I am a bit surprised that no one has mentioned on what is after all a folkie site the reason we all should be grateful to travellers in general, that they preserved our oral tradition after it had largely disappeared from the general population. The generalisations about travelling people do smack of racism very strongly to me.

As for the Labour versus Tory argument, I have never had any illusion that when voting in a general election, I am voting for a faction of the ruling class. This has been particularly blatant with the takeover of the Labour Party in the mid nineties when the part of the ruling class that wants us to integrate more with Europe destroyed what was left of democracy in the party because they had despaired of the Tories ever achieving it.

The interesting thing is that they then went on to attack the other faction by trying to reform the Lords etc. I envy some people's luxury of deciding which way to vote. I live in Oldham and the fascist BNP are putting up a candidate so I have no alternative but to vote for the candidate most likely to win which is Michael Meacher. Thank god I don't live in a Tory constituency or I would be forced to vote for them.

The choice for a lot of us is between New Labour neo Thatcherism or Conservative crypto fascism. For a working class person and/or a socialist, voting in a parliamentary election is always tactical. For the record I have always got on quite well with travellers who like my music and I am willing to forgive them virtually anything for the survival of Black Dog and Sheep Crook.