Whether it’s Labour and Plaid in Wales, the SNP and Greens in Scotland or Red Wallers and free-marketeers within Westminster, it’s an interesting time for political alliances at present. But Mr S brings news of a fresh new cross-party effort to raise the eyebrows of even those cynical veterans of the ChangeUK years. Esther McVey – the true-blue Tatton Tory torch-holder of the Thatcherite flame – is spearheading calls to regulate music streaming under the auspices of the #BrokenRecordCampaign.
The former Cabinet minister has been drumming up support for the initiative, penning enthusiastic op-eds for the Times and rounding up 44 Conservative MPs to co-sign a letter calling on Boris Johnson to ‘level up’ the music industry. A self-avowed free-marketeer, McVey has nonetheless emerged as a critic of the music industry’s ‘huge and often foreign-owned multinational corporations’ for threatening ‘treasured areas of our national life.’ Intrigued, Mr S thought he would look into the Blue Collar Tory’s new-found allies on the campaign, which was founded and fronted by former musician Tom Gray.
Unfortunately, despite McVey’s ardent support of his campaign, Gray does not appear to be a fan of McVey’s Brexit-enacting government, judging by a quick-look at his social media pages. Among his greatest hits include suggesting that the government ‘couldn’t give a monkey about suicidal kids, fascism etc,’ criticising ‘mainstream Conservatives’ for ‘deal[ing] in nationalist bunkum’ and being ‘an obscene watered-down version’ of Nazis and calling Johnson a ‘blitherin’ blowhard’ ‘talking shite.’
Mr S awaits with interest to see if such utterances will convince the government to change its mind, given Jacob Rees-Mogg said less than a fortnight ago that ministers believe more research needs to be done. Still, Labour MP Kevin Brennan does have a Private Members’ Bill shortly up before the Commons to change remuneration for music artists, with McVey among those in support.
Given his membership as one of four MPs in the cross-party rock band MP4, let’s just hope Brennan’s bid for a change in musicians’ royalties doesn’t constitute a conflict of interest.
Comments