Boris Johnson: So long and thanks for all the protest songs

In 2019, I wrote a poem about Boris Johnson leading up to the general election. Here is one last performance as he sods off into millionaire martyrdom.

Like me, I’m sure many people first came across Johnson through his notoriety on the panel show Have I Got News For You, where his bumbling out-of-touchness was seen as all part of the quaint, British class structure. Some speeches of Johnson show his more diplomatic, ministerial side but, more often than not he relies on performing his pomposity while arm-waving like each meaty hand is holding a Union Flag. So songs about Johnson play to his type. They indulge his bravado. Whilst Cameron’s songs are bitter and sharper, anti-Boris tunes often play on a daftness to outmatch or undercut Johnon’s own court-jester-turned-king brand. For example, Raised By Owls paint Johnson as a hideous Dark Lord bloodsucker on ‘Boris Johnson, Vampire Of London.’ ‘Never watch a documentary about Boris Johnson’ is a comedy song by Jay Foreman about Johnson invading his nightmares.

For the 2016 EU Referendum, The Iain Duncan Smiths released Borrissey, a parody album full of The Smiths and Morrissey songs reworked. For example, ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ became about when Johnson insulted members of a Sikh Temple by celebrating alcohol tariffs. ‘Half A Kenyan’ (based on The Smiths song ‘Half A Person’) is about Johnson suggesting Barack Obama’s heritage drove the President towards anti-British sentiment.

Commoners Choir’s song ‘Boris Johnson’ hums that his head, and hair, comes in handy as a mop, and opens with a quote from former Conservative MP Matthew Parris. Parris wrote an article against Johnson, warning: “Somebody has to call a halt to the gathering pretence that if only you’re sufficiently comical in politics you can laugh everything off … creeping ambition in a jester’s cap is not funny.”

Johnson was the subject of songs whilst he was the actual mayor of actual London. Steve White & The Protest Family’s song ‘Have I Got News For You’ is about the disbelief a million Londoners could vote for Johnson as mayor. They sang about Johnson’s attempts to take on Bob Crow and the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMT) on ‘Bad Day For Bojo’:

“Mayor Johnson is not a man Who cares much for promises Or for ticket offices Or passengers or staff He wants to axe a thousand jobs A thousand livelihoods he'll rob While ruffling his hair Oh my, he's such a laugh.”

The “ticket offices” line comes after Johnson’s 2008 mayoral election manifesto promised there would be manned ticket offices at every Underground station. By 2016, Johnson had closed all of London’s Underground ticket offices and cut 900 jobs. He wasted more than £940m on architectural projects that never saw a brick laid, including sweatbox buses, a novelty 'dangleway' and fantasy bridges. RainMen’s ‘Trash Song’ laments he can’t shrug off disgrace like John: “What I’d give to be Boris Johnson / To walk away from my mistakes.”

On 25th April 2019, Stormzy released ‘Vossi Bop,’ which became the rapper’s first number one single. It includes the line “I could never die / I’m Chuck Norris / Fuck the Government / Fuck Boris.” This was adopted by the internet with the hashtag #FuckBoris. Two months later, Theresa May announced her resignation and we all knew that the arch-Brexiteer fan-favourite Boris Johnson would inevitably finally become PM.

I asked a Conservative Party member why he was supporting Boris Johnson in the upcoming leadership contest. He believed that if May had remained as leader for any longer, she’d have been the last ever Conservative prime minister, seen as inefficient and despised by the electorate and her own party. He felt Johnson had the charisma and the drive to do what needed to be done. Clearly, his fellow members agreed and Johnson became Conservative leader, and by default Prime Minister, in July 2019.

Johnson’s long history as a journalist provided a seam of sexist, racist and homophobic articles from across his career. It became a widely-circulated example of Johnson’s bigotry, which was dismissed and excused by his supporters. Captain SKA collaborated with Rubi Dan and used this term for their song ‘Fuck Boris’: “Lying and dishonest / This racist idiotic / Things are getting toxic / That's why we hashtag - fuck Boris!” When challenged on the BBC’s Question Time, Johnson refused to apologise, and replied: “I defend my right to speak out.” Johnson claimed “I have written many millions of words in my life as a journalist and I have genuinely never intended to cause hurt or pain to anybody.”

Even if Johnson writing within the pages of the Spectator and the Telegraph genuinely thought his shock-journalism was toothless and without harm, his reluctance to acknowledge and apologise for his misjudgement still marks out his arrogance. Johnson represents some of the worst stink of privilege. Whilst politicians campaigned during the 2021 local elections to redistribute wealth and address the climate crisis, Johnson hopped around the country in a £45 million private jet that uses £1,600 of fossil fuel an hour. The jet was registered in the Isle of Man (a tax haven) in the name of JC Bamford Excavators Ltd, based in Staffordshire. The chairman of JCB is the multi-billionaire Tory peer and donor Lord Bamford.

Commie Faggots go through a list of Johnson’s racist lanuage on ‘Boris Johnson Is A Racist.’ The list also featured as samples on dance-rock band Cabinet of Millionaires’ ‘Stop The Coup,’ a song released in protest to Johnson’s illegal proroguing of Parliament. John D Revelator also references some of Johnson’s disgusting language on ‘Boris Johnson Blues’. The song uses a traditional acoustic blues style, and employs the trope that there’s a mystery around Johnson’s children: “even he don’t know how many kids he’s got.” For years, Wikipedia listed Johnson’s children as “at least six.”

Billy Bragg would created a fresh version of ‘Waiting For The Great Leap Forward’: “No one knows how many children Boris Johnson sired Or can remember how many times his lies have got him fired But I can tell you this mate, I know how this will end When he does to Britain what he’s done to his ex-girlfriend.”

Diss track ‘OK! TORY’ by damienfarron & NIKHEDONIA was released the day of the 2019 general election. It starts with a clip of Boris Johnson from 2012 at the opening of the London Olympic velodrome. In a frankly bizarre speech, Johnson waxes lyrical about the building having been apparently “lovingly rubbed with rhubarb.” Seriously, stop reading this and go watch the clip right now. Then rewatch and keep an eye on the two young people standing either side of Johnson, one awkwardly fiddling with a small flag, the other’s smirking bemused facial expressions, channelling how many people feel about ‘Bojo’.

♫ Solidarity forever / All for one and one for all ♫ - Is Billy Elliot a Thatcherite?

Solidarity with everyone this May Day, for fellow workers around the world across borders.

I've been a bit quiet on this blog, mainly because I've been working. But I have been still working on a podcast with Natalie Quatermass about art and activism, which you can listen to here. There's some really insightful, and funny, conversations with poets and theatre-makers and Trade Unionists.

I sat down this May Day to watch a good ol' Leftie film, contemplating Pride or Bread and Roses, but went for the live version of the Billy Elliot musical which has been on my shelf for months. If 'riotporn' is a term coined for lefties who love sitting safe and secure at home applauding footage of riots and violent clashes with police, most of Billy Elliot has a similar we're-all-in-this-together indulgence for a romanticised struggle of the labouring man against the powers-that-be. I was in tears twice in the first 8 minutes, suckered in by the cries of "solidarity!" Don't get me wrong, I love both but it did make me wonder about the theatrical manipulation to 'sell' the opening act, rather than inspire action.

Solidarity forever

The song 'Solidarity' from the musical is an absolute hammer of a song, though the staging does frame the police and the strikers as two opposing factions like a Capulet vs Montague face-off, each with their "fuck you" verses and chess board staging. This is often a liberal's trap of 'both sideism'. It's worth remembering one side had the massive resources of a militarised State, and the other were normal men being starved. The Billy Elliot musical is ultimately a commercial product. It may had sympathies with the NUM, the strikers and their communities but some producers somewhere made a whole tonne of cash. The venue where the musical was filmed pay Front of House staff £10.15 an hour, whilst the Real Living Wage for London is £11.05. Once the heart-pumping refrain of "We're proud to be working class / Solidarity forever" has faded, I can't help but ask how this commodification of the class struggle into a ticket-selling product really helps the former mining communities, or those being battered by modern captialism.

It's about our history, it's about our rights

When Billy's Dad, Jackie, scabs in order to get the money for Billy's school fees, his older son, Tony, is distraught. Yes there's a streak of homophobia throughout these characters, but Tony's issue is also ideological. "It isn't about one kid, it's all of us, it's everybody's chance!" he sing-bites to his Dad. "it's everybody's future, it's everybody's past, it's not about a bairn who wants to dance!" For Jackie, he desperately wants to give Billy a chance to escape his working class life and 'do better', egged on by the dance teacher Sandra who calls the village dying. There's the edge of Thatcherism. Thatcher wanted to crush the miners and the Unions not only to economically make the case for a privatised nation at the whim of the richest and the markets, but she wanted to prove anyone could flourish under captialism. Thatcher wanted to break the cycle of men born into mining families working in mines until their songs take over in the name of social mobility and give everyone a chance to do better. Of course it means sod those left behind, sod community, sod, solidartiy and celebrates the I'm-alright-Jack mentality of 1980s individualism.

And this for me is a difficult angle for Billy Elliot, both musical and film. Billy is given a chance to 'get out', to 'do better' in a notably bourgeoisie artform at the London-based Royal Ballet School. Sod the rest of the working class, sod the struggle and sod his family...Billy can climb the ladder. Jackie says "He could be a star for all we know." It's also telling Tony has been dressed in a Che Guevara t-shirt, he represents a more ideological radical Left-wing, one the show seeeeeems to be saying: "Know your place." In the end, Jackie doesn't scab, and it's up to the united community to give "all that we can give."

Flying like a bird

It's a tried-and-tested 'boy done good' story, the hero who strives against the odds, almost a Luke Skywalker or mythic King Arthur. Compare to Brassed Off where the band are all shoulder-to-shoulder at the end, or The Full Monty where the characters are still mostly trapped in their post-Thatcher world, just maybe with a few quid in their wallets after the show.

Now, I'm not saying in the context of the story, Billy should give up on his dreams. I fundamentally believe ballet (and opera, theatre and all forms of art) should be for anyone. If young Billy wants to do ballet, there should be a ballet school in County Durham. If you're sick of your life, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. But there's something strangely off about a show rooted in anti-Thatcher characters ironically pooling all their energy to one individual. The bitter kick is that a scab comes and gives Billy the necessary funds, which seems the boy scrambling on the floor to desperately gather the notes together under a Tory propaganda 'Labour isn't working' banner. Naturally, Tony is broken. Though he is eventually supportive of Billy, he does bitterly remind us all "we can't all be fucking dancers." I actually booed in the scene where dance teacher Sandra advises Billy to never look back and start afresh. That would be the ultimate Thatcherite victory.

A core principle of socialism and working class solidarity is (as the song says): "all for one, and one for all." I'd like to read Billy Elliot as a story how capitalism fucks over the working class and casts us money-making tools. Whole villages are ground down, made extinct as dinosaurs at the mercy of the State. The final scene sees Billy isolated as his community "all go together" back to work, into the mine, unified faceless blots of light in the clanking dark. But a Tory could watch this film and cheer on Billy's 'escape'. They might see the scene of the striker's cheering on Thatcher's death at the start of the second half painting these characters as the bad guys, especially with their frequent homophobia. I think the push-pull between these stances is interesting for these characters living in dire circumstances, though sometimes the messaging did make me squirm in my seat.

It's made me relfect on working in the arts, a middle class institution, and what it means to come from a working class background, still have fuck all money and try to be true to my roots, values and anger. Solidarity forever.

Top albums of 2021

Top albums 2021 2020 saw some incredible new music, including Commoners Choir’s Untied Kingdom, an album I find difficult to listen to as it tugs, pulls, batters and soothes at my emotional core. I haven’t found anything to compete so far, but there have been albums which really tap into the modern world.

Bob Vylan’s We Live Here has become the banger of the year for the UK scene, and they were brutally brilliant in York at the Fulford Arms. Though the album’s titular song will always been the most breath-taking song on the album, the other tunes are still like a much-needed vocal heabutt. The rallying against racism is complete with a wider blare against a toxic Britain. Anti-racist music is part of of the DNA of alternative music scenes in the UK, but Bob Vylan’s album doesn’t feel reformist. It’s not a hopeful album, it’s tracks that want to drag the whole fucking thing into the sea.

We Are Lady Parts by Lady Parts is only 11 minutes long, but it represents a fantastic TV show about music, friendship and rebellion. The songs are so well-crafted, they don’t feel manufactured for a sitcom, they feel genuinely like an ace band you’d catch at Manchester Punk Festival. The TV show and EP reminded me of gigs and scenes and communities…something I’ve really missed in 2021.

Fuck These Fuckin Fascists by The Muslims is just non-stop anthems for a post-Trump America. Like Bob Vylan, the titular song is the song I played over and over again, but still the rest of the album feels so painfully urgent. I assume ‘Unity’ is an attack on Democrats who demand conciliation for being in power, when really the problems of racist police and racist borders are still crushing the people. It’s low-fi and full-on punk rock but unlike so many other guitar bands makes me want to get up and move.

Spotify Is Surveillance by Evan Greer is a little bit haunting. Her voice is so fresh and she plays with the ‘lightness’ from her folk sound but with a jagged punk sound. The album is a hopeful one about refusal, about survival, about celebration. But again, this album feels so modern as it looks at algorithms and, like The Muslims, attacks liberals on ‘Emma Goldman Would Have Beat Your Ass’. This was my most-played song of this year, are you surprised? It’s an explosive love letter to the no-compromise of Anarchism through the spirit of Emma Goldman. But there's also the warmth of 'Willing to Wait' and gentleness of 'Back Row' making this a diverse album of loss and hope.

Back to the UK sounds: I came to Sam Fender late in the game after various Facebook groups and articles sang his praises. I think his vocal style reminded me of the ladrock bands of my 00s youth I couldn’t click with. But there’s some real blunt poetry to his lyrics on Seventeen Going Under and he’s not afraid to rail against the Tories and State in his interviews. I think over time, he’s really going to get into my head. This is grey, post-Brexit cynicism, loaded with snarls and shrugs which will hopefully help many bedraggled lads something that articulates their bleakness in Tory Britain.

Albums I’ve also really loved this year:

Open Mouth, Open Heart - Destroy Boys

Reincarnate EP - Witch Fever

Going to Hell - Lande Hekt

Sometimes I Might be Introvert - Lil Simz

Our Hell Is Right Here - Drones

A Northern Coastal Town: Hull In The Blitz - Joe Solo and Rebecca Findlay

Connectivity - Grace Petrie

A Million Things That Never Happened - Billy Bragg

Noise Noise Noise - The Last Gang

At War With The Silverfish - Laura Jane Grace

1집 - Slant

Amigo The Devil - Born Against

Jeff Rosenstock - Ska Dream

Grand Collapse - Empty Plinths

Turnstile - Glow On

Nice One - Catbite

Comfort To Me - Amyl and The Sniffers

Protest Songs 1924-2018 - The Specials

Tory & Coalition Christmas: Festive political songs

Political Christmas songs

Who doesn’t love a decent Christmas banger? From the inevitability of ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘All I Want For Christmas’, to the traditional carols we all sorta kinda know the words to. Sooner or later, punk bands will make a Christmas tune: from the 70s/80s scene you’ve got UK Subs and the Vibrators on Punk Goes Christmas, through to pop-punk from Reel Big Fish, New Found Glory and Man Overboard. In 2012, we got the Dropkick Murphys 'The Season's Upon Us' and in 2017 Vice Squad added to the canon with ‘Christmas Has Been Cancelled’. My favourite Christmas song is 'I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight' by The Ramones, and an honourable mention goes to The Vandal 'Oi! To The World' and the No Doubt cover.

The Flying Pickets were dedicated socialists rooted in the radical, fringe theatre 7:84. They named their a capella group after the Trade Union tactic which had brought down the Conservatives in 1974. In April 1984 they were part of a picket of Drax Power Station and played benefit gigs for the NUM. Their single ‘Only You’ reached Christmas number one…apparently Thatcher was a fan of the tune. Many bands during the 1984-85 miner's strike played Christmas fundrasiers, and using music to raise money is common from Band Aid to LadBaby. But sometimes punk bands will use their platform not only to raise money at this season of giving, but to talk about poverty and politics. To raise money horizontally for political causes, rather than charitable vertical kindness.

This year, Petrol Girls transformed ‘Restless’ into ‘I’ll Give You Motherfuckers Christmas’ to promote a unique Christmas jumper. Sales went towards Unity Centre Glasgow, Calais Food Collective and No Borders Team providing material solidarity to people stuck at the Poland-Belarus border.

I’d like to focus on two political Christmas songs, one by Shirt Boys (a raucous Halifax punk band) and Joe Solo (a Scarborough folk-punk troubadour).

Shirt Boys wrote ‘Coalition Christmas (we’re all in this together)’ in 2010, a song both grungy in sound and imagery, painting a Dickensian Christmas scene in modern Britain. The track opens with a faint jingle to half-heartedly nod to the season, before churning into a rumbling guitar and barking vocals.

You can listen to the song here: https://shirtboys.bandcamp.com/track/coalition-christmas-were-all-in-it-together

The lyrics present various characters like a warped TV Christmas Special. A matchstick girl reoccurs, harking back to Victorian London and invoking poverty with “a cruel cough” and “touch of TB” and conditions that led to the 1888 Matchgirls Strike. The matchgirl’s illness is blamed on “Dave the toff”, leader of a cartoonish band of villains running rampant across the song. George Osborne is “Gideon” who “swings his axe / Santa is taken down.”

While Osborne is the instigator of violence, the Coalition partners are passive and ineffectual. Clegg “Nick has a nice relax / he eats some Christmas pud / all for the greater good” while Vince Cable is “dancing on TV”, a reference to his turn on Strictly Come Dancing. The song haphazardly flips between scathing punk verses and carol-esque intermissions. Grim, filthy and unhealthy, the song’s world is like a gone-wrong Beano comic, and critically this collection of Tories and Liberal Democrats are the villainous mob all in it together, but in it against us.

'Merry Christmas From Hatfield Main' by Joe Solo and The Hatfield Brigade was recorded on location at Central Club in Stainforth on October 30th 2016. Proceeds from the single went to struggling families in the area. This is a fist-to-the-air optimistic song of defiance, but let’s look at Joe’s 2014 song ‘A Tory Christmas.’ Proceeds from the song went towards Joe’s local food bank.

What does an ideal Tory Christmas look like? Laying off the elves and privatising the reindeer. Once again, Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ is invoked by Joe Solo where the protagonist of the song sings: “sod you Tiny Tim”. Apparently uncle Ebeneezer was right. The character of the song is cartoonishly cruel and greedy, but at his core ultimately individualistic. The poor can have dinner off the food bank shelves. Fuck the rest of you, I’m alright.

The song is rooted in the politics of the early 2010s. Still reeling from the financial crisis of 2008, the Conservatives were riding on four years of ‘tough decisions’ to balance the deficit, claiming Labour had bankrupted the country. And yet organisations like UK Uncut occupied shops to raise awareness of tax-dodging mega-corporations like Vodafone (who had negotiated their tax bill down from £6 billion to £2 billion). In 2012 they held a day of action against Starbucks. So Joe Solo sings “till Hell it freezes over and the banks pay tax / we can all have a Tory Christmas” swiping at both the banking sector, the tax-dodgers and the Tories letting these institutions off the hook.

Both songs are a darkly comic look at a twisted world, but maybe wouldn’t exist today. The stiff-upper-lipness of Cameron and Osborn was forged in Eton and Oxford and the Bullingdon Club. So songs like these unwrap the we-know-best stern mask to reveal the cruel heartlessness beyond. Today, with the Bumbler-in-chief leading a helm of a government tumbling over lies, sleaze, and bodies piling high, it feels all-too-common for them to be painted as incompetant and cartoonish. Gorging on the cheese and wine this Christmas.

♪ Who fell, Grenfell ♫ - Music from the ashes

♪ Who fell, Grenfell ♫ - Music from the ashes

Part of a series of blogs, leading to a book, about the music of austerity 2010-2019.

Read more here

Ask the families of the Hillsborough Disaster, or those affected by the racist Windrush Scandal. They’ll tell you justice is rarely afforded to the poorest in society.

The Grenfell Tower fire on the 14th June was the direct result of austerity measures and a government more invested in profits and property than people. 40% budget cuts to the local authority since 2010 meant corners had been cut in safety conditions and necessary renovations. The tower had no sprinklers, and fewer safety inspectors carrying out less and less inspections without the resources to replace the flammable cladding. Cuts to the fire services also resulted in 11,000 fewer London firefighters. Elliott Advisors UK, a major shareholder in Arconic, the company that provided the Grenfell Tower’s combustible cladding, donated nearly £25,000 to the Consverative Party in 2008, 2017 and 2019.

Many artists took up the cause, either helping on the ground, encouraging donations and support or by actively writing songs documenting the tragedy, and the political ideologies that caused it. Through cathartic lyrics, people expressed their sorrow at the dire situation, and the anger at the lack of accountability and change. Reflecting the multicultural community affected by the tragedy; it was the hip-hop and grime communities of London who felt the most fury.

In the digital age where artists have easier access to recording equipment, there was an urgent response across June. Georgina Brett published the 28 minute ‘Grenfell Requiem’, an ambient looping track with minimal, haunting vocals. Big Zuu released ‘Grenfell Tower Tribute’, highlighting the distinction between the rich and poor, never letting the listener forget this was a class issue. Big Zuu includes a guest clip of Akala adding: “There is no way rich people live in a building with no sprinkler system” and notes the money spent on redeveloping the tower was to put “pretty panels” on the side for the sake of rich people living nearby.

On 28th June, Adele pleaded with her Wembley Stadium audience to donate money to Unite For Grenfell, telling her 98,000 fans: “I can't tell you how out of control and how chaotic it still is down there, it's been two weeks since this happened... it's atrocious that we can't get answers.” She dedicated the song ‘Hometown Glory’ to the victims of the fire. In the spirit of Live Aid, Simon Cowell collected a team of pop stars to raise money to support the victims. One Direction's Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson, X Factor winner Louisa Johnson, pop stars Robbie Williams, Rita Ora, Emeli Sande, Stormzy and The Who lent their voices for a cover of ‘Bridge of Troubled Water’. The song is evocative and soulful, but ultimately lacks the political bite highlighting the tragedy's root in classism, racism and austerity. The song reached Number 1 in the singles chart, raising money for the London Community Foundation.

On 24th June at Glastonbury Festival, Stormzy rapped his verse form the song and told the audience “we urge the authorities to tell the fucking truth, first and foremost. We urge them to do something. We urge the fucking government to be held accountable for the fuckery.” By the end of June, Shocka’s freestyle tribute to the people of Grenfell went viral, with over 109,000 views on YouTube. Lily Allen, Sam Duckworth (aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly), Akala and AJ Tracey helped on the ground or used their platforms on TV and social media to raise awareness.

In the wake of the fire, local rapper Peaky Saku appeared on the BBC news live pointing out the shoddy refurbishment as a cause of the fire. Victoria Derbyshire tries to cut him off as he notes “they don’t want us here and they put those rich man’s blocks over there.” In 2019, he released his 1984 EP with the fire on as the cover art. There’s no one to cut off Peaky Sabu’s fury on ‘On The Block It Ain’t The Same View’ where he declares: “lost a couple to the flames / now my mind’s screwed.”

Music benefits were held across London, including guitar bands at Bush Hall, an afrobeats benefit Upstairs at the Ritzy, a mixed-bill of classicists, composers and DJs at Cafe OTO and rap and grime acts uniting as London Stand Tall at Notting Hill Arts Club. A 850-strong audience attended a classical concert at Cadogan Halland, which opened with an emotional ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and raised £30,000. Truro Cathedral Choir, composer Philip Stopford and poet Andrew Longfield collaborated on ‘Grenfell From Today’ in remembrance.

The Conservatives were heavily criticised for their lack of effective action to support the families. Rapper Dave on ‘Question Time’ says Theresa May’s response was “ridiculous”, saying she hid and “dodged responsibility and acted like you're innocent.” On ‘Queen’s Speech 7’, Queen Leshurr asked “Who stood up when “Grenfell? / Where's all the money we raised then? / Theresa May is a wasteman.” At the 2018 BritAwards, Stormzy demanded “Yo Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?”

Political rapper Lowkey toured with a member of Grenfell United, who spoke to his audiences about the tragedy, and the lack of support from the Government. Lowkey lived opposite the tower, and his ‘Ghosts of Grenfell’ is a 6 minute epic, melancholic obituary to the people of Grenfell. With soaring vocals from Kaia, the song tells the story in painful and unflinching detail. It’s a frank and brutal account of the event, as well as a celebration of the community coming together. Lowkey said:

“I wanted to take control of the narrative and the way the event was historized. With music you’re dealing with something that is imaginative and in a way utopia. You’re achieving things which in the real, tangible world you can’t actually achieve. Through music we have the possibility of creating the cultural ambience within which subversive ideas can be exchanged.”

In June 2020, the government missed its target to remove all flammable aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding from 300 high-rise residential and publicly-owned buildings with the same ACM cladding. It is estimated 1,700 more buildings have some other form of dangerous cladding, like timber or high pressure laminate.

In 2020, the Labour Party tabled The Fire Safety Bill, which would clarify that the responsible person or duty-holder for multi-occupied, residential buildings must manage and reduce the risk of fire for the structure and external walls of the building, including cladding, balconies and windows and entrance doors to individual flats that open into common parts. It was directly influenced by the Grenfell Inquiry. The Conservative Party whipped it’s MPs and 318 voted against the bill.

For some, the dire situation of austerity Britain feels insurmountable, and change a hollow dream. Rudimental’s ‘No Pain’ features Kojey Radical referencing Sam Cook’s civil rights anthem ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ when he asks: “Who fell, Grenfell, what that cost 'em? / They said change was gon' come / Change for who? Change for why?” It feels like the world never changes for those trapped with hunger, bullets and bombs. The Grenfell fire was a reckoning brought about by a broken system being further slashed and worn away by neoliberalism, austerity and unflinchingly uncaring politicians. With zero faith in the State, two years on from the fire, the verse adds: “Youth club shut down / funding cut down / Police cut down, who helps us now?”

Thatcher and Music Part 2: Thatcher’s Children

Thatcher and Music Part 2: Thatcher’s Children

Over 2020 and into 2021, I’ve been working on a book about protest music of the 2010s against austerity, and you can read extracts here. Part of this has made me look to the past and the protest music of the 1980s. As this week seems the anniversary of Thatcher’s death, here’s an edited extract:

Labour had been polling ahead of the Conservative Party in most opinion polls since mid-1989, and the Conservatives were bitterly divided on issues such as the European Union, a sore internal topic that would come to haunt the Party two decades later. Finally ousted in a leadership challenge by John Major, nevertheless Thatcher cast a shadow across British culture long after her premiership. Artists writing about Thatcher and her legacy after she stepped down as a MP in 1993 include Benjamin Zephaniah (‘Belly Of De Beast’), Frank Turner (‘Thatcher Fucked The Kids’), Hefner (‘The Day That Thatcher Dies’), The Corries (‘Who’ll Take The Ball from Maggie Thatcher’), Primal Scream (‘Thatcher's children’) and Nightmares On Wax (‘70 80s’).

The legacy of the great miner’s strike looms across music too, from Manic Street Preachers’ ‘1985’ to Ferocious Dog’s ‘The Enemy Within.’ Miner’s life and community is immortalised in concept albums like Joe Solo’s passionate and personal Never Be Defeated and Public Service Broadcasting’s sweeping and stirring Every Valley. Pulp’s epic ‘The Last Day of the Miner’s Strike’ spans generations and cements the struggle as an unshakable touchstone of British history akin to the Magna Carta. Lead singer Jarvis Cocker takes us ambitiously, but not romantically, back to a time where “The future's ours for the taking now, if we just stick together.” Hauntingly optimistic even in the face of defeat, the song layers religious iconography over a soaring guitar-soaked track. Although the lyrics admit that socialism has given way to socialising and the party-driven feel-good Britpop era, Cocker cultivates goosebumps when he declares “so put your hands up in the air once more, the north is rising!”

An inspiration to the Tory teenagers of the 1980s who now sat on the frontbench, Osborne shed a graceful tear at her funeral in 2013. Meanwhile parts of the country celebrated. Street parties and processions sparked up from Brixton to Glasgow to Goldthorpe, where a Thatcher effigy was burned in a carnival celebration. In 2017, a Parliamentary petition submitted on 10th January demanded that day become Thatcher Day to honour the former Prime Minister, Inequality Street responded with the song ‘Thatcher Day’: “so go on have your Thatcher day, ‘cos here’s what we envisage / a burning Thatcher effigy in every mining village.”

Thatcher served as a symbolic bastion of the Right, with the tax-payer contributing £3.6 million to her state funeral. Pundits discussed her influence on modern politics, and those opposed to her Party galvanised against the celebrity tone of her achievements and legacy. Thatcher, as symbolic as when she was Prime Minister, was once more used to remind people of the harm her government did in the 1980s, and the harm her Party were doing in the 2010s.

The week of her death, ‘Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead’ from the Wizard of Oz soundtrack peaked at number 2 in the charts. The Notsensibles’ tongue-in-cheek 1979 punk song ‘I’m In Love With Margaret Thatcher’ hit number 35. Chumbawamba, who started their career under Thatcher’s regime in the 1980s, recorded the In Memorium EP in 2005. Fans bought the EP via mail-order, and when inevitably Thatcher would die in the future, it would be shipped out the following day. Officially released on 8 April 2013, the 10 minute-ish selection of songs mutate into one another with samples of Thatcher and a clip of comedian Frankie Boyle. ‘So Long, Farewell’ and ‘Waiting for Margaret To Go’ chime with a creepily upbeat attitude reminiscent of World War Two pop. Comedy duo Johnny & The Baptists penned ‘Let’s Bury Thatcher’ to argue that Thatcher could be buried once a week to “keep everyone happy”:

“If you're a fan of her legacy you could help lay her in the ground And If you're a miner you could get work digging her out Makes for a great Blitz spirit - whichever side you're on So let's lay Maggie under the soil every Wednesday from now on.”

Atilla The Stockbroker began his career as a punk poet and musician under Thatcher’s premiership. His song with Barnstormer ‘Maggots 1 Maggie 0’ is a jeering folk-punk song, with a rousing up tempo chorus with added “hallelujah!” The song predates Thatcher’s death, but Attilla re-released it on his 2013 Best Of.

On the other end of the spectrum Carol Hodge’s 2018 ‘The Witch Is Dead’ is introprosetive, encouraging the listener to “go home / And hold the one you love / That little bit tighter tonight / And sleep smug, safe and sound because you know / There’s one less touch of evil / One less grain of rotten alive”. By contrast, ‘Party Gone Wrong’ by Smiley and The Underclass sees that evil still hovering in the world. The song fizzes with an infectious dub punk energy whilst telling the story of a peaceful party under attack from the police whilst “the ghost of Maggie Thatcher is laughing tonight.”

Thatcher appears on the artwork to Fit and the Conniptions’s 2017 album Old Blue Witch. The title song grizzly, but resists a celebratory tone. Like ‘Party Gone Wrong’, Thatcher’s presence is still very much felt in British politics. The song states there’s a party in Brixton, but the singer will stay at home instead because “the Iron Lady’s bastard child is still in Number 10 / The hospital's closing and the library’s gone.” The song focuses on the ways to win the fight through activism, else otherwise “that old blue witch ain’t dead.”

The Conservatives used ‘Maggie’ as a spiritual figure, with Cameron leading tributes to the Iron Lady on the steps of Number 10 and in Parliament. She becomes no longer a breathing politician, but a symbolic invocation of State power and economic hardship against the poorest. Whether discussing internal politics or Brexit, the ‘Ghost’ of Thatcher would be referenced in articles and speeches across the 2010s. Seven years after her death, Spitting Image ran a sketch where she possesses the aimless Johnson.

With so many parallels to the Coalition government and the 2010s Conservative frontbench, it’s not surprising that bands also invoked the figure of Thatcher in their lyrics to tell stories of the modern world. If Thatcher can be transformed in a symbol, then this symbol can still be twisted through music just as she was in the 1980s.

Thatcher and Music Part 1: Get Rid Of Maggie

Thatcher and Music Part 1: Get Rid Of Maggie

Over 2020 and into 2021, I’ve been working on a book about protest music of the 2010s against austerity, and you can read extracts here. Part of this has made me look to the past and the protest music of the 1980s. As this week seems the anniversary of Thatcher’s death, here’s an edited extract:

On April 8th 2013, Baroness Thatcher passed away. Few other 20th century British figures have spearheaded such societal changes as Thatcher, and caused so much harm through destructive policies. Thatcherism's upheaval of the welfare state, demonisation and breaking of working class communities, de-regulation of the markets created a polarised and unrepentant response from musicians. You can find a Spotify plealist here.

Thatcher is overtly the subject of songs by The Beat (‘Stand Down Margaret’), Macka B (‘Get Rid Of Maggie’), Ewan McColl (‘The Grocer’), Morrissey (‘Margaret on the Guillotine’), UB40 (‘Madame Medusa’) and The Exploited (‘Maggie’) to name but a few. Her figure looms across the music of the era, Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ opens with the line “Margaret Thatcher on TV”, whilst Pink Floyd refer to “Maggie” multiple times throughout their 1983 album The Final Cut.

In 1985, The Men They Couldn’t Hang released ‘Ironmasters’, which reached number 11 in the UK singles charts. Their record label insisted the release remove the line "and oh, that iron bastard, she still gets her way," a knowing reference to Thatcher as the Iron Lady. The Blow Monkeys’ 1987 album was dedicated to Thatcher, titled She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter and featured jibing songs like ‘The Grantham Grizzler’. Though intended as a protest against her, Thatcher was always proud of her middle class origins. During the election, the Blow Monkeys released a blue-eyed soul duet with Curtis Mayfield called ‘(Celebrate) The Day After You’, which was too political for the BBC to play during a general election and was banned. Crass’ 1982 anti-war single ‘How Does It Feel’ asked Thatcher “How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand dead?” Tory MP Timothy Eggar blustered on LBC Radio that the song went “beyond the acceptable bounds of freedom of speech, being the most vicious, scurrilous and obscene record that has ever been produced.” I guess by modern standards, he wanted to ‘cancel’ Crass.

‘Maggie Maggie Maggie / Out Out Out' was a familiar chant throughout the decade, and immortalised in song by The Larks, which was played by John Peel on his roadshows. On the sleeve notes to their 1986 debut album, The Communards dedicated their song ‘Reprise’ to Thatcher. ‘She’ll Have To Go’ by pop chart-toppers Simply Red declares “breaking our backs with slurs / And taking our tax for murdering / The only thing I know / She’ll have to go.” Elvis Costello goes further: on his cutting ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’, he hopes he’ll live on so that “when they finally put you in the ground / I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.”

Various bands, artists and comedians were part of Red Wedge, a collective hosting gigs and events from 1985-1990, primarily to oust the Tories in the 1987 election (pictured above). Author and radio presenter Stuart Maconie says that Thatcher‘s personality was encapsulated in the ideology Thatcherism, like Reagan’s Reaganomics. No one ever called it Nixonomics or Callahanism. So Thatcher “became more than just a person, she became sort of a shorthand for the ruthlessness, callousness, the disregard for working people.” Speaking to website NPR the week of her death, Maconie goes on to to say:

"It wasn't just a political response; it was a kind of gut emotional response. In the north of England, the effects of Thatcherism were quite visible: Factories closed down, mills closed down, mines closed down, and people were put out of work. And of course, you've got to argue, she was an easy person to become a figurehead. She even looked like she should be on the prow of a ship."

Since the rumbling of alternative pop music since the late 1950s, a tribal and scene-based culture had been brewing across the generations. Just look at The Young Ones, where a metalhead, a punk and a hippie squabble. Retrospect films and TV like This Is England show the power of subcultures defining themselves, and being defined by their music. Tracey Thorn of Marine Girls and Everything But The Girl wrote in her memoir: “politicisation seemed to be the norm, and would continue to do so well into the 1980s. Even as musical styles changed, and many of the old punk battles were left behind, for those of my age the ideals of the late 1970s remained a driving force.”

By the 1980s, a cultivation of colourful and vibrant network of punk, synth-pop, dub, post-punk, new wave, Oi!, power pop, goth, metal, psychobilly, ska genres danced alongside fashion styles and cultures like New Romantics, Mod and Ted revivalists, skinheads, casuals, rude boys and the adjacent LGBTQ+ scenes and the Rastafarian religious and cultural movement. With such a packed repertoire of scenes and styles challenging mainstream perceptions, this period of time was rife for an explosion of political music.

Thatcher was eventually defeated when the Poll Tax legislation was met with riots and resistance. Over 40 people collaborated on Punk Aide’s 1989 compilations Axe The Tax, Can’t Pay Won’t Pay and Fuck The Poll Tax. Oi Polloi and Chumbawamba released and toured an EP called Smash the Poll Tax. Crossover thrash punks The Exploited released ‘Don’t Pay the Poll Tax’ in 1990, featuring clips from news reports on the Poll Tax Riots that same year.

Thatcher and her government became the focal intersection for these movements. Whilst bands and their fans come through different routes, they find themselves arriving at the same destination. For example, Madness and The Specials criticise the Tories on ‘Blue Skinned Beast’ and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ respectively, inspired by the upstart rude boy style of Jamacian ska. Meanwhile Scottish band The Corries are part of a legacy of rebellious celtic working class folk music. But whatever the roots of the struggle, these genres, styles and cultural communities all found a common enemy in Thatcher.

Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP between 2005 to 2019, said: “It’s become a cliché, but Thatcher was one of those Marmite figures – you either loved her or you hated her. Even those who hated her had to acknowledge that she was an iconic figure, and as such she became a lightning rod for dissent.”

This unity against Thatcher was a reflection of her own, sweeping antagonism towards British culture. Her biographer John Campbell wrote: “to fuel the aggression that drove her career she had to find new antagonists all the time to be successively demonised, confronted and defeated… She viewed the world through Manichaean spectacles as a battleground of opposed forces - good and evil, freedom and tyranny, us against them.”

And this is exactly the energy that is being invoked right back at Thatcher. These are songs which hold no punches. They are often bitter and brash, cutting straight to the point and using personal insults as a way to attack the broader policies and structures of Thatcherism. Speaking to author and journalist Dorian Lynsky, Crass’ Penny Rimbaud said: "I think Thatcher was an absolute fairy godmother. Christ, you're an anarchist band trying to complain about the workings of capitalist society and you get someone like Thatcher. What a joy!"