Elections coming up in Britain

Labour will face tough elections on May 3rd (Local government elections in England; Parliamentary and local government elections in Scotland; Assembly election in Wales). Therefore I was glad to read (in The Guardian) that cool Labour is still mixing politics and music:

Dave Rowntree may be better known as the bespectacled one from Blur, but the drummer has gone from Blurite to Blairite after announcing he will be standing as a Labour party candidate in a council by-election this May.

Spurred on by a "sense of dissatisfaction" among Westminster residents, the long-term Labour supporter has decided to stand as councillor for the Marylebone High Street ward where he lives, despite it being a traditionally Tory stronghold.

"I'm a Westminster resident, and my experience of living here is that it all looks lovely, there are hanging baskets everywhere, but you only have to scratch the surface to see that actually there's a lot of deprivation and inequality". [...]

Standing on a redistributive platform, he'll put people "ahead of big business and ahead of property developers". "We [Westminster] are a very, very rich area, one of the richest in the country, and yet nine of our wards are amongst the poorest in the country. I think someone needs to do something about that, take some action." [...]

So, remember Westminster residents with a copy of Parklife: vote Dave Rowntree on Thursday 3rd May.

More about the elections here, and don't miss Labour-TV! And if you have forgotten about Blur, this is how it once began.