I had political arguments with Peter on more than one occasion, and it was never entirely clear to me whether he was disputing my leftish ideas because he viewed them as shibboleths that needed to be challenged simply for the sake of it, or because his own preferences (which he was pretty vague about) were diametrically opposed. He liked to play Devil's Advocate on all kinds of topics, and when he criticised your choice of music, for instance, it was because he wanted you to justify it, not simply as a put-down. On the other hand, his bitter slating of prominent left-wing performers in a Folk Roots interview that same year did him no favours at all (he claimed he'd been misquoted, and definitely regretted it afterwards), but I never bought his 'lefty folkie conspiracy' theory about his lack of work in the clubs. As Good Soldier says, folk club organisers of the time were a very mixed bunch with most of them in the woolly liberal bracket, give or take one or two confirmed Marxists. The reason he didn't get the work his talent deserved had much more to do with the Marmite effect his singing had on audiences, which several people here have referred to. My local folk club organisers wouldn't book him for ages because they "couldn't stand the sound of his voice" but, when I finally persuaded them to book him, they were bowled over - as was the entire audience.