2nd Aug 2010

More Than A Side Show

---

5th May 2010

VOTE VOTE VOTE

I've staked my political colours to the Green Party at this UK general election. It's handy then that my website and my limited 1980s art teacher kind of wardrobe is virtual subliminal messaging for the cause!

Of course, I dinnae take it as a pre-requisite that anyone who listens to my music should think likewise ... though I hope and suspect this is a BNP and UKIP free zone ... and nor would I want any party political affiliation to get in the way of my songs. But I'm tired also of the pretence of being non-partisan. And the fact that I'm not even sure what way most of my family and friends vote bothers me. Shouldn't we be talking to each other, even if it's just to disagree?

I’m going to vote Scottish Green at this election, even though they’ve only a slim chance of retaining their deposit in my home constituency of Midlothian (a safe Labour seat). They’re the only party making a genuine philosophical commitment to sustainable resource based economics, and laying out the links between environmental degradation, financial mismanagement and social inequality. I’d like to think the Green movement in Scotland and the UK is at the same stage as the fledgling Labour movement was a hundred years ago and that it’ll become a stronger political force before long. The likely election of Caroline Lucas in Brighton as the first ever Green MP would only help this. So instead of viewing my vote as wasted, I see it as statement of intent and an investment in the future strength of the Greens. For all that, I’m all for a hung parliament and electoral reform and would like also to see SNP and Lib-Dems doing well just to give the big two a kick up the arse.

So go kick some butt! No matter what colour you kick it!

---

9th Mar 2010

VICTOR JARA

It's hard to conceive in the polite British Folk Scene of 2009 that being a folk singer could ever have been considered a radical and dangerous pursuit. But in the Chile of the late 1960s and early 1970s it most certainly was. Victor Jara was a teacher, poet, theatre director and popular folk singer and songwriter who, as part of the "New Song" movement, advocated revolutionary cultural and political change under Salvador Allende's democratic government. Allende's power was short-lived, however, and in a 1973 military coup, backed by the US Government, thousands of his political supporters were rounded up into stadium buildings, where they were tortured and murdered. As a prominent musician, his captors reserved particular attention for his guitarist's hands, which were mutilated before his death. He was 38 years old.

More than 35 years after the event a 53 year old former soldier has been charged with his murder.

You can see and hear Victor Jara singing here

And you can hear one of my own folk heroes Dick Gaughan singing a song in his memory. The song is written by Arlo Guthrie and Adrian Mitchell. "His hands were gentle, his hands were strong."

---