Things can only get better for the Lib Dems, as D:Ream’s Brian Cox defects from Labour

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th March 2010 - 6:15 pm

Time was when you were asked to name a Lib Dem celebrity backer you would have been hard-pressed to think beyond Barry Norman, Liz Kershaw and Barry Cryer (all of whom are stars, of course). Then came Sandi Toksvig, Floella Benjamin and Brian Eno; perhaps also Daniel Radcliffe. And last month, the Observer named Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Colin Firth, Kate Winslet, Andrew Motion, Razorlight, and the Kooks. Suddenly, it’s al looking a bit more A-list, a bit more contemporary.

And now comes today’s news from The Sunday Times, ‘D:Ream is over as poster boy Brian Cox deserts Labour: a former pop star turned scientist whose song was used as the party anthem is to vote Lib Dem in protest at cuts in academic funding’:

ONE of the members of D:Ream, the pop group whose song Things Can Only Get Better became the 1997 new Labour election anthem, has decided that things are, well, getting worse. Last week Brian Cox, who has pursued an academic career since the band split up, attacked Labour’s record on science funding and indicated he would vote Liberal Democrat at the coming election. …

Cox said that Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem spokesman on science, had “made the most commitment to science” and, when asked if he would vote Lib Dem, said: “Yes I would.” The news will be embarrassing to Labour. Keyboardist Cox and D:Ream played a series of gigs for the party during the 1997 election campaign.

For the record (ahem), D:Ream’s most recent single was called, “All Things To All Men”. [Insert your own punchline here].

3 Comments

MatGB 14th Mar '10 - 10:58pm

GAH!

I now have the bloody song in my head again. I’ll have to play Teenage Kicks until it goes away.

Tried to watch his show on the solar system last night, thought it was pitched at the wrong level, but he’s obviously a smart bloke. Can’t blame someone for backing Blair in ’97, and switching to us now.

So that’s Dawkins and now Cox; I think we need to get Evan to brush up on his actual membership recruitment skills, if he’s managing to recruit us pretty good supporters, some of them can give us money and help us write policy.
Evan Harris 15th Mar '10 - 8:22am

It is not quite as clear as the paper says since Brian tells me (at the libel reform gig last night) that he said to the journalist that he was certainly not as keen on Labour as previously and that I was good science spokesman (etc) but that he said if certain conditions pertained he would vote Lib Dem, which the paper translated as “he would [now] vote Lib Dem.

We do have a number of higher profile supporters in the world of science, but a number are being put off by the number of our MPs who have signed EDM 908 which is total anti-science. Google it and judge for yourselves!

Evan
Mike 15th Mar '10 - 5:43pm

I don’t believe Barry Cryer has ever been an “out” Lib Dem but Barry Took certainly was.