The Return of the Red Revolutionaries

Well, obviously… or perhaps not, depending on how you take your cheese, at the time everyone regarded it as the most significant event of the century… so far. At least, that is, in the often turbulent and divisive history of cheese, up to and including the Wensleydale perturbations and the great Luton Stilton riot of 1874.

Of course, those of us who had our suspicions about the Red Leicester supporters were justified in our concerns. Especially when the Red Leicester Worker’s collective announced they had taken control of one of the country’s largest cracker factories. Before demanding the government hand over control of all cheese-related matters to what they called the Workers Cheese Eating Collective.

The government, of course, had long expected that the revolutionary cheese parties would stage some industrial or political action. So they had stockpiled the chutney in readiness and the essential cheese supply lines were to be taken over by the army should the disruption spread. Although, many feared that the resulting imposition of basic army-issue cheddar on the populace would cause more unrest than it quietened. Especially if the rumours of navy hard tack biscuits left over from the Battle of Trafalgar turned out to be true.

Still, though in the end the Red Leicesters made a significant mistake in underestimating the support they would have. First the Sage derby, then the Double Gloucester turned against them. Particularly when the Red Leicester leadership refused to ballot their members and some of them returned to work, but only on the promise of extra sweet pickle on their Ploughman’s Lunches.

Soon after that, it was all over and it seemed that Britain was yet again safe from the cheese revolutions that had scared so many countries in such much of the 20^th century.

It was thought that Cheese radicalism was a thing of the past. But now with Britain’s Left once more turning to those discredited and often stale cheeses of the past, it would be most unwise of us to ignore the danger signs. Especially since the leadership promised a prize freeze on Britain’s staple cheeses for the lifetime of their first parliament and a seizure of all unused and hoarded crackers. It seems that those dark cheese-less days of the 3 days-only cheese weeks, cracker coupons and complete chutney blackouts could so easily return, if we dare relax our vigilance.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]