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[11.35]
The great Billy Bragg has joined me. You can put questions to him on 0500 909 693. [...]
[11.38]
So it's a year of New Labour. Remember Red Wedge? Paul Weller, Jimmy Somerville, all those stars who backed Kinnock in the mid-80's. Billy Bragg was one of them. Morning Billy!
Good morning, Nicky!
We got a Labour government. Everything you ever wanted. I did always interviews with you in the 80's ...
That's right
... when Mrs. Thatcher was around ...
Yeah.
... and you were a frustrated man.
I was a frustrated man.
Your dreams have all come through, have they?
My dreams have not [come] through because we got a Labour government, but because we got rid of the Conservatives. When I get depressed about the way things are: think of all those Tory MPs who spent so long ruining this country. And where are they now, y'know, they're all kinda like ... I don't know where they are.
They're being appointed to committees by Tony Blair.
Well, some of them are, yeah, some of them are. Very interesting, isn't it.
Hmmm.
But I refuse to be cynical about it. I mean there's been a lot of stuff in the papers recently about how bad they are, and they're just the same as the Conservatives. I mean, y'know, these people must have very very short memories, or they'e just being glib, I think, because, y'know, ... If you think back a year ago, just on one or two issues: the logjam over Northern Ireland was threatening to send us back to the, y'know, the massacres of the early 90's.
Come on, Tony Blair was the first to acknowledge John Major's contribution.
That's true; but where had it got to? The trouble, the trouble for the Conservative Party was that their tiny little majority, and the Unionist Party was keeping them in power, so obviously, they ... You can see where the difficulty is there. Now, now that Blair doesn't have that, and because he's got this incredibly strong personality, he's able to go and, kinda like, by sheer force of his personality ...
But he was the first Labout leader ... John Smith as actually the first Labour leader to go in—for years y'know—to go in with the Unionist agenda; that's basically say `I'm a Unionist ...
Yeah.
... and you will stay part of the United Kingdom' ...
Yeah.
... because Labour policy is, like so many Labour policies, Labour used to be for Nationalism.
Labour used to be for a lot of things.
So many Labour policies he's turned on its head now, and they've adopted—well basically—Conservative policies.
I don't think the Conservatives were gonna abolish the House of Lords hereditary voting rights (were they in the House of Lords?); I don't think. The Conservative party are I think opposed to constitutional change in Scotland and Wales; I think they also didn't wanna sign the Social Chapter, they're opposed to a minimum wage, y'know, they were unashamedly dismantling the welfare state. I mean, y'know, this ... a lot of very very important things that this Labour government ['s] done.
So the welfare reform is part of that then?
I don't trust the word reform, I don't. I think when people say they're gonna reform anything that usually means they're gonna dismantle it.
Dismantling the welfare state. What's all this about thinking the unthinkable that Labour go through. Are you comfortable when they think the unthinkable?
No, I'm not. But I don't think of them, I don't think of them as a, as a socialist government. I think of them as a ... they're ... This Third Way business: I guess this means they're gonna do, y'know, some things that I like, and some things that Tory voters like. And I'm not sure where that's gonna lead us. But I don't think they're really ... I think they're a group of people that are responding to a historical change: Since the Berlin Wall came down, since the Cold War ended, so many of the things that happened in the world, really, but certainly in our politics were shaped by the realities of the Cold War. Now the Cold War is over, there is the opportunity to make a new kind of politics. And by that I don't mean politics that doesn't have meaning, that doesn't change lives, but politics that definitely has less ideology, and I'm not opposed to that—so long as its based on a compassionate ideal.
But a little ideology is a good thing, isn't it. 'Cos ideology—we're not talking about dogma, we're talking about ideology, ...
There's a thin line between ideology and dogma. The problem with the Labour party is at the moment, it is so early in the term—we're only a year into a five-year term—and I think they've achieved a lot of things. But they've also shown somne tendencies—like the Bernie Ecclestone business—to just carry on as before, the way the Conservative Party was. Things that people generally disliked about the Conservative Party; and they've got to get them things sorted out. But I, y'know, I ...
What about dancing to Mr. Murdoch's tune and bending to the wind. We were discussing this this morning on the phone-in: The Sun is outraged that Mary Bell is getting money from this book talking about her traumatized childhood. Tony Blair, Jack Straw, all of a sudden singing from the same songsheet as the Sun editorial.
Yeah, I mean that disappoints me as well. I mean the very fact that they, y'know, waited and waited until they felt the Sun was on their side and moved as much as they could. I don't think, y'know, in this country I'd rather that the Labour Party, the Labour Party conference—one man, one vote ... one person, one vote, y'know—made party policy rather than Rupert Murdoch. But I think we oversimplify matters when we look at it like this. I mean, y'know, it's a bit like the Millennium Dome—which I personally think is absolute waste of money; I can't believe they carried on doin' it—but the Labour Party as it stands, this Labour term is a bit like that, y'know: we don't know what they're gonna put in it yet, we don't know what it's gonna be like, and I personally—with regard to the Labour government—I'm not prepared to join the cynics.
The Millennium Dome is quite a good analogy ...
It is.
... of the whole thing. Do you think they are in a sense—as far as the administration goes—making it up as they go along?
On that case I thinky they are, yeah. I think they are. And it's also a classic case of style over substance, isn't it, and I personally have always come down on the side of substance and makin' a real difference. When you think of the number of people who sleep on the streets of London, who we could spend money doin' something about that. That's when I will believe that there's been a genuine positive change. I mean, constitutional change I'm very much in favour with, but people will still be sleeping on our streets. So when are we gonna address the really big issue, which I personally think is poverty, y'know. I mean Northern Ireland is a very very important issue and I'm really glad that we've got to deal with that. Our relationship with Europe is another important issue that's gonna happen.
But you're not gonna get a progressive tax regime from this government, are you?
Not yet. Not yet. I mean they've said this thing about keeping up for two years with the Conservative spending policy, after that I think there'll be a lot of pressure to do something because they can't keep running this economy the way it is with this huge, y'know, the Pound being so strong, without doing some kind of redistribution in some way. With the budget that we've just had: that's one of the few over the last 20 years that hasn't given tax cuts to rich people. And I have hope, y'know.
Have you ever [worn] a pair of headphones with you?
Yeah, I have indeed. I'm sorry.
[puts on his headphones]
Now just so you can hear ...
Yeah.
Stephen in [...]. Hi Stephen.
Hallo.
Good morning. Billy Bragg's here.
Hallo.
Yeah, I just wanna ask Billy if Arthur Scargill's party was the only real socialist party worth voting for.
I don't [know whether they're] worth voting for. I mean, my feeling at the last General Election was we had to get the Conservatives out! And I think if we do get genuine proportional representation out of this government, then there will be grounds for voting for a party like Arthur Scargill's party. And I think the more chance ... the more that the Labour Party becomes a party of the center, the more chance there is for a regrouping on the left to have a party which genuinely does, y'know, put forward genuinely socialist progressive redistributive ... whatever you wanna call it ...
Yeah.
... terms.
But genuinely socialist redistributive agenda failed throughout the 80's in this country. People didn't want it. People didn't vote for it.
No. The Sun didn't want it, Nicky, The Sun didn't want it. Rupert Murdoch didn't want it.
Are people lead by The Sun then?
Yeah, well, no. I think, I think what happens is that the conservative revolution failed: we went to that whole period of allowing the market to solve everything, and where has it got us? It's got us to, y'know, to a Labour Party landslide. The people of ... what they did do last year—whether or not they were voting for socialism—-what they did do: they voted for nurse, they voted for teachers, they voted for firemen, y'know, that's the kind of society that I wanna live.
They're not gonna vote for an authoritarian, are they.
No, I don't think.
Mr. Scargill.
I don't know, I mean, y'know, the problem that Arthur had ... I think that socialists have, is that since the Berlin Wall came down we have to ask ourselves, y'know, how we're gonna explain socialism to people—not in the old kinda like Cold War terms—how we're gonna make the socialism that is not tarred by Stalinism, y'know. I think Fascism and Stalinism being the two great things that held back people in this century; and we need to deal with them if we're gonna make a socialism that appeals to everybody. We have a choice really: it seems to me that we either take the middle class and put a gun to their head and say `you gonna do what we tell'ya or else', or you try and coax'em. And I think that what the Labour government are trying to do is they're trying to coax the middle class away from the way they were encouraged to be in the 80's, the way that they were in the 80's and early 90's when they dodn't give a care at all by anybody else—that Thatcherite idea—to an area that they realise that the middle class can't be outside of society.
You talk about middle class thwere, but Tony Blair—just befor we go to Travel and we come back after that—Tony Blair has pinpointed the very thing that I think he feels that Labour neglected throughout the 70's and 80's, as the people are aspirational.
That's right.
People want to be middle class.
That's true. And how do you giv'em those aspirations? How do you stop ... Because it's not just about havin' aspirations, it's about being able to take part in society on your terms, rather than being exploited by somebody else. Now, I am all in favour of individuals, but unless we have some kind of collective education, collective healthcare, some kind of cheap affordable housing, then only the rich people will get to express their individuality; and the rest of us will be exploited by'em.
Alright, Billy.
That's, to me that's part of socialism.
[11.47]
[Travel with Joan Sayles]
[11.48]
Billy Bragg is here. We can talk all morning on this. Let's see what Paula in Lincoln thinks. Hi Paula.
Hi Nicky. No, I just found it quite amusing actually—or ironic really—that you were talking about Middle America when the Ellen [slot] were on and the thing that offended then was good by you and really that is all that the Labour Party seem to have done since the come into power: it's appease the middle classes of England, appease the middle ranking, middle thinking ...
Daily Mail readership
Absolutely, absolutely! I mean you go for the weakest. It's always the same: you go for the weakest people. You hit them because it's going to appeal to the moral majority. They went for single parents: they haven't really got a spokesperson, they have no-one to speak for them.
108—for argument's sake—Labour women MPs, and only about 14 of them voted against single moms ...
I know. It's outgrageous, it's outgrageous, y'know, but my ... In answer to that: If you wanna see where the middle classes were. They were the people who marched through London on the Countryside demo. That's really weird to me. We're in a situation where the Conservative Party ...
Is that the middle class, or was that the unholy alliance which ahve always existed between the dog-lovers of the upper classes and the lower classes.
No, I think it was in some ways, it was the kinda landed gentry and those people who read Country Life, and now constitute the Conservative party membership—well supporters—in the country who realise that they're disenfranchised 'cos they [don't have] the government that they want, and nor have they got the Conservative Party that they want. And to see them marching through London in such numbers, it made me feel two things: Firstly I wanted to go down to my parking shed—«Get off my land!»,
[both laugh]
but I didn't, [...]; but secondly that this really is in some ways shows how weird the new politics is. And the old—I think the old-style kneejerk reaction for the press top say you can put the blame on single moms—that isn't gonna wash anymore because what has happened: there has been ... since that ...and I think Labour really made a real mistake by trying to target single mothers.
Well, it backfired on them.
Completely backfired on them!
We're kinda running out of time, but one thing I'll just put [to] you: how do you feel about having a Prime Minister of a Labour government who is so wholeheart ... express such wholehearted admiration for Margaret Thatcher.
Well, I think he's one, y'know, he's one, kinda like, powerhungry person admiring another, y'know: it's one tyrannosaurus sees another tyrannosaurus and thinks `So, that's, I like 'er.' So, y'know, it disappoints me, it frankly. Not only that. The way that Enoch Powell was lauded when he died was outrageous. That was so offensive, not just to the immigrant population of this country, but to every, y'know, sorta like fairminded person in the country. Enoch Powell was undoubtedly a racist and when he died he should have been condemned on such. So, we're not ... you don't suddenly ... the new Britain is not gonna be born overnight. But I do think that we are, y'know, moving in a more progressive direction than we were a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
But hang on a minute ...
And I still feel positive about it.
You don't wanna change the world, you're not looking for a new England, you're just looking for another girl.
Well, well. I was, I was. I found another girl, we had a lovely son called Jack, and I want him to live up, grow up in a society that is more fair and more equal and more compassionate. And I think this government that we have at the moment is _trying_ to move us in that direction.
Billy, good to talk to you. Thanks.
Thanks very much for having me.
[11.51]
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