Record Label: Silverdoor Records

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Our Rating:

First off, buy this album! It’s only £8 – less than the price of 3 pints – it’s supported by the Strummerville Foundation, and all proceeds will be donated to Jail Guitar Doors, Billy Bragg’s organization which funds instruments and musical tutorials for prisoners. If you’re a Daily Mail reader and think that sounds like a wet lefty waste of cash, then, fuck you. Also, note that the re-offending rate of those involved is 10-15% rather than the 60% of the general prison populace. But mostly, fuck you. You get 31 tracks for yer dosh – a bargain in anyone’s language – and they’re a hugely varied bunch in style. Highlights are Billy himself’s live cut of ‘I Keep Faith’, and the sludgy glamour of Raven Beats Crow’s ‘Puncture Kit P;  and if Shock Defeat’s ‘As A Vegan I Was So Tired’ doesn’t win any awards for its sonics, it takes title of the year at a canter.  The real revelation however, is the 2 JGD graduates featured – Jonny Neesom’s swagger reminds you why you’re so disappointed Plan B’s turned into such a gonk;  and Leon Walker’s plaintive ‘Borrow Me A Fiver’ is battered and  beautiful;  he sounds like a rural sunset as directed by Shane Meadows.  Second off, BUY THIS ALBUM! (repeat to fade….)

Recommended Album:

Our Rating:

First off, buy this album! It’s only £8 – less than the price of 3 pints – it’s supported by the Strummerville Foundation, and all proceeds will be donated to Jail Guitar Doors, Billy Bragg’s organization which funds instruments and musical tutorials for prisoners. If you’re a Daily Mail reader and think that sounds like a wet lefty waste of cash, then, fuck you. Also, note that the re-offending rate of those involved is 10-15% rather than the 60% of the general prison populace. But mostly, fuck you. You get 31 tracks for yer dosh – a bargain in anyone’s language – and they’re a hugely varied bunch in style. Highlights are Billy himself’s live cut of ‘I Keep Faith’, and the sludgy glamour of Raven Beats Crow’s ‘Puncture Kit P;  and if Shock Defeat’s ‘As A Vegan I Was So Tired’ doesn’t win any awards for its sonics, it takes title of the year at a canter.  The real revelation however, is the 2 JGD graduates featured – Jonny Neesom’s swagger reminds you why you’re so disappointed Plan B’s turned into such a gonk;  and Leon Walker’s plaintive ‘Borrow Me A Fiver’ is battered and  beautiful;  he sounds like a rural sunset as directed by Shane Meadows.  Second off, BUY THIS ALBUM! (repeat to fade….)

Billy Bragg today asked the Chancellor Alistair Darling to call the bluff of RBS bankers who are hoping to receive an estimated £1.5bn in bonuses as a result of remuneration talks being held at Royal Bank of Scotland this week.

“I am tired of hearing financial experts tell me that if we don’t pay these bankers what they want, that they will leave the country and work elsewhere.

There is an implied threat there that makes a mockery of the fact that we saved the jobs of these people after they registered the largest corporate loss in British financial history last February. Have they no loyalty to the British people whatsoever?

Neither the government nor the opposition seem inclined to do anything about this situation, so it’s time that the tax-payer responded with their own threat.”

Bragg has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, to inform him that intends to withhold his tax payment due on 31^st January unless the Chancellor uses the veto that he controls as the major shareholder in RBS to limit bonuses to £25,000. Bragg has formed a facebook group NoBonus4RBS to build support for this idea.

“The thought of these international financiers leaving the country with their millions taken from the public purse at a time when the rest of us are being softened up for massive cuts in public services fills me with disgust.”

“The bankers are holding us to ransom. It’s time Alistair Darling called their bluff.”