ONE OF THE most poignant stories I’ve been told recently concerns Peter Mandelson’s grandfather, Herbert Morrison.
Morrison was Deputy Prime Minister in Clement Attlee’s Government and a man of great ambition, whose ambition was always being thwarted. That’s just politics, of course. Yet he also had a rather different aspiration.
He wanted to be on Desert Island Discs. He prepared a list of his selections and carried it around in his wallet for the rest of his life. But despite his great distinction, he was never asked to be on the programme. Now that is sad.
I share Morrison’s reverence for Desert Island Discs and his view that being asked to appear on it would be the ultimate accolade. I’ve accepted an invitation from the show, an engagement that I will fulfil on my way back from Oslo with the Nobel Peace Prize.
I do, however, have a couple of reservations. I worry about revealing to all of my friends that what they have always suspected about me is true — I have lowbrow cultural tastes. The classical music we play when they come round to dinner belongs to my wife. My desert island discs would all be pop music of the accessible kind.
I could, of course, pretend that all I listen to is Shostakovich, but somehow I think that’s cheating. I am a big fan of William Hague, but I think he was quite wrong to leave Meat Loaf off his list, after that stout star had provided him with so many years of listening pleasure. Meat must have been devastated. And Mrs Loaf, too. For this desertion, I think William deserved the fate he chose for himself — to be stranded on a desert island with just a judo mat and a copy of the Welsh national anthem.
My other reservation is that I will have the greatest difficulty reconciling the history of my life with the politics of the music I would select. “For my next record, Sue, I’d like to take the song I was playing on the night I was first selected as a Conservative candidate. Yuppy Scum by Tom Robinson.”
It’s very difficult being a right-wing fan of rock music. I’ve sat there more than once, swaying gently as Elvis Costello sang charmingly about Margaret Thatcher (“There’s one thing I know/ I’d like to live long enough to savour/ That’s when they finally put you in the ground/ I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down”). I’ve been in the audience as Christy Moore exulted over the defeat of Michael Portillo and everyone cheered.
What was I supposed to do? Stand up all alone and shout “Boo”? And, like the rest of my generation, I’ve heard Edwin Starr endlessly. War. What is it good for? Apart from smashing fascism, freeing the slaves and defeating communism, absolutely nothing.
I have struggled to understand the reasons for the apparent uniformity of the politics of rock’n’roll musicians. What is it about playing lead guitar in one group that ensures that you hold the same view about intercontinental ballistic missiles as the guy who plays tambourine in another group? Why aren’t there outdoor festivals in which the proceeds are donated to Youth for Peace Through Nato? Now, of course, the whole thing might just be a huge coincidence. The opinions expressed by pop stars may all be their genuine, well-thought-through judgments derived entirely from first principles, and just happen, by pure chance, to be the same as those of everyone else in the business.
Yet there was something about, just for instance, the reasons given by Atomic Kitten’s Liz McClarnon for opposing the Iraq war (“There’s enough trouble already, what with cancer and everything else”) that leads me to believe that this might not always be the case.
Reluctantly, therefore, I have come to the conclusion that a proportion of the views expressed by some of my favourite rock musicians (who do not include Atomic Kitten, in case you were worrying) are just a pose, with political opinions chosen in order to fit in, like selecting the right clothes.
The inspiration for at least some of this is nakedly commercial. Recording artists are trying to attract young audiences by showing that they share their attitudes. Yet oddly, given the pop industry’s usually unerring instincts, they are making a commercial mistake.
Since the 1960s, and particularly since the protests in universities in 1968, a lazy view of young people’s politics has become commonplace. They are thought to be to the left of the rest of the population. It is true that the protesters were young. It is also true, however, that the section of the US population most supportive of the Vietnam War throughout was the young.
According to the Times pollsters, Populus, last month in the UK 47 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 remained in favour of the war in Iraq, with only 43 per cent against. This compared with 42 per cent of all adults being in favour, while 50 per cent are against. And which is the most Eurosceptic section of the British public? Young people.
As Fox News, conservative internet bloggers and even the cartoon South Park demonstrate, in the US there is a huge market for those willing to take on liberal certainties.
So here’s my advice to EMI, Arista and all the other big labels who have been shedding staff in the last week. The future, the new counterculture, is right-wing rock’n’roll.
DESERT FOXED
MY FAVOURITE Desert Island Discs story is not, however, about Herbert Morrison. It concerns the programme’s repeated attempts to lure Alistair MacLean, the author of The Guns of Navarone, on to the programme.
MacLean was famously reluctant to give interviews, so the programme’s producers were delighted when he finally relented and agreed to fly over from Canada to appear.
The records were selected and a convivial lunch was being held at the Savile Club, as it always was, in order that the presenter, Roy Plomley, could get to know his guest a little better.
Over dessert Plomley asked him how he began writing. “Writing?” replied his guest. “I’m the head of the Ontario Tourist Board.”
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk
