I went to see Billy Bragg in August. Not canvassing, mind you. He’s one of a very few celebrities who doesn’t seem to have a house in my constituency. It was a gig at the Greenbelt Festival. He tried to play his entire first album in just nine minutes, but broke a string and had to talk instead (in the early days, I think he would have performed the next night as well without replacing the string).

What he talked about was why he was backing religion in general (Greenbelt is a Christian arts festival), because it was a bulwark against the single most destructive thing in society: cynicism and apathy. Which is really two things. But they’re obviously linked. Read more »