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Billy Bragg: Political life
Billy Bragg who now lives in Dorset with his family, has long enjoyed a close relationship with grass-roots political movements and this is often reflected in his original lyrics and music. In between recording music in the studio, Bragg was building up a regular following of fans at live performances. Here, his sense of humour is shown in its truest form, allowing himself to ridicule those in power.
Billy Bragg backed the Miner's Strike of 1984 and the following year he helped to create the neo-communist youth movement called Red Wedge to inform young voters of the Labour Party's policies and discourage them from voting for the Conservative Party during the 1997 General Election.
During the election period he allied itself with Neil Kinnock and the left-wing faction of the Labour Party. Following the defeat of Kinnock and the repeated victory of Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party government, Billy Bragg joined Charter88 to push for a total reform of the British political system.
During the during the 1980s he also promoted both his ideas and music in the United States. In Dallas, Texas he was interviewed and often featured by George Gimarc on his
Rock and Roll Alternative radio programme which originated at the studios of KZEW and was relayed internationally by the Four Freedoms World Service (4FWS).
During the 2001 UK general election Billy Bragg attempted to combat voter apathy by promoting tactical voting in an attempt to unseat Tory candidates in Dorset.
Billy Bragg continues to use the lyrics of his music to promote his personal political ideas. To this end he developed an interest in English national identity and this was displayed on his 2002 album with the Blokes, England, Half-English.
In recent years Charter88 has allied itself to other groups which Billy Bragg also supports, in order to promote the idea of replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber using a Secondary Mandate voting system. The Secondary Mandate has been defined as a system of counting General Election votes by party at a regional level, and then allocating each party a number of seats according to the total votes gained by each party in the polls.
This proposed Secondary Mandate has attracted support from a number of Government ministers including Peter Hain and Lord Falconer, who invited Bragg to further present his ideas on the matter. However, the Secondary Mandate proposal has been criticised because instead of electing members, it relies upon appointments from a closed list controlled not by the voters, but by the political parties. Small parties would be at a disadvantage because they may not field candidates in all constituency seats and therefore their overall standing in the Secondary Mandate system would be very low.
- Red Wedge - Formed to gain a youth vote to support Neil Kinnock.
- 4FWS - George Gimarc interview in Dallas with Billy Bragg concerning his political ideas (including Red Wedge.)
- Charter88 - Supported by Billy Bragg and formed after the defeat of Neil Kinnock.
- George Gimarc - Published author on the era of British punk rock music.
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