Push The Sky Away/Harder Than You Think

Right then, time for action, time for change, time to see what is going on. Today is the day. By this tomorrow we should know what we face. The way I see it there are three potential outcomes of this general election.

1. A victory for a socialist Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn. If I am to believe my Twitter timeline this is a completely plausible outcome, but I fear it is unlikely.

2. A hung parliament. Seeing as there can't be any parties out there who would prop up a minority government led by a politically damaged Theresa May, I'm guessing this would result in a progressive alliance of Labour, SNP, PC, possibly some Lib Dems, and the Greens. I am happy with this as an outcome.

3. A Tory government, a cabinet of barbarians, who will hold power for the next five years, driving us off the cliff face and into some sort of post-EU, post-human rights, right-wing elective dictatorship where the poor are left to fend for themselves and Britain becomes a Poundshop, Daily Mail outpost off the coast of northern Europe.

I'm not looking forward to this.

In 2013 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released an album called Push The Sky Away, the first without long term cohort Mick Harvey. It has a warmth that singles it out in Nick Cave's back catalogue and on this beautiful closing song, a most un-Bad Seeds sound, an almost post-club sound with some optimistic, life affirming lyrics...

'I was riding
The sun was rising from the fields

You've got to keep on pushing and keep on pushing
Pushing the sky away

And some people say that it's just rock and roll
Oh but it gets down right into your soul

You've got to keep on pushing and keep on pushing
Pushing the sky away'


Push The Sky Away

It's a thing of beauty, even if you're not much of a Nick Cave fan. But it's not a song to take to the barricades or the polling station. This is though, Chuck D and Flavor Flav telling it how it is...

Harder Than You Think

For The Many

A week today the people of the United Kingdom will go to the polls. Voting Tory is obviously so completely wrong that we will talk of it no further. Views of Jeremy Corbyn are polarised too, among Labour supporters and voters as well as the wider electorate, but the election campaign and the choice facing us has thrown everything into new light, and views of Corbyn have been shifting with people getting on board who previously had doubts. It seems blindingly clear to me (in England at any rate, Scotland and Wales have different issues and different options and Northern Ireland is a different situation again) that if you have any interest in wanting a fairer society, anything approaching some kind of social justice, a society where there will be an NHS for all and an education system that is relatively equal for all, a country where the many are not downtrodden for the benefit of a wealthy few, then there can only be one box to place your X. Whatever your thoughts on Corbyn, Labour are offering a manifesto that promises hope- for the many, not the few. Will they win? I don't think so but it's tighter than it was a few weeks ago and if the polls are correct it's getting tighter still. I'd like a Labour government with the Green's Caroline Lucas in the cabinet, by far the most impressive of the debaters at the leadership TV showdowns (which Theresa May is too frightened to attend despite seeing herself as strong).

That's my soapbox speech over, at least until next Thursday. Hull's Balearic campaigner Steve Cobby and realist poet Russ Litten have recorded a song borrowing the name of Labour's manifesto, for the many not the few. Smart electronic funk, a bubbling bassline, horns and flutes, and Russ's words. The original track was a free download. They performed it at a rally in Hull and it turned out Corbyn already had it as his ringtone. You can now get a four track e.p., complete with Corbyn himself edited into one of the mixes Tackhead stylee, for the cost of £1 (all proceeds to the Labour Party). It's here. You can get the single original version as a free download here. For the many, not the few.