Reports from this week's Billy Bragg concert seemed to arrive at a consensus -- it was tremendous. Bragg was at his best. And this space was in receipt of many of these personal reviews because it seemed pretty much all of Winnipeg's left was there.
The joke apparently was there were so many people from the leg there, that if a bomb hit the Garrick that night, it would have been more effective at removing an NDP government than anything Jim Walding might have done in in 1988.
Bragg spoke about the topsy-turveyness of politics in his British homeland these days. Specifically he referred to youthful Tory leader David Cameron appearing on the iconic BBC 1 radio programme Desert Island Discs earlier this year and without skipping a beat he announced his musical tastes included The Smiths, Radiohead and Pulp, and selected Cheryl Tweedy when asked which of the Girls Aloud group he thought most attractive.
The world is upside down, Bragg suggested from the stage, when the Tory leader is hip and the Labour Prime Minister is palsie-walsie with George Bush and invading Muslim countries for access to oil. You may have heard Blair becoming extremely unpopular for it both within and without the Labour party.
You might think there could have been a bit of a shiver up the spine of so many NDP hacks in the crowd, when on the surface there is perhaps a parallel with the political landscape here in Manitoba.
Manitoba Tories have a youngish new leader of a similar vintage as Cameron.
The NDP came in only two years after Blair's New Labour, ripping off pretty much everything they did (hello ... "Today's NDP"). Doer is a classic Blair-style triangulator and even this week is hanging out with pro-Iraq war monger Arnold Schwartzenegger.
You can imagine running through the dipper staffers' minds that perhaps there is a bit of synchronicity here.
Well, all we can say is that when asked about his musical inclinations recently, Hughie pointed to his admiration for the stylings of ... (wait for it) ... James Blunt.
Ah, well, David Cameron, he ain't.