With the release of Elbow’s seventh studio album Little Fictions imminent, frontman Guy Garvey has been sharing his views on Brexit and Donald Trump with us.
“I think Brexit is the most disheartening, disappointing thing that’s ever happened in my lifetime,” the 42-year-old Mancunian told Hot Press’ Olaf Tyaransen. “It feels like not even a return to Thatcher’s years, but it feels like a return to fucking Dickensian values. A third of Britain’s poor, people living under the poverty line, are in fulltime employment. So I think the Brexit vote wasn't a vote for anything. I think it was people throwing rocks at the machine. I think it was a vote against the system, the system is letting a lot of people down, and I think the Trump vote is the exact same thing.”
Not that he’s necessarily blaming the voters. “It’s too easy to dismiss these people as stupid – they’re not, they’re dissatisfied, and yeah there needs to be a change, generally. I think we need a new system of politics. At the minute, the head of the school debating society ends up leading the country, and it’s just a joke. It's a popularity contest and, you know, Theresa May banging on about making the tough decisions… Jesus fucking Christ, make the right decisions!
“Alan Sugar and Donald Trump and all that being the top dog culture, step on the guy next to you, greed is good bullshit, it’s like there’s nothing remotely kind about it, there nothing remotely human about it, there’s nothing remotely honest about it. It’s not terrifying because, I don’t know… it’s just too laughably sad.”
You can read the full interview with Guy Garvey in the next issue of Hot Press, which hits the streets on February 2nd.