Billy Bragg - Never Buy The Sun

[david747]

Hi, I went to see Billy Bragg at Garforth Arts Festival last night where he debuted a new song he's just written.

Thought you might like it.

www.billybragg.co.uk/blog/?p=183

For those of you that don't know the people of Liverpool pretty much closed the Sun down as a newspaper there after the Hillsborough disaster and the disgusting slurs they placed on the Liverpool fans. (See section 6.1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#The_Sun_newspaper).

If Mr Murdoch intends to quietly re-open the NOTW as the Sunday Sun he needs to know that is not an option.

Have never bought the sun since Hillsbrough anyway.

He played in Leicester at the hope not hate gig ,to counteract the EDL march

Hes a good bloke in my eyes

Oi. You can't win, can you? If you're successful and have a social conscience you must be worse than rich with none .

PS Sybil I've 'liked' your link

Nice one Billy, but anyone likely to listen to Billy Brag is highly unlikely to buy the Sun. I reckon there must be a maximum of 5 people in the country who would do both, all of them residing oop north.

Anyone with half a brain is unlikely to buy the Sun, anyway.

who reads the sun anyway (oh yes my mil does, for the tits probably)

Is it hard though? Getting up and doing the same set for an hour? I just get annoyed that they are so opinionated for the minorities they can't see the wider picture, they make you feel guilty for being an average working person, if that makes sense!!! The one out of the Beautiful South is another one. Ranting on to anyone that will listen about the royal family, the police, the army, religion. Christ the list is endless. He's like a grumpy old man.

didn't billy also say he would not pay tax or something if the tories got in?

islawhiter - would that be johnny rotten who married the mega-rich hieress

lynette could you explain your point please? particularly the bit about the only people who would read the sun as well as listen to billy bragg being up north? would that be a suggestion that northerners are a bit thick in not realising the contradiction? eh eh? if so then STFU

and yes i am northern, and not thick, so there

No, I was not saying northerners are a bit thick (no more thick than southerners anyway). But they are more likely to listen to Billy Brag, I reckon. Which means,i f equal amounts of the Sun are sold all over the county, then those who both listen to BB, and read the Sun, with be from the north.

I'm not sure I've explained that very well.

I'm from the midlands, and never buy the Sun, and don't own any BB music, so I'm well and truly on the fence.

Just cancelled my sub to the Times,hv never bought Sun or NOTW - sick of the lot of them now, all from same stable.Hope they all go down if we boycott them, Murdoch needs to see that world has changed and we're all much cleverer now and don't need him cos we've got Facebook and Twitter (and Mumsnet lol) What am I changing to? Well.... sometimes buy Guardian anyway.... but adding the i mini-quality paper.

Why are people from the north more likely to listen to Billy Bragg? He's from London. He's the "Bard of Barking" (retch). Being "a Londoner" is part of his schtick. Just like pretending to be working-class when he lives in a fucking mansion in Poole is.

He sounds northern to me.

David747 thank you SO MUCH for posting that - it is a great song and I wish him well with it. I hope that it does fire people to keep on boycotting and roaring their disapproval of the media behavior which spawned the lyrics. I hope it gets a huge following on twitter and facebook and that The People speak loudly again by their collective actions.

(Not sure why you are all giving him such a hard time,...people who live in big houses are just as entitled to get political as people who live rough...)

Why so weirdly vitriolic about where Billy Bragg lives?

If he lived in a council house in Dagenham you would all be saying he was an evil bastard for taking up a council property.

Isn't Jonny Rotten a property developer in California?

Oh yes,and he does those very 'tongue in cheek' ads for country life butter.

The Sun has one very good use - to line the cat litter tray!

nah Johanna my cats wouldnt shit on the sun and insist on nothing but the Guardian!

liking how you are wriggling your way out of the 'northerner' comment lynette

I like him, personally. I think he's upfront and quite charismatic. There's always such a lot of vitriol about where he lives, mainly right wing press. But isn't his partner an interior designer or something - so, I guess, no reason she should live in a shithole just because of his politics!

I like Billy Bragg thank you for the link!

Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and tits
In a strictly money and numbers game

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

Interesting - from the Wikipedia link someone gave earlier - insight into the culture at The Sun and, perhaps at NOTW also, that has led to some of the hacking stuff - where no-one feels able to speak out against the excesses of very senior staff:

In their history of The Sun, Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie wrote:

As MacKenzie's layout [on the Hillsborough disaster] was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office (but) MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. (Everyone in the office) seemed paralysed ? "looking like rabbits in the headlights" ? as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it?they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a 'classic smear'.