Photo: Press
Signed to 1965 Records, Cheshire band Man & The Echo have a gift for a satirical lyric: few have summer up this general election better than 'When right wing blokes start winning votes / Because they're ordinary / A Tory Toff gets in / By being silly on the telly". As such Gigwise asked frontman Gaz Roberts to explain why precisely Boris Johnson must never be placed in Number Ten.
"As we approach the general election with uncertainty, one thing that can be taken for granted is that after May the 7th the Mayor of London will also be the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Boris Johnson is certain to win the Tory safe seat, and whilst he has ruled out taking a cabinet position in the event of a Conservative victory, he could be elevated to party leader in the event of a Conservative loss. By the next general election, if not sooner, we could realistically see Boris running for PM.
It’s enormously depressing to even contemplate that as one old Bullingdon/Etonian/big plummy posh twat could be ousted from Number 10, another one is straightening his bow tie in the wings. They’re all the same these guys; same sense of entitlement, same detachment from reality (Boris once described his £250k salary from the Telegraph, which he receives in addition to his £140k for the Mayor gig, as “chicken feed”). It defies logic that someone of his background could even hope to represent an electorate for whom pay day loans, food banks, and high streets full of pawn shops and bookmakers are the norm.
Boris was elected Mayor because his bumbling unprofessionalism and cod-humour, coupled with an apparent sympathy for socially liberal values, made him seem like a real human. A similar strategy is currently working well for Nigel Farage, a man likely to be elected as MP to South Thanet on the basis that he seems like a good bloke to have pint with.
But whereas Farage is probably exactly what he seems to be – a chuckling bigot with ultimately limited little-Englander appeal, Johnson’s pseudo liberalism and hail-fellow-well-met façade hide his nasty streak. The man who describes black people with terms like "piccaninnies" and “watermelon smiles”, who compared gay marriage to bestiality, and who believes “inequality is essential” is able and willing to disguise his ideologies to win power. He is more palatable than Farage, more electable than Cameron and more dangerous than both.
Listen to Man & Echo 'Honeysucker' below
Man & The Echo's 'Honeysucker' is out in June on limited edition seven inch vinyl. The band play the Old Blue Last in London on 19 May. For more information on the band follow them on
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