Bring it on
Here in Brighton Pavilion , we ’ ve had the same MP since 2010 . Tom Gray , the new Labour Party candidate , talks to Jed Novick about changing that
Did you go full Spinal Tap ? Did you throw strop about the miniature bread and get all the brown M & Ms taken out ? “ No , no . I ’ ve always been too tethered , too down to earth .” So OK . What was the most riderish rider you ever had ?
“ At one point I was struggling to keep all my socks clean , because doing your laundry on tour is an absolute ache , trying to find a launderette in Cleveland … So I added socks to the rider because I was thinking it would be nice to have some fresh , clean socks .” Did you stipulate how many ? “ Yeah , five pairs of clean socks .” Colour ? “ Whatever , just grey , blue or black .” Clean socks . Grey , blue or black . And I was hoping for Nigel Tufnel .
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’ m with Tom Gray , founding member of 1999 Mercury Prize winning band Gomez and now Labour Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion , a seat currently held by Caroline Lucas with a majority of nearly 20,000 . Normally that would be considered a safe seat , but Caroline ’ s standing down and suddenly that 20,000 feels a bit vulnerable , a bit marginal .
“ I think that ’ s because it ’ s Brighton Pavilion . It ’ s a unique place and has a unique standing in the electoral universe . It ’ s very particular and a very unusual group of people who live here . There ’ s an extraordinarily high level of education , of cultural engagement , of familiarity with international politics . There ’ s also a lot of money here , it ’ s actually quite a wealthy seat overall compared to most seats in the country , although there are areas of deprivation , real deprivation .
“ Now , within that group , what you have is a huge number of people who ’ d consider themselves progressive . They wouldn ’ t say they ’ re Labour , they wouldn ’ t say they were Green , they might even have voted for the Lib Dems after Iraq . So you ’ re dealing with a huge number of people who are essentially unaffiliated floating progressive voters . And that is a fascinating group of people to aim yourself at .
“ And so you say ‘ What is it you actually want from your MP ?’ Maybe you want somebody , as was clearly the case with Caroline , somebody who ’ s unique , a talented speaker , someone you felt reflected the insight and intelligence we have as a group of people in this constituency .”
But Caroline Lucas has gone - or will be soon . The question for Tom - and the other candidates is this . After 14 years of having the only Green MP in the country , what comes next ? Or rather , who comes next ?
“ Maybe you think the natural successor is not a London councillor who ’ s been mired in local Green politics their entire life , but somebody who lives here , who comes from the creative industries , who ’ s been a musician and has been fighting all over the world for a change in the way that we perceive cultural workers , and who has a very distinctive voice of their own . Maybe that ’ s the natural successor .”
Sounds great but where could we find somebody like that ?
“ I couldn ’ t tell you . Where could we find someone like that ?”
Labour ’ s slogan for the forthcoming ( and frankly not forthcoming soon enough ) election is “ Let ’ s get Britain ’ s future back ”. I ’ m a bit disappointed . I wanted it to be “ Bring it on ”, the title of Gomez ’ s first album .
“ I keep saying ‘ Bring it on . Let ’ s have that ’, but I do understand why they ’ ve gone for that . It speaks to the fact that everything feels like it ’ s in terminal decline . Everything has been allowed to break and we ’ re pouring money into trying to solve the chaos they ’ ve created . They ’ re taking the investment out of people ’ s education , out of public health and housing and once you start to do that , everything falls apart . For example , A & E wards , on any given night , are 10 to 15 % full of young people having mental health episodes . You think what ’ s gone wrong , where was the prevention ? Where was the engagement ? It ’ s no surprise to me that we ’ ve got a rise in car crime in big urban centers when we got rid of Sure Start 14 years ago . We took away the money and the support for underprivileged families , and when you do that , those communities start to disintegrate . It ’ s not hard this stuff , but you need time to fix it .
It ’ s not hard , this stuff . But no one has been able to do it .
“ We can do it and we did do it . I joined the party in 1992 . I joined the party of Neil Kinnock which became the party of John Smith and then became the party of Tony Blair , and the point is that even though my politics might have been some way to the left of Tony Blair , his government hauled millions of kids out of poverty , he gave us the minimum wage , gave us so many things that set us on the right track . Look back to 2010 .
Whatever people thought of the country , waiting lists at the hospital were three months not three years . We really need to look at just that one fact and go , who ’ s better at doing this ? The people who love and care for and believe in public services , or the Etonians who want to see the whole thing fall down ?
Where did the passion for politics come from ? Tom joined Labour when he was 15 , the age when he should have been smoking behind the bike sheds and ... “ Oh , I was doing that too ” “ But it ’ s an interesting question . My family , on one side , it ’ s working class Roman Catholic from Salford , and on my mum ’ s side , my grandparents were Holocaust survivors , they were German Jews who ran from the Holocaust , so I ’ m a really weird mix .
“ I grew up in Southport , a quiet suburban place and I suppose it ’ s just in the fibre of all of that , a real strong sense of duty to community .