‘Like watching your girlfriend kiss someone else.’
By Ellen Hunt
Freelance Journalist
There can be no tougher DJ gig than the Conservative party conference. It is not that it’s a discerning crowd. But it’s once the politicians have left the stage that the complaints start. This year Liz Truss herself was said to have selected M People’s Moving On Up to soundtrack her arrival at the lectern: it’s a determinedly upbeat anthem, if you don’t listen to the lyrics about packing your bags and moving on out. But the outgoing PM’s choice was not endorsed by M People, with founder Mike Pickering – a longtime anti-Tory – tweeting his anger.
Not that the band could do anything about it: the choice of music at such events is down to the discretion of the venue, not the label or artist (though it’s a different story for party political broadcasts). But just as there is a tradition of political protest music, there’s an equally long one of musicians protesting against politicians’ use of their songs. We spoke to artists who have had their songs co-opted by politics against their wishes.
It’s a strange, sort of vertiginous feeling to hear that someone’s using a piece of your music to further their own interests; that it’s the Conservative party makes it all the more irritating. It seems like every year a different artist gets that peculiar “honour”. It feels like being taken advantage of: we haven’t had any dealings with the Conservatives, yet they think it’s OK to use our stuff without prior approval.
I found out from a deluge of text messages and tweets. We had a quick chat about it, and realised that it warranted a response. We didn’t want people to think that we had sanctioned it. We sat down to think about what might be appropriate to say. We ended up saying that the Tories are corrupt wankers. It seems self-evident that the Tories are corrupt wankers, so why not try to drive that point home?
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