The UK's culture minister Kim Howells is shooting his mouth off again, this time at Robbie Williams:
Culture minister Kim Howells condemned Robbie Williams today, accusing him of supporting drug and prostitution rackets by saying internet piracy was "great".
Howells said he was "appalled" at the chart-topping star's comments which amounted to "defending theft".
Williams - whose album Escapology was last year's biggest seller in the UK - made his remarks at a music conference in Cannes.
He is reported to have said of internet piracy: "I think it's great, really I do. There is nothing anyone can do about it."
Howells is already on record as having described last year's Turner Prize entrants as "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit", and as disliking the Royal Family and British film makers. He's more recently notorious, though, for claiming the rise of hip hop culture in Britain, especially in the form of a 30-member garage group from London called So Solid Crew, was responsible for the shooting deaths of two teenage girls (this Grauniad article amusingly reels off a list of other things popular music should be indicted for while he's at it). The case against Howells on this point is made here:
But last night Conor McNicholas, editor of the music magazine NME, described the minister's outburst as "deeply racist".
"He doesn't understand the culture. It is this idea again that we have to do something about these out-of-control black people in our streets and the nasty culture they are perpetuating," he said.
What does Kim have to say for himself? Well, if this article's anything to go by, he evidently thinks he was once a dangerous man:
What did he think of Gillian Wearing's "Fuck Cilla Black" G2 cover last week? "A mistake." And what about having his tender sensibilities protected by a customised warning on the front page of the main paper? "I start reading from the back, so I never saw that warning. I go to the sport. I thought it was a grotesque, old-Guardian-style spelling mistake.
"I was a much more radical artist at Hornsey College of Art in the 60s than these British artists today. I once did a litho with Father Christmas cowering in front of a sign that said, 'Bugger off, Santa.' It was very popular. I did that sort of stuff long before Gillian Wearing."
Wow, you free-thinking radical individual, you. "Bugger off Santa". That's one hell of a provocative political and cultural statement right there, eh? But don't get the mistaken impression he's just a backwards fuddy-duddy who's got a problem with black people and their music. He doesn't dig Tom Jones either:
He is unexpectedly tough on Tom Jones, even though both hail from Pontypridd. "I have never liked Delilah. It's about a girl who gets stabbed. It's horrible - it's got messages that are as bad as the worst rap music."
See what you miss when you don't actually listen closely to the words of songs, folks? I can see the backlash against Tom Jones for glorifying death and destruction right here.
These are not sentiments that one would expect from a man who was a student firebrand in the 60s. What would the 60s Howells make of the current incarnation? "He would think I'm just a suit. I've just finished writing a novel about that time and I was trying to work out what I thought then. I'm not sure it was very coherent."
Howells, 56, the son of a communist lorry driver, became politically radicalised early. While a student at Hornsey he took part in sit-ins and demonstrations before becoming disillusioned with student politics. His politics have mellowed since then.
His politics haven't mellowed, by the sound of things, they've just grown intolerant in their old age. I'm left wondering from this interview what, if anything, Kim Howells actually does like. Possibly it's just me, but I wonder at the logic of appointing someone as minister for culture when they seem to have such a fear and/or loathing of modern culture. At any rate I'm just glad he's culture minister in someone else's country; the politicians we have here are bad enough...
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