Coming from the same generation as Jim Carroll ; having been tutored by Jim (and hence indirectly by Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger), I had thought politics of any hue inseparable from Folk Song.

I s'pose if I had to quantify my own political allegiance I am probably slightly on the right of what the Labour Party was before it was betrayed and suborned by the likes of Blair.

There was a Folk Concert in 1981 at Withington Town Hall, set up by the Local Public Libraries, and hosted by Mike Canavan.

I was asked to sing, and sang Eric Bogle's "Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - or rather, I tried.

I dedicated the song to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Generalissimo Leopoldo Galtieri, and the dead of both Nations.

I was hissed off stage. I still sang, and the song was received first in dead silence, and then to a slow hand clap.

Good job Ewan had been cremated, or he would doubtless have been spinning in his long bed.