"Down with the raw lobsters!" - and other great chants and slogans from history, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The beginning of the end of the "stairheid cludgie" - the remarkable story of Annie's Loo, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Haruo Yuki, Tom Hindle, Eva Macrae, Louise Candlish, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

A giant cardboard cod, "Big Lil" and the "Headscarf Revolutionaries," and one of the quickest wins in campaigning history - in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

How the Glastonbury Festival was closed down for being too left-wing - in 1926. This week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Another murder in Minneapolis - A nurse dies as US immigration agents are ready to hunt down “everyone,” a US senator is told, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER morningstaronline.co.uk/article/anot...

"We demand to see a man climb inside a wine bottle!" Britain's silliest-ever riot, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

"Peer's son weds typist" - the extraordinary life of Ivor Montagu, pioneer of British cinema, titan of international table tennis, friend of Trotsky and admirer of Stalin, possibly a Soviet spy and definitely an expert on voles, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Sam Frances, Jim Kelly, Chris Nickson, Lynne McEwan in the Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Preparing for the end of the world - by overthrowing the government. Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchy Men, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

When the writer of 'Jerusalem' went on trial for saying "Damn the King!" Irony, madness, sedition and tygers - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

10% of Earth's workforce works for co-ops, hundreds of millions of people. It began with 6 sacks of flour, 2 dozen candles, 1 sack of oatmeal, 2 bags of sugar and 22 pounds of butter, in Rochdale, Xmas 1844. This week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

10% of Earth's workforce works for co-ops, hundreds of millions of people. It began with 6 sacks of flour, 2 dozen candles, 1 sack of oatmeal, 2 bags of sugar and 22 pounds of butter, in Rochdale, Xmas 1844. This week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

His name was Bonzo, he was a WWI hero who had to be smuggled out of military hospital by his secret wife, he was one Britain's best-known ornithologists & a founder member of the Communist Party. I don't say it's likely, I just say it happened: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

"Written by Reds, Under the beds, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!" The 18th century eccentric who "invented" the noble bandit, and the American communists who reinvented him, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Michael Connelly, Michael Z Lewin, Louise Penny, J Jefferson Farjeon, in the Morning Star's crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

When the English government's scheme to finance an invasion of France led to armed rebels mustering in Suffolk - and who the king blamed when it all went wrong, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The 15th baronet who became a Liberal MP then a Common Wealth MP then a Labour MP then an independent MP then a school teacher - and donated his vast estates to the National Trust, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Jack Sheppard, the prison-escaper who became such a hero to the poor of London that a century later it was illegal to portray him on stage - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The Loughton Lopper, an illiterate labourer arrested for cutting firewood, is the reason Epping Forest still exists - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Samir Machado de Machado, Salman Shaheen, Keri Beevis, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr in the Morning Star's crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Author of Memoirs of a Spacewoman, proofreader of Lord of the Rings, co-author as a kid of Reduplication in Mice - and honestly, that's just scratching the surface of Naomi Mitchison's astonishingly full life, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The short, dramatic life of Freeborn John - including the time he prayed to the Lord during a trial and the scaffolding collapsed - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

When demobbed soldiers smashed every window in Downing Street - plus the man on the white horse, the red flag and the weaponised umbrella, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The Blasphemy Machine - how to sell banned books without getting nicked in the 1820s, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Jo Cunningham, Mick Herron, Harriet Fox, Chris Hammer in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Chalking the walls with "bluemould" - the pre-digital way of getting people ready for the Battle of Bexley Square, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Trotskyist plotter, Knight Bachelor, Commander of the British Empire, inmate of Wormwood Scrubs, world-famous composer: the several lives of Sir Michael Tippett, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The Cotswolds tobacco riots of 1652, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The revolutionary who tried to assassinate Oliver Cromwell - and again ... and again ... If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing incompetently and repeatedly: in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Don Carpenter, Jo Jakeman, Martin Edwards, Harry Whitehead, in the Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

In 1979 a British woman made news worldwide when she was elected to an important political office. No, not Maggie Thatcher - this was a Communist schoolteacher called Annie, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The jurors said Not Guilty, so the judge sent them to jail - no food, no water, no chamber pots. The origins of the "perverse verdict," one of our most important liberties, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

In 1918 bus conductors got a 5 shilling war bonus. "Conductorettes" didn't. The resulting equal pay strike left London with an atmosphere "suggesting a deserted village." This week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

"Honest Tom" Wharton, a founder of the Treason Club, author of a viral 17th century song lyric, crucial figure in the evolution of the British constitution, but mostly famous for urinating in a church - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Yasuhiko Nishizawa, Jo Piazza, Philip Gwynne Jones, MW Craven, in the latest Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Meet the General Union of Clickers and Rough-stuff Cutters, The Cardroom Amalgamation - and many other long-vanished trades unions, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The 82-year-old accountant arrested as a terrorist for shouting "nonsense!" at a politician - remembering Walter Wolfgang, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Starving, freezing to death - but they still wouldn't sign "The Document." London's great building trades lockout of 1859, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The "Rape of the Mace," a punch-up in the House of Commons, and the Labour rebel who became a Blackshirt - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Hatpins and fire hoses - among the weapons used by the "girl workers" of #ReadingBerks in the great biscuit strike of 1916. This week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Stuart MacBride, Ben Aaronovitch, Ashley Flowers with Alex Kiester, Megan Abbott, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Rebecca and her daughters - all men, of course, following a fine British tradition of cross-dressing - and the war against the turnpikes, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Woodbine Willie - the patriotic padre who bought 800,000 cigarettes for the troops in WW1, then spent the rest of his life as a pacifist preacher - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Learie Constantine was one of the best-loved cricketers in the country and the London hotel that barred him for being black soon found they'd picked a fight with the wrong man - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

An aristo animal rights activist and a suffragette-turned-fascist - the unlikely founders of Britain's first female police force, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of A.A. Dhand, Robert Holtom, Chris Pavone, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Can you prove you're not a prostitute? If not, you're nabbed: the Contagious Diseases Act 1864 and the long, strange fight for its repeal, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Hiding in cupboards, hiding in haystacks, picnicking on Wimbledon Common - how to avoid the 1911 census, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...