Only one way to start my column this week.
 
LABOUR CONFERENCE SHIPPING FORECAST 2024
 
Smooth,
becoming variable,
veering slowly,
losing identity.
 
Fair Isle, Thames –
moderate or good.
 
Humber, Tyne, Forth –
very poor
becoming cyclonic.
 
Rockall – fuck all. 
 
Fastnet, 
veering left,
imminent. 
 
Sole
Forties
Dogger.
 
And now I’m going all-in on other people’s music: first a great new album and then a celebration of my childhood inspiration.  

Let’s start with a gloriously progressive vision of England. Lilli Bolero, the latest recording by Martin Newell and his band Cleaners from Venus, is a work of low-fi genius, up there with the all time definitive classic They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles by the TV Personalities, and that is high praise indeed.

It is the very essence of positive Englishness — yes, such a thing does exist, although it is often obscured by bollocks — and is a huge steaming streaming hit, which will worry Martin, a legendarily private person, and also make him very happy. 

I heard some of these songs at the recent anti-Farage gig Martin and I did in The Odious One’s constituency, and every single second of this album is the antithesis of Farage’s loathsome vision for our country, without being “obviously political” in any way.