The Scabs From Auntie

It's a late link but Meaders has the low down on those who crossed the picket line during Monday's 24 hour strike at the BBC. Looking at the list of those who crossed the class line, I'm not surprsied that muppets like Chris Moyles, Sarah Kennedy, Nicholas Witchell and Evan Davis are on the list of shame but I'm a wee bit shocked and disappointed to see Jo Whiley, Steve Lamacq and, for some inexplicable reason, Mark Goodier on the list. It is telling that it is DJs who have somehow let me down, and the likes of Alan Tichmarsh and Lowri Turner pass me by. It's all too apparent that I am still a Radio One pop kid at heart, despite the Captain Beefheart box set sitting to the left of me.

From reading the list of those who did us wrong, it's kind of funny 'cos I'm still reading John Harris's The Last Party at the moment, and one of the themes of the book is the parallels to be drawn between indie music becoming part of the mainstream through the guise of Britpop, and how this coincided with one time Ugly Rumour, Tony Blair, becoming leader of the Labour Party in the mid-nineties. As is the nature of these books that have to hang their purpose on a particular hook, for Harris the two overlap not just because of the NME poll winners lining up behind the Labour Party in the run up to the '97 election, but also because it signified a break with the immediate past of the Labour Party as being a permanent ineffective opposition, and the shadow of Thatcherism - and the polarisation that it engendered in society - somehow finally being put to rest.*

Harris documents how part and parcel of Britpop breaking out of the musical ghetto was the mini-revolution that took place when Matthew Bannister took over as controller of Radio One, with some of the old guard being gently wheeled away in their pyjamas to a placer more fitting to their musical taste, to be replaced by bright young things better placed to know what music was being listened to by people who couldn't remember the last time there was a Labour Government. Part of the vanguard brought in to shake things up musically - and by extension, according to Harris's stretched out thesis, Britain, and how it saw itself - were, you've guessed it, Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. From the NME to the Enemy** in just over ten years. Someone should put this to music and send a copy to the pair of them.

On another point, I'm torn by the fact that one of those who didn't cross the line was Nicky Campbell. Does this mean that I must bury once and for all my long held view that he is a smug, preening pretentious 24 carat wanker? Sorry, I can't do it. Solidarity can only go so far.

*I've said it before but I remember May 2nd 1997; the sun was shining and everybody had these big massive grins on their faces. It was likea promotional video for the mormons, but everybody genuinely thought things were going to change for the better. Even this ultra-leftist who had temprarily decamped to the Third Camp for the duration.

** Yeah yeah yeah, you were groaning when you read this hackneyed cliche but I was blushing to my roots when typing it.