John Harris - "Oi, David Cameron, lay off our anti-Thatcherite music"

The plan was for him to have his photo taken in front of the building à la the Smiths, but the local Labour party got wind of the script, and dispatched a pack of activists to foil him. Their placards featured such slogans as "Salford Lads not Eton snobs" and "Oi Dave - Eton Toffs' club is 300 miles that way", and they would not be moved, so Cameron went home without his snap.

That is quite funny tho.

They should have let him do it tho. It'd be Hague and his baseball cap all over again!

8/10, needs a hoodie doing a gun finger.

In all honesty I think it's the ageing indie kids that don't get it - proclaiming the Jam and the Smiths your favourite bands in 2008 is an inherently conservative aesthetic choice to make.

Also it's hardly just Tories who make these sort of politically incongruous choices. David Cameron needs to defend that choice no more than leftish listeners need to defend their listening to, for example, violent or misogynistic rock or hip-hop.

David is a Smiths fan
He's not strange
He just wants to live his life this way

Also that Salford story would have been better had it been genuinely fucked off Smiths fans and not Labour activists looking for a bit of point-scoring.

Repetition of myth that 'anti-establishment music' is anti-establishment

"There isn't much in the way of pro-Tory popular music"

??

Pro-capitalist maybe, but actually pro-Conservative Party?

Billy Bragg, who had recently prepared for the worst by having his picture taken with Gordon Brown at a Fabian Society event...

... 'It'd be great to get a photograph of you and Gordon, I suddenly sat there, thinking, 'Yes! At last! I can send a clear message to the Cameronistas that there's absolutely no chance of them fucking coopting me

Animal Farm

the "doughty" Hazel Blears.

"How Dare Tories Like Music Blears And I Shagged To ALLEGEDLY" by Worzel (Oxon).

Pro-capitalist maybe, but actually pro-Conservative Party?

Wouldn't frame it that way exactly, pro-conservative with small c might be closer to the mark, but sure, they don't want their funds meddled with. They get to support Labour instead and have cake and eat it

LOL at Weller, "Even with that div who's running for mayor - Boris Johnson - there's some things he's said that I've found myself agreeing with, like bringing back the Routemaster buses."

If anyone con't see what a Tory would find attractive in the Jam or Billy Bragg, beyond liking the sounds or whatever, then they're pretty thick.

That doesn't equate to pro-Tory in any publically visible way, though

xpost

Really did think Weller was protesting way too much with the whole "omg Tories liked my old band!?" thing - yes the one that was the biggest in Britain at the time of a relatively new Tory govt, that one

"At least Hitler Boris made the trains buses run on time."

The idea that Cameron would be sufficiently desperate for credibility as to line-up next to Billy Bragg is hilarious. I'm pretty sure the Emily Parrs of this world don't know who Billy Bragg is.

He'll have to make do with Ben Elton or Madness instead.

LOL @ lining up next to billy bragg and the jam. Other ILX grey panthers may remember red wedge and what a success that was at getting the opposition govt into power.

But the kids are 20 years shallower now, Pash.

Cameron with Peaches Geldof and him out The Horrors would be a good photo.

What, to play "spot the tory"?

Actually I bet the whole Brit School mob will turn out for him at the next election. Amy singing "Imagine" - I can just see it.

Mark Ronson to compose their new theme tune.

I'm trying to think of a link between Smiths and Smythsons but am drawing a blank.

Morrissey thought Rymans smelt of sex but I bet he's upgraded by now.

freshly baked ink mmmmmmmm

is David Cameron a fan of The Dears and The Enemy?

Is anyone?

Morrissey thought Rymans smelt of sex but I bet he's upgraded by now.

He meant the Rymans *League*

Mr Brown said he had spoken to the Chinese premier on Wednesday morning and had made clear his view that the violence must end and called for restraint. He said he would be meeting the Dalai Lama when he visits London but the most important thing was to bring about reconciliation and see talks and dialogue.

Mr Cameron congratulated Mr Brown for taking "exactly the right decision" on meeting the Dalai Lama and for not delaying it. Mr Brown responds that "We make the right decisions at all times".

Those two should get a room

That quote is creepy. I think Brown has been replaced by an alien robot.

http://www.doctorwhogear.co.uk/images/CutOutDalekSec.jpg

"WEEE. MAKE. THE. RIIIGHT. DEE. CI. SIONS. AAT. AAALL. TIIIIEEEEMMMZZZ"

they make the right decisions at all times, but they only act on those right decisions some of the times

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/3592/cybermen2hi.jpg

"THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE BRITISH ECONOMY ARE SOUND. WE ARE BETTER PLACED THAN OTHER COUNTRIES TO WEATHER THE CURRENT STORM."

Private Eye's Dear Leader stuff to thread.

"BRITAIN IS SAFE! WE USE POUNDS NOT DOLLARS!"

Repetition of myth that 'anti-establishment music' is anti-establishment

-- laxalt, Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:10 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Link

worst old-ilx meme going.

the jam remain shit, however.

[proclaiming the Jam and the Smiths your favourite bands in 2008 is an inherently conservative aesthetic choice to make]

I don't know if 'taste' has to do with 'conservative'

or if it does, so what?

if you like it you like it?

you don't throw it away cos some Spurs fan says it's 'conservative'

What The Smiths mean in 2008:

http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=24&viewAllFlag=false&catalogId=17551&storeId=12555&categoryId=40705&parent_category_rn=38973&productId=525993&langId=-1

;_;

It'll be The Pop Group's "We Are All Prosititutes" t-shirt next, you mark my words... 'cept it'll be Gordon Brown in place of Thatcher

for a second there i thought you meant dave cameron would be *wearing* a 'we are all prostitutes' t-shirt.

Pinefox - I'm not criticising the music on the grounds of being inherently conservative (although I dislike both the Smiths and the Jam). I'm criticising the attitude that both bands are somehow so radical that David Cameron, and Tories in general, still shouldn't be going anywhere near them in 2008. As if it's in some way perplexing that right-wingers should like guitar-bass-drums 80s guitar music.

(I wonder what Cameron actually listened to in the 80s).

for a second there i thought you meant dave cameron would be *wearing* a 'we are all prostitutes' t-shirt.

*hoping some researcher at Conservative Central Office googles this*

As if it's in some way perplexing that right-wingers should like guitar-bass-drums 80s guitar music.

overtly left-wing guitar-bass-drums 80s guitar music tho

(I wonder what Cameron actually listened to in the 80s).

Recordings of police truncheons cracking open striking miners heads, brother

the jam "overtly left-wing"?

DG - Yes but no one bats an eyelid when lefties listen to gangsta rap/homophobic dancehall/mysoginistic hair metal or anything overtly capitalistic and money-glorifying.

Hell even Quitney likes Jay-Z.

overtly left-wing

really?

Morrissey "overtly left-wing"?

I think Cameron would have chucked Morrissey out of the Shadow Cabinet for his views on immigration.

not by ILX standards but then by ILX standards almost everyone's a nazi

Yes but no one bats an eyelid when lefties listen to gangsta rap/homophobic dancehall/mysoginistic hair metal or anything overtly capitalistic and money-glorifying.

liberal stereotype of glorifying/excusing 'the other'
liberal stereotype of glorifying/excusing 'the other'
irony

i'm a 80s baby, mastered reaganomics

i can't believe this thread is heading for an argument about whether two verbose celebrity labour supporters are left wing or not

There's a lot that would appeal to right wingers in Jam lyrics tho' right? He was a Tory voter when he wrote some of them!

being a celebrity labour supporter is unlikely to make you left wing. during last 50 years labour have only been left wing, to even a degree, when in opposition (coincidentally to time period discussed here)

Labour supporter = left wing??

xpost

not by ILX standards but then by ILX standards almost everyone's a nazi

-- DG, Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:17 AM (3 minutes ago)

being a celebrity labour supporter is unlikely to make you left wing. during last 50 years labour have only been left wing, to even a degree, when in opposition (coincidentally to time period discussed here)

-- laxalt, Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:20 AM (16 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^ what DG said

Welcome to ILX, DG. Been here long? ;-)

Is Dannii Minogue a Nazi? [Started by Venga, last updated 7 hours ago] 2 new answers

Whether or not Labour are/were actually left wing is largely irrelevant here surely? Especially as this is an article written by John Harris in the Guardian in binary opposition to David Cameron.

"left-wing" in laxalt-speak: approved by tiny sect of self-appointed left-wingers.

though yeah i don't think the jam were partic left-wing in the commonly used sense either.

during last 50 years labour have only been left wing, to even a degree, when in opposition (coincidentally to time period discussed here)

Yes, all those previous Labour governments were every bit as right wing as the current lot

left wing in laxalt speak: those who favour redistribution of wealth, reduction of inequality

None of which happened, to any extent, under any previous Labour government?

left wing in laxalt speak: those who favour redistribution of wealth, reduction of inequality

-- laxalt, Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:25 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i think morrissey and weller would probably sign up for these!

Central planks of the next Conservative manifesto!

The very wealthy Morrissey and Weller?

Tax the nomdomfatcats!

Yes, i agree that inequality was reduced post 1945, largely due to the groundwork of the Atlee administration

*strokes chin*

"Favouring redistribution of wealth, reduction of inequality" =/ being able to successfully implement this within an unsympathetic capitalist world.

"We Are All Prostitutes" was referenced in episode two of top Tory fan fiction drama Ashes To Ashes.

oh look it's the red wedge steering committee

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/02_1/CameronEton_600x539.jpg

The very wealthy Morrissey and Weller?

-- Matt DC, Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:32 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

famous people in "wealthy" shock.

"Favouring redistribution of wealth, reduction of inequality" =/ being able to successfully implement this within an unsympathetic capitalist world.

-- Matt DC, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:36 (3 minutes ago)

Being unable to even attempt it

I've seen Moz complain about tax before though. Even in that 'infamous' NME interview I think. He seems v tight fisted anyway. (x-p)

famous people in "wealthy" shock.

-- banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:40 (40 seconds ago)

wealthy people in actually pretty much liking having their wealth untouched (whatever they 'sign up for')

i'm thinking about morrissey and weller in the 80s tbh.

taxing the shit out of rich musicians would be satisfying but probably not much of a long-term strategy, socialist utopia-wise.

also: probably better to have imperfections like rich musicians espousing left-wing causes than a public sphere entirely dominated by the right.

Are you really saying the Wilson/Callaghan administrations did not even attempt any redistribution of wealth at all?

That's de riguer chat among lefties on their way to becoming right-wingers in later life

Tom who are you talking about there?

ilx

^_^

Not you Matt!

That's de riguer chat among lefties on their way to becoming right-wingers in later life

-- Tom D., Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:48 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah maybe. tbh a situation where capitalism continues unabated but the state -- without any modification -- goes in for high taxes ('redistribution') is a poor man's socialism. no socialising of assets at all; power remains with the state, and with the owners of property. the state is no more representative than it was in the bad old days. what you have instead is a lot of friction. it's not really morrissey's fault that this is the route the british left took is it?

He means me - that i am on my way to being a right winger

Anyway, as for attempting redistribution I wasn't talking about attempting redistribution under wilson/callaghan, that was in reference to the last 11 years (well 15 really). Callaghan got a bit of a rum deal/poisoned chalice (its arguable Wilson did 2nd time around as well). Economic consensus 1945-1972 was pointed more towards redistribution, and was able to take advantage of economic conditions that got shook in the 70s

That's haldly what you said originally

this thread needs more mocking of john harris' shit weller hairdo

tbh a situation where capitalism continues unabated but the state -- without any modification -- goes in for high taxes ('redistribution') is a poor man's socialism. no socialising of assets at all; power remains with the state, and with the owners of property. the state is no more representative than it was in the bad old days. what you have instead is a lot of friction. it's not really morrissey's fault that this is the route the british left took is it?

-- banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:57 (4 minutes ago

agreed with most of above!

tax is an interesting one, tax on wages, or tax on assets? undertaxing the latter is what makes a quick buck...and encourages the regular bubbles we see

im sure this is the second piece harris has done on the cameron-jam thing. i linked to it obvs.

literary hack dj taylor has made a living out of "OMG!!! im a literary journalist and i like this pop group... THEY'RE CALLED THE JAM, SQUARES, AND THEY BLUDDDY RRRROCK!" articles. seriously has done about 11. he did a "shocked and appalled" article about d-cam's professing love for them.

Interestingly Cameron has avoided nailing his colours to the mast of any bands more closely associated with drugs.

come on, everyone knows about radiohead and lemsip

generous use of Interestingly there

That's haldly what you said originally

-- Tom D., Thursday, 20 March 2008 11:03 (1 minute ago

i think labour have been more left wing in opposition than in power (though this is to be expected, a lot of rhetoric gets toned down once in power, and ability to drive through legislation can also be diminished).

this could be a question of semantics, but i don't think that labour were any more left wing in the 50s-70s, i think its more that the economic consensus/framework was more...well not exactly left wing, but the whole keynesian thing...obv growing out the postww2 reconstruction needs..

i suppose that during this time the working class and manufacturing base existed in the UK rather than abroad and played a large role in that consensus

Well, we already know Cameron has skeletons re: drugs anyway that he doesn't want flagged up. The message here is "hey kids, it's alright to be anti-Thatcherite, I too want to invest in our public services just like Tony Blair, but stay away from drugs".

a lot of rhetoric gets toned down once in power

Cameron is doing the opposite, toning down rhetoric in opposition presumably for a lurch economically to the right once in power.

Do you think the change from being a producer nation to a consumer nation inherently involves an increase in inequality?

i love the "cameron is like obama" stuff dripping out:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/533416/the-british-obama.thtml

truly "post-racial".

Do you think the change from being a producer nation to a consumer nation inherently involves an increase in inequality?

-- laxalt, Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:16 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

current outlook: the only people making real money are in the city. the rest of you clean up after.

a lot of rhetoric gets toned down once in power

Cameron is doing the opposite, toning down rhetoric in opposition presumably for a lurch economically to the right once in power.

-- Matt DC, Thursday, 20 March 2008 11:16 (34 seconds ago

this is partly because both parties are already on the right, at least economically (or is there anything particularly different the tories would have done over the last 5 or so years?)

in what way do you think they will lurch to the right...economically?

both the left and the right trick their core constituencies anyway (the right in america most obv case - still hasn't really got what it wanted re:abortion,pornography,small govt,taxes,obscenity,immigration)

the spectator crashed my browser! tory cunts!

here's another one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/14/ntories214.xml

The City still generates more tax revenue than pretty much everything else though, I'd imagine? Haha Alistair Darling you are truly fucked.

I think the Tories will probably do away with a lot of the regulations NuLab has placed on business. They won't get away with touching the minimum wage as that's probably a nu-consensus sacred cow now along with not raising income tax, but they could whittle away at existing business taxes, make it easier to sack people, accelerate Nu-Lab's programme of involving private companies in the NHS/benefits system etc. They'll be too scared to make a public case for tax cuts but expect stealth tax cuts as opposed to stealth taxes.

I mean Laxalt your question seems to imply New Labour could not get more economically right-wing than they are already which I wouldn't agree with.

They won't get away with touching the minimum wage as that's probably a nu-consensus sacred cow now

I wouldn't be so sure about that

Seriously if the Tories get in and get away with removing the minimum wage and there aren't riots in the streets then there's no fucking hope for this country.

Could be right Matt, I wouldn't rule anything in or out, economically, over next 4 years. "tough measures for tough times" and the rest..

Shit this probably means The Smiths will actually reform.

Or The Jam

OR THE REDSKINS!!!

banriquit is so correct, above, about Literary Hack DJ Taylor and his plethora of articles about this amazing band The Jam - he should link to a few so we can boggle at how many there really are

DJT has read, and reviewed, and even written a lot of books, but there is something oddly naive and uninformed about him after all this time - an overgrown schoolboy somehow

Maybe they'd have been better off hiring DLT.

DLT'S FIRST ACT AS PRIME MINISTER:

COMPULSORY CLIPS ON THE EAR FROM BOBBIES ON THE BEAT INTRODUCED.
CLASH RECORDS BANNED AS THEY "LACK CLASS."
FUTURE ELECTIONS TO BE DECIDED BY GAMES OF RADIO SNOOKER.
SURVIVING MEMBERS OF SAD CAFE TO FORM STAUNCH CABINET.

^^^not enough systems thinking

This article reminds me of pensioners in the 1980s, complaining that the Germans had clean streets, nice houses and the Deutschmark. Makes you wonder who really won the war, doesn't it?

they also had a major regional divide - at least we've never had to worry about that riiiight

clean streets, nice houses and the Deutschmark

and... = being able to successfully implement "Favouring redistribution of wealth, reduction of inequality" within an unsympathetic capitalist world."

"I knew that in their absence nothing in pop music, and in a queer way life itself, could ever be the same again.":
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/jam-forever-650405.html

Literary hack Nick Lezard is quite as bad as DJT in his LOOK OUT SQUARES I LIKE THE ROCK MUSIC shtick.

i don't have to worry about whether my grandad was guarding the gates at auschwitz though xp

Which bit of Germany in the 1980s are we talking about here?

Allo Allo was set in the 80s right?

Good question! (xp)

Correct me if I'm wrong but if I remember correctly one half wasn't exactly a resounding success and the other half was quite happy with capitalism thankyouverymuch. And I'm fairly sure European-style social democracy is not what Laxalt was getting at with his original definition of "left-wing" here.

"dappled lawns of Oxford"

Do the Independent still ask trainee journalists whether they have a family history of journalism and which Oxbridge college they attended?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20080301/ai_n24369930

DJT ^^

Ha I didn't mean in the 80s

He was a bookish Oxford undergrad; they were a trio of working-class lads from Woking - it was love.

Oscar and Bosie to thread.

ILX to thread more like

two years ago:

By now, the Jam's impact had gone way beyond their core crowds. The writer and novelist DJ Taylor was then a student at St John's College Oxford, addicted to the Jam since sighting them on ITV at the age of 16, and coming to the conclusion that they were "a sort of panacea to all these short-haired gits in Day-Glo trousers". "I can remember watching them doing The Eton Rifles on Top of the Pops in the college TV room," he recalls, "and a girl called Kathy Shipsey, who'd been to a convent school, turned to the bloke sitting next to her and said, 'Hamish - you were at Eton. What on earth are these chappies going on about?' I thought, 'This really is saying something. If Kathy Shipsey is worried about these guttersnipes from Woking, they're getting it right.' That song was bang-on for late 1979. And the lyrics are absolutely cracking: 'Sup up your beer and collect your fags/ There's a row going on, down near Slough ..."

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1700386,00.html

Ha I didn't mean in the 80s

The 30s?

http://www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/booksmusic/loveisthedrug.htm

^^ book about the jam with essay by dj taylor.

Elsewhere Jesus Jones frontman Mike Edwards contributes a genuinely surprising, genuinely fannish essay on the joys (and pitfalls) of Arabic music that cuts through some of the more studied wasn't-I-ridiculous? 'confessions' elsewhere.

ok i'm sold

sorry total tangent but

One of the most remarkable things about Africa is how rare it is to see Africans cry. You meet so many human beings there who are forced to endure the most unthinkable, unconscionable poverty, disease and neglect; and yet invariably they do so with a smile so big and true it breaks your heart. How, you wonder, do people literally grin and bear such horror? Among the many things that makes Paul Taylor’s documentary We Are Together so moving, therefore, is its observation of African grief. Don’t get me wrong, there are laughs galore and plenty to smile about in this uplifting tale of a group of AIDS orphans who live at a school called Agape in a village in KwaZulu Natal, and who are hoping to come to England for a singing tour – the music itself is enough to make the soul soar.

I salute your tangentiality sir!

there are laughs galore and plenty to smile about in this uplifting tale of a group of AIDS orphans

It's a gross out comedy, I hear

One of the most remarkable things about Glasgow is how rare it is to see Glaswegians cry. You meet so many human beings there who are forced to endure the most unthinkable, unconscionable poverty, disease and neglect; and yet invariably they do so with a smile so big and true it breaks your heart. How, you wonder, do people literally grin and bear such horror? Among the many things that makes Paul Coia's documentary We Are Together so moving, therefore, is its observation of Glaswegian grief. Don’t get me wrong, there are laughs galore and plenty to smile about in this uplifting tale of a group of Sydney Devine fans who live at a school called Cowlairs in a village in Parkhead Cross, and who are hoping to come to England for a pillaging tour – the music itself is enough to make the soul soak.

hey, Obama being the American David "Dave" Cameron is my oh-so-hilarious running gag. I don't appreciate my bad non-jokes being co-opted for Conservative political rhetoric.

serious question: who was the last british politician who could have done a speech like obama's on tuesday?

both in terms of awesomeness and oratorical skill.

the current set of barely distinguishable rival factions are an absolute shower -- but i'm guessing you have to look back as far as churchill for rhetoric on obama's level.

[This realised many a sharp vignette from the barricades of the early 1980s. To particularise, I can remember watching them playing "The Eton Rifles" (a song inspired by a "Right to Work" march which, passing by Eton College, had been loudly disparaged by some of the young gentlemen within) on Top of the Pops in the college junior common room one winter night in 1979, and hearing the peacock voice of a well-bred girl named Kathy Shipsey exclaim "Gosh, Hamish, you were at Eton. Whatever are these chappies on about?" What Hamish said in reply was lost in the rousing chorus ("Hello, hurray I hope rain stops play, for the Eton Rifles") but the point was made. Class, never absent from the dappled lawns of Oxford, came capering ominously through the autumn mists.]

'To particularise'!

'peacock voice'? not very nice to say this about her, and name her, after all this time

THE POINT WAS MADE

DJT: "I'm all for consensus and an end to the class-based political antagonisms of the 1970s, which McElvoy's panel rightly deplored"

but i'm guessing you have to look back as far as churchill for rhetoric on obama's level

Warning - Hyperbole Alert

amazing (or maybe not) to see DJT repeating the same non-anecdote with the same characters in each of these articles

such a dullard!

I'm not sure hack Lezard counts as literary, or rather, as Stevie would say, 'litewwawwy'.

[what is this Obama speech, btw, and how come people in the UK have apparently heard it?]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

He's only a candidate for the Democratic nomination, no reason why people in the UK should have heard it

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22Kathy+Shipsey%22&meta=

He mentions her by name in the Guardian and the Indie! No other results for her though. She's too posh for the internet.

serious question: who was the last british politician who could have done a speech like obama's on tuesday?

both in terms of awesomeness and oratorical skill.

Yes the way he blamed nasty foreigners for taking all the country's jobs was so unlike anything we hear from British politicians.

Churchillian

Also cursing radical Islam is unprecedented in modern politics.

Next he'll be getting firmly behind stalwart allies like Israel...

(note, I want Obama to win. I just don't see the awesomeness about saying "blacks are bitter, whites are bitter, lets all hate big corporations and foreigners and terrorists!")

ya boy winnie got behind worse allies

true

http://www.adso.it/uploaded_images/DontBelieveTheHype-703280.jpg

it's not that hyperbole-y -- i'm not seeing any great speeches by post-churchill british politicians being cited here. are there any?

some guy did one about 'rivers of blood', people like that

Best British political speech I can remember in recent times = Ken Livingstone on 7 July 2005.

I'm not for one second claiming Ken as a spellbinding orator or anything, btw.

Hague, Tory Party Conference '96

I seem to remember that virtually every speech Blair ever made was hailed as a great one

That Callaghan one where he sang a little song.

The Jack Straw one where they beat up that Holocaust survivor

Robin Cook, response to the Scott Report

Best British political speech I can remember in recent times = Ken Livingstone on 7 July 2005.

-- Matt DC, Thursday, 20 March 2008 13:10 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

seconded

"Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!"

Alex Salmond, 2007.

hell yeah re Robin Cook

Maybe Ken's team ought to put that 7/7 speech of his on a loop and remind people what London's going to be like under Boris, viz. rivers of blood.

Political music isn't dead, it's just different
Today's musicians create subtler protest songs than their rage-inflected predecessors. Must we keep harking back?

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/03/political_music_isnt_dead_its.html

ironically his contemporary examples are like 10 years old

Who wrote that rubbish?

The guy's so shit yopu get an error page if you click for his profile.

He keeps up the Guardian blogger tradition of having his profile pic taken using a camera phone on a breezy day. They don't have Generation MySpace skillz of taking a good self-photo.

at least the error page has the proper guardian logo unlike the main culture page

Proponents of this theory still believe Red Wedge was the pinnacle of political commitment in music

This is so wrong and shit that any further comment is superfluous. Stupid cunt.

They don't have Generation MySpace skillz of taking a good self-photo.

or embedding an elegant fixed background image

Paddy, is this the same Matt Bolton whose taken most of the photos on the website of the indie beat combo Longblonde?

Personally I always quote Van der Graaf Generator's towering Every Bloody Emperor as an example of a great political song for the 21st century:

Well, I think we can safely ignore anything you have to say then

Lol, I'm Paddy now!?!?!?

Nah, the photos are by Matt Bolton of White Stripes alike "No New Yorkshire" group The Sugars. (x-p)

It was either that or Packie. That nickname for people called Patrick seems to have fallen out of favour in the past 40 years. Wonder why.

it is a mystery

http://www.celticcollectorsclub.co.uk/testimonial/packie180597.jpg

In the north I get Paddy which I'm used to, in the south I get Pat which feels weird.

World famous music writer Matt Bolton mentions Super Furry Animals and thereby discouraging me venturing any further into his doubtless radical exegesis.

Alex Ross going to Michael Hann for job interview:
"Yes, all this classical referencing is very CLEVER CLEVER but can you do 100 words on Danny and the Champions of the World as any PROPER TRAINED JOURNALIST has been TRAINED to do instead of self-indulgent blog-style writing? What relevance does Webern's Bagatelles have to my children and local services provided for local people?"

"Furthermore I see from your CV you have not been to an Oxbridge college and that you give no family history of journalism."

(exit Ross sheepishly)

"That'll teach those so-called writers to try it."

worst thing on internet since David Mamet

people just can't WRITE!

Obama departed with gifts including a box of CDs by some of Cameron's favourite British musicians, among them The Smiths, Radiohead, Gorillaz and Lily Allen, and a copy of Hague's recent biography of the anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/26/barackobama.gordonbrown