I've been thinking, and I've decided that in fact I'm conservative by temperament.

Someone on the box quoted the old remark "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change" (Lucius Cary 1641) - as a touchstone of conservatism.

And I realised that that is exactly what I think. Of course the list of things that I'd see it as necessary to change is quite extensive, starting with an extremely wide-ranging re-distribution of resources and power. And the list of things I'd want to preserve would include all kinds of things that people calling themselves conservatives would want to get rid of.

The more I think of it, the more bizarre it is that a bias in favour of change is seen as a left wing attitude, and a bias against change is seen as right-wing. I think both attitudes are equally present across the whole political spectrum. (And the appetite for change for it's own sake is dominant right across the board, left and right.)

And that's why there is no difficult in matching left-wing politics with a determination to hold on to tradition in songs and music and in other ways.