Sir Roderick David Stewart (80) has really gone and done it now, at least for me. Booked to play the ‘I’m too old and irrelevant to play the headlining slots at Glastonbury’ these days so put me on at the geriatric greatest hits’ … sorry .. ‘legends slot‘, he gives an interview with far right scumbag Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper where he tells lies about the Labour government and, worse still, opines that it’s time to give even further right scumbag and thoroughly modern Mosley, Nigel Farage, “a chance“, says Stewart. “He’s coming across well.” Stewart says Starmer is “cutting off the fishing in Scotland and giving it back to the EU” which apparently has made him unpopular with his fellow Scots, presumably those who come from Highgate in London, like he does. Keir Starmer has managed to make himself unpopular enough without Rod Stewart telling lies about the Scottish fishing industry.
Stewart gets marked down by me anyway for doing an interview with multibillionaire media monster Rupert Murdoch’s failing Times ‘newspaper’, which is where all this tosh has come from. But he has rather given the game away earlier in the interview.
Inexplicably, Stewart is asked by the Times to give his expert views on politics and he replies in a classic obscenely rich bloke manner: “It’s hard for me because I’m extremely wealthy and I deserve to be, so a lot of it doesn’t touch me but that doesn’t mean I’m out of touch.” Let us break that down a bit. He’s worth around a quarter of a billion quid. Whether you agree that he deserves to be this filthy rich is a matter of opinion and mine is that we are talking about a bloke who hasn’t made a decent album since 1972’s Never A Dull Moment and anyway most of hits have been covers of songs written by others, but for one moment, let’s move to the crux of the matter. A very rich man urging that another very rich man, backed by countless other very rich men, who just happens to be on the far edge of right wing politics should be the new prime minister because “he’s coming across well“. Coming across at what, exactly?
If you loathe foreigners and, frankly, anyone of colour, as Farage does, then he is probably coming across well to you. If you, like Farage, think that Russia’s mafia president Vladimir Putin is a good guy, you will think he is coming across well. If you support Donald Trump’s full frontal attack on American democracy, then again you may think he is coming across well. If you oppose the very principle of the NHS, Farage is your man. Most tellingly of all, if you believe in massive tax cuts for the rich, as part of a low tax, small state country, then it’s easy to see how – let’s try to think of an example – oh yes, Sir Roderick Stewart might just think the Fagash Fuhrer is coming across well. No, Sir Rod isn’t out of touch with the 28% of the electorate, which is mainly old folk, who think far right politicians are just the kind of people we need in power. After all, it’s working so well in Russia and the USA.
Sorry if this blog appears that I am taking the piss out of Stewart, except that I am not sorry and I definitely am taking the piss out of him. And it is true that, at least for now, we have a relatively free country, except when it comes to the media and the legal system which of course favours the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else, where elderly rock stars are free to speak their mind on subjects like politics, suggesting that it’s time we tried a right wing dictatorship. Fair enough: plenty of people feel that way – 28% at the last count – so Stewart is well within his rights. But shouldn’t the Sunday crowd at Glastonbury “have a word” with him?
Isn’t ‘Glasto’, as da yoot seem to call it, for hip and trendy young people, whose views, more often than not, are left of centre? Who can forget when Labour’s wretched accidental leader Jeremy Corbyn was worshipped Christ-like by his adoring middle class audience? And of course rich farmer, the privately educated Michael Eavis and his privately educated daughter Emily, are well known for their support of issues that are mainly regarded as being left wing in origin. Presumably, as Stewart’s new found love for the nicotine-stained man frog Farage must be known to the guests at Worthy Farm, should they not boo him to fuck when he is Zimmered onto stage tomorrow afternoon?
We know that Northern Ireland’s brilliant – sorry, but they are – rappers Kneecap will get a great reception after calling for the death of British MPs, which you might think would give some clue as to the politics of the crowd so why not give Stewart a hard time, given that he is suggesting that we take a punt with the kind of politics that made Enoch Powell famous and, some might say, led to World War Two. Given that he was born when WW2 was still going on, you might be forgiven for thinking he might have concerns, but in the case of Farage, apparently not.
I rather suspect that Stewart’s show tomorrow will be a huge success and that the people I feel should be booing him will instead be participating in a nostalgia-heavy setlist, singing along with Sailing, Maggie May, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy and Tonight’s The Night.
I’ve grown to quite like Sir Roderick. His early music was terrific, he puts on a great show from what I have seen on telly and from what folk have told me and his autobiography ‘Rod – the autobiography’ is a rattlingly good read. So, why be a prick?
The likely truth is that a Times reporter invited him to be a prick by asking Stewart about things he didn’t know much about, as a closeted superstar who think he deserves to be a multi multimillionaire, in the same way that people in poverty presumably deserve to live in poverty. But how could you not be out-of-touch with the lives of ordinary folk if you are Roderick Stewart? We accept he is so why doesn’t he?
