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And Finally Artist News
Mike Read denies pro-UKIP song is “racist”
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 21 October 2014
Now people, this is really important, so please take a moment out of your busy schedule and listen very carefully. Will you all please stop going around saying that one time Radio 1 deejay Mike Read is a little bit racist just because he put on a slightly bothersome cod Caribbean accent and sang a pro-UKIP song including the lyric “leaders committed a cardinal sin, open the borders, let them all in”.
He’s not racist. He’s just xenophobic. It’s not that he hates the Austrians, the Belgians, the Bulgarians, the Croatians, the Cypriots, the Czechs, the Danes, the Estonians, the Finnish, the French, the Germans, the Greeks, the Hungarians, the Irish, the Italians, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Luxembourgers, the Maltese, the Dutch, the Polish, the Portuguese, the Romanians, the Slovaks, the Slovenes, the Spanish, the Swedes and the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Americas. He just thinks they all look a little bit shifty and should stay away from the UK. Which is presumably why he’s written this song; with rhymes like this, no one’s going to want to come to Britain ever again.
The accusations of racism made since UKIP announced its “celebrity member” had put a song supporting the anti-EU party onto iTunes and Amazon were “extraordinary”, said Read to his current employers BBC Radio Berkshire yesterday. “If anyone has taken it the wrong way, many apologies. But it was never meant to be remotely racist”.
As for that slightly dodgy accent, well “it’s an old-fashioned political satire” of course, and “you can’t sing a calypso with a Surrey accent. I love all the cultures and creeds around the world”. Just as long as they stay “around the world”, hey Mike?
CMU legal would like me to stress that we have no evidence whatsoever that Read is actually xenophobic. Though as a former Radio 1 DJ, being known for writing rubbish songs and being a little bit xenophobic would be pretty good going in the reputation stakes if you ask me. And if Read is reading this: if you ever find yourself getting all het up about the immigrants and the toffs and the bloody Europeans, chill a little, and always remember, Frankie says “relax”.
