Artist News

Manic Preacher reckons we’re all corrupt, speak for yourself Wire

By | Published on Tuesday 26 May 2009

As Andy Burnham, the MP perhaps most associated with the music business because of his job as Culture Minister, came under fire in the Daily Telegraph’s ongoing MP expenses story, one musician, Manic Street Preacher Nicky Wire, cautioned against obsessing too much about politicians’ questionable expense claims, remarked: “if we were all placed under the same scrutiny as politicians, I reckon we’d all be out of a job, I really do, because we’re all corrupt”.

Burnham is one of the latest MPs to be featured in the Telegraph’s review of politicians’ expenses, and has been criticised for some property arrangements that possibly enabled him to dodge a six grand tax bill. That said, the criticism of Burnham is less clear cut than that levelled against many of his parliamentary colleagues, as it relates to a complicated property windfall which changed in status from income to expenses, reducing tax liabilities, as it went through the parliamentary fees system, rather than simple lavish expense claims or the dodgy practice of ‘flipping’ second home assignment to boost the tax-payers’ mortgage contributions. Only really a tax accountant could say whether Burnham acted unethically or not.

Anyway, back to Wire, who was talking about his band’s reputation for politically charged lyrics in an interview with Absolute Radio. Asked if the recent MPs expenses scandal had left him disillusioned about Britain’s political system, Wire said: “Personally, I’m not disillusioned with politics. I enjoy politics. I still think it gets a lot of things done”.

He also encouraged other bands who participate in political campaigns to bring their politics into their music. Wire: “There’s a lot of musicians who seem to act politically, and you listen to their music and think, ‘Well, why don’t you actually write about it?'”.



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