The pop band behind New Labour’s 1997 anthem Things Can Only Get Better has banned Sir Keir Starmer from using the song in the election.
D: Ream founding members Alan Mackenzie and Peter Cunnah said they were dismayed to hear their number one hit play through a speaker when Rishi Sunak announced he was calling a general election for July 4th.
The pair told LBC their first thought was: “Not again.”
Latest elections: Starmer attacks Johnson hiding in the fridge
“I find it disturbing that everything has become political again. I was thinking: can we get on with our lives? But now it’s back,” said Cunnah, speaking from his recording studio at his home in Donegal.
“You ask, are we just some kind of protest music on a loudspeaker at the end of a street? It’s like some kind of very strange gravity that you just can’t escape.”
But Sir Keir brushed off the snub, telling LBC: “Well, look, it’s not 1997. It’s 2024.
“The choice before the country is absolutely difficult. We have now had 14 years of chaos and division. And if the Conservatives return, it will be more of the same.
“We can turn the page, we can start again, rebuild our country with Labour. And we will have a song for that moment if we have the privilege of coming to serve.”
See more information:
Conservatives pledge £20m each to 30 cities
Sunak says Abbott’s decision shows who is really in charge of Labor
How do Labor and Conservative energy promises compare?
‘I don’t think politics and music should be linked’
The band also expressed regret for leaving Mr Tony Blair used their trail during their election campaign in 1997, saying they were accused of “having blood on their hands” after the UK became involved in the war in Iraq.
“I remember clearly that there was a wonderful sea change and the nation had a sense that there was a need for change,” Cunnah said.
“Everyone was really behind this and gave the Labor Party the benefit of that doubt. But after the war, I was politically homeless.”
Mackenzie, who spoke to LBC from her home in the Midlands, said: “I don’t think politics and music should be linked.
“This has also happened with a lot of other bands in America and here, because songs become intrinsically linked to something, it can really affect them in a negative way.
“I mean, I’ll vote the Tories out, but I don’t want the music to be linked to that.”
‘Our songs and politics, never again’
Asked what they would say if Sir Keir asked to use one of his songs, Mackenzie said: “There’s no way – our songs and politics, never again.”
“I learned the hard way. No, no, no,” Cunnah agreed.
“This is a changing of the guard, I don’t see it as an election. It’s just a changing of the guard, someone passing the baton.”
Physicist Brian Cox was the original keyboardist for D:Ream
The original D:Ream line-up also included professor Brian Cox, but the group split shortly after New Labor’s victory in 1997.
Cunnah and Mackenzie reunited in 2008 and are preparing to perform at Glastonbury this summer.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
