At times of civil unrest, you can always trust that some berk will put a microphone – or dictaphone – in front of a pop/rock star, hoping for a pearl of wisdom. All the way through the 1980s pop bands were involved in political action, thinks the indie scribe, surely today's poets will do the same?
The answer of course is no. Most of today's pop stars are politically unaware, amoral simpletons, especially the older ones, who've had their egos stoked and stroked for so long they can barely see their way out of their own backsides. Take Noel Gallagher for instance: even a bright man like him has proved himself utterly incapable of intelligently commenting on the riots which engulfed England's major cities. He claims that the kids involved weren't poor (wrong), and that videogames are partly to blame. Fabulous reasoning, that.
'I can't understand where their energy for these riots is coming from,' said the old curmudgeon. 'We live in this age of violence - and I don't care what other people say: Brutal TV and brutal videogames are a reason for this pointless violence as well. The people are immune to violence, they are used to it. And if they get caught they aren't punished the right way. The prisons are already full? Then build new ones!