Photo: WENN
Brian May has spoken out in favour of a "completely reformed House of Commons" ahead of this year's general election, and has encouraged apathetic young people to "get up off your ass and vote".
Earlier this year, the Queen guitarist said he was giving "serious thought" to running as an independent candidate in the forthcoming general election, as part of his Common Decency project.
He's now taken to his website to respond to fans who feel the project's aims are too vague and have asked him to be more specific. "This I will do," he insisted, "and we’ll be ready to press this button pretty soon. I need the web site and the machinery that goes with it to be ready before I start asking people to do things."
He continued, "I can tell you now that what I’m shooting for is a completely reformed House of Commons. A house in which the MPs vote purely according to their conscience and the will of their constituents. You might say, 'Isn’t that what happens already?' Well, having spent the last two or three years in and out of those buildings, lobbying and making friends, I’d say definitively … on the whole, NO.
"Are you shocked ? There are a bunch of reasons why this is so, which I’d like to discuss later … and I believe those reasons are at the centre of the dark depressing hole which our supposed democracy has slid into. The House of Lords is another story, but I believe that will be sortable if we get the Commons right."
In a speech in Brighton yesterday, he also encouraged voters to think about the individual, rather than the party they stand for: "It's politics without colour. It's colour-blind politics. What we are saying is do not assume that your vote will be wasted, get up off your ass and vote."
Brian May has long been a campaigner for animal rights, which included protesting the badger cull and the Conservatives' plans to bring back fox hunting.
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