Interesting, Pip. I've always believed that - for better or worse - the real moments of pivotal change where they had a direct impact - i.e. at the top - have come about through more direct, and often violent action. Thatcher didn't repeal the poll tax because someone like Billy Bragg sang about it. It was ended because people voted with their feet, on the street, first in Scotland and then down here. Get out on the street, burn some cars, trash some shops, act violently - whatever the raison d'etre for these actions - and you'll get column inches in the press and heated debate in Parliament. Sing about the same raison d'etre and you'll probably achieve bugger all.

I'm not a proponent of such actions, by the way, but - in the scale of things - people are moved to it, not by folk song, but by the impingement, and the severity of that impingement of something on them personally. And that includes politicians.