is an important historical document considering that it is the voice of a man born a hundred years ago in February 1923 who endured the Great Depression, was in the RAF during the Second World War and helped build the post-war Welfare State that allowed millions to have a life worth living. The podcast is sad and devastating. But it is also important to remember whether it was my dad in those long ago harsh times or me in these present harsh times. Existence for the poor has an abundance of despair in their daily grind. But there are also moments of joy, grace and humour. He found them as a boy in growing up in the mean streets of Barnsley, Bradford and then Halifax. In my way I find those moments too because there is much to enjoy or savour- even when you are living on the edge of financial ruin with diminished health.

Thank you for reading another post from me at Harry’s Last Stand and this podcast. Your subscriptions help preserve the working class legacy of Harry Leslie Smith, “The World’s Oldest Rebel.” I was my dad’s carer and co-conspirator in his Last Stand project that lasted from 2010-2018 and comprised 5 books, hundreds of essays, and tens of thousands of miles travelled. His history is everyone’s history whose ancestors lived in the harsh times before the Welfare State, and came from the working class. Those times are coming back so preserving the works of my dad’s Last Stand are so important now. His fight is our fight. Remember if you can make your subscription paid but if you can’t it’s all good because times are tough and if you are here, you are fighting for the same things as me. Take Care, John

Naturally, there will be much talk about politics because it is what I've been doing since I started the Harry's Last Stand project with my dad in 2010. But my discussions about politics in these podcasts won't be lectures but more autobiographical guides on how politics has shaped me. I believe we must radically change our current politics because if it's professional politics in government or punditry, we are only invited to participate as voters or financial contributors. We never really get to sit at the table. Professional politics whether it be on the right, centre or left, is all like Vegas because the House always wins, and we ain't ever going to be the House. I hope, in some small way, this podcast helps me connect the dots to what it means to be alive in the 21st century. I want it to explore how we survive with our integrity intact during this era of crisis. And, how we cleave some measure of happiness from our existence. We must find a peaceful but impactful way to contribute to the downfall of the systems that enslave us and build something better for all of us. So, here goes...

It was the first and last vacation I would have with my parents because two years later, the crash of 1929 destroyed Britain. It ruined us along with millions of other families who were caught in the violent buckling of the world’s financial tectonic plates that reduced Britain’s working class to beggary.

Above me, a lonely gull rode slips of air like Icarus and mournfully screeched out across the empty ether as if calling for absent friends, lovers and mates. I understood the bird's melancholy because in the wind I heard death whisper that he was coming for me.

My life is at eventide, and the curtain of night is closing in upon my time on this earth. I am almost one hundred years old.  I know death is waiting for me but I have still some thing's that must be done before my life’s journey is complete. I must set before my grandchildren and others the story of my early life before our country was civilised by the Welfare State. I must let them know about my struggles and that of my generation to build a more equal country for all and how that relates to today’s politics. I must remind them to be vigilant against demagogues because the ugly specter of fascism has started to stir again across the globe. It was contained once behind the think walls of a functioning welfare state but as that has now begun to crumble all past evils are running out like mice through rotting floor boards. There is so much I must say because I do not wish to suffer the torment my mother endured before she died because she had kept her tongue still about many regrets in her life.

Ah poor mum, her guilt was great, it was bigger than the cancerous tumor killing her, for sins she thought she’d done to my dad, me and her other children, during the Great Depression era. She begged for my forgiveness, for the harm; she may have caused me, during the 1930s. “I was trying to keep thee alive and thy sister but it was so bloody hard.”

Like my mother, many years ago, I am nearing the end of my sojourn on this earth. Before I am no more, I too must start to prepare my final reckoning. For those who will come after me, I must make my testament of those tumultuous times because the moments left to me are short. 

Whether its summer or winter, my body is always cold now. It’s because I am so very old that I can feel, in my bones, that same chill I felt as a lad when the icy winds came down off the Yorkshire moors in late autumn. During those days when winter was at our windowsill, my mum would lament, “Fetch, some coal for your mam, and I’ll light a fire that will warm our blood. I’ll tell you tales of your ancestors, who lived in Yorkshire for as long as there has been history written about our land.”

However, the bloom had gone off your brand due to your ardent support for Jeremy Corbyn. The media class we depended on to promote your life and experiences was losing interest in you because unlike so many other influencers, you refused to denounce Jeremy. You had so many opportunities to join the crowd who wanted to destroy Corbyn’s leadership. An MP even reached out to you to join the coup. Owen Smith was so desperate to get you to support his leadership bid, he left many obsequious voice mails, on our telephone where he called you “mate.” 

“That, arsehole, is no mate of mine.”

Were it not for your social media presence the last eighteen months of your life would have been like when we started this odyssey in 2010, because you had much to say but few avenues to be heard….”

Despite knowing the history of my dad's early life, I did not understand how true my mum's words were until I became my father's caregiver and comrade in his Last Stand Project, from 2009 to 2018. It was only after my mother died and then my brother and it was just me, and my dad did the penny begin to drop -about how horrible his youth had been. But no matter how painful those memories were for my dad he insisted on talking about those long-ago days. He didn't talk about them because he liked the sound of his own voice or wanted to be the top dog in a conversation. No, my dad was a humble man who was happier in his own company and own thoughts. My dad spoke about those times because he was appalled by the similarities to his childhood he saw on his visits to 21st century Barnsley, Bradford or Halifax when he was an old man in his 90s. There he saw the same shades of despair in the faces of young people created by austerity and out of control capitalism that he had known as a boy.

I urge you to listen to my dad recount his Christmas in 1930. It was a devastating holiday for him, his family and millions of unemployed people in Britain and the world. Sadly, our capitalistic societies that favour the top 5% of income earners over everyone else are dooming us to a brutal return to the harsh world of the 1930s. If we don't act soon, like the climate crisis, there will be no turning back for our society. So please listen to my dad's words, and act upon them with whatever means you have to stop our regression to the 1930s that were unforgiving and brutal to almost everyone but the rich.

The establishment is glad you are gone because you were a problem. You weren’t from the media class, business class, political class or even working class. You were just an elderly person who had lived through too many misfortunes in life, but wasn’t bitter against ordinary people, only those that had led us down a road to perdition.”

Audio excerpt from “I Stood With Harry, and son and comrade remembers life with the World’s Oldest Rebel. “

Harry Leslie Smith Labour Party Conference Manchester 2014.

In this episode Harry Leslie Smith meets you in the snug of a pub to talk to you about his Britain before the NHS and how his sister died in a workhouse infirmary because his family were too poor to afford healthcare.

My substack helps preserve the legacy of my dad Harry Leslie Smith who was the World's Oldest Rebel until his death on Nov 28, 2018. It also is a chronicle about today’s politics and living on the edge during a Cost of Living Crisis not seen in decades. Our times are the direst since the 1930s, and I aim to document them for as long as I can. You can subscribe for free or pay if you like both to help maintain his legacy because if Twitter goes, it will be a harder job