UK Politics
Songs sung blue
Published 28 February 2008
Roll over, Beethoven: the Tories are rocking. Tara Hamilton-Miller reveals who's into Led Zep and who won a Shakin' Stevens dance contest
Who are the Tories really listening to? By now it is well known that a new breed of cross-party young bucks grew up to the strains of Paul Weller. But, more interestingly, it's the MPs who grew up in the Seventies, rather than the Eighties, who appear to have misspent their youth.
The undisputed king of Tory pop culture has to be John Whittingdale (Margaret Thatcher's political researcher, and a former shadow culture secretary). He even subscribes to Heat magazine. During his earlier years working in the Conservative Research Department, he used to go pogoing to the Angelic Upstarts at the Lyceum with Matthew Parris. And just this past week, Whitto has been out with Feargal Sharkey, who was lead singer in the Undertones.
"Sharkey and I go way back," he says. "The first time I met him was at the Marquee Club. He was on stage and covered in a sea of saliva."
Whitto has never missed a Brit Awards. "I was there for all the best bits - Chumbawamba soaking Prescott, Sam Fox, Jarvis. I talked to Debbie Harry, who I had been in love with for years."
In 2004 he was the only MP not to complain about Eric Prydz's naughty leotard pop video for "Call On Me", telling a BBC journalist that he wanted to watch it again. "How many of the so-called Jam generation actually saw them in concert?" he says. "I did."
A shadow minister who wishes to remain anonymous is rattled by claims that William Hague is meant to be a Meat Loaf fan. "I'm not convinced of William's devotion to Meaty. To be a proper fan you have to have seen him half a dozen times." Over to you, William.
The pop tastes of Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, lie firmly with his Scottish roots. He reels off Simple Minds, Big Country and Blue Nile as his pop favourites, though he adds: "It's a Tory cliché, but I adore Wagner." Gove is characteristically self-deprecating when he says, "I'm sure I'm the fan they would least like to have, but I love the Proclaimers."
Among the many achievements of Mark Lancaster, shadow international development minister, winning a Shakin' Stevens dancing competition during the latter part of primary school was a particular triumph.
"One of my greatest memories is seeing Led Zeppelin at Earls Court when I was 16," says Damian Green, shadow immigration minister. Green didn't manage to see them at O2 in December, but he did attend Glastonbury last year and was spotted enjoying Arcade Fire. (Canadian indie-rock band, grandad!)
Not all Tory boys spent their teens admiring Lady Thatcher. Ben Wallace, shadow minister for Scotland, remembers when Glastonbury was called the Pilton Pop Festival. "I used to live near the fields where it was held. I was there from when I was about ten years old." Wallace bought his first bootleg tape at Glasto (a practice he states he doesn't follow now) and worked in a burger van. As he graduated on to Donnington's Monsters of Rock, his heady world of metal climaxed in 1987 when he spent an evening with Aerosmith in Boston. Crikey.
It's not just the young 'uns who are down with the kids. Michael Ancram often entertains by playing Coldplay hits and Michael Portillo picked Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" on Desert Island Discs. In 2003, Nicholas Soames had his feathers ruffled by a BBC radio interviewer who suggested that his musical tastes were purely classical. "Don't come the raw prawn with me," he said. "I'll have you know, I bought a Katie Melua CD only last week."
Ultimate rock cred, however, goes to the sha dow housing minister, Grant Shapps. His brother was in Big Audio Dynamite, as was his cousin - none other than Mick Jones of the Clash.
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