I've been waiting for someone else to mention this thinking that it was bound to come up soon..... but it hasn't, so here goes.

The attempts by the BNP to infiltrate folk music with their thinking that anyone interested in British traditions would also be sympathetic to an extreme racist British nationalism happened in fairly recent times. Those, including myself, who strongly opposed this were subject to a scurrilous vilification on social media. For example, I was subject to identity theft of my emails and Facebook and Mudcat postings and PMs, had to see hideous photoshopped photos of my wife posted on the internet and threats that their thugs would descend on meetings of the folk club I ran. Fortunately, folk music activists closed ranks and Folk Against Fascism ran a concerted campaign to see them off.... but in the short run it was very threatening and upsetting.

Compared with that, the efforts of the likes of Pete Seeger, Ewan MacColl and Billy Bragg trying to persuade their audiences from the stage of the evils of capitalism seems pretty benign.