Pulp frontman forced to deny Tory support
Thursday, 30 April 2009 9:27 AM
By politics.co.uk staff
Jarvis Cocker, lead singer with indie band Pulp, has been forced to deny supporting the Tories after an interview in which he called a Conservative government "necessary".
In an interview with GQ, the indie frontman, who has recently embarked on a successful solo career, said: "Labour has been in power for a certain amount of time, and there is no credible alternative, so if you're not going to have Labour you're going to have the Conservatives. You can sense an era is passing.
"It doesn't excite me, but I think maybe it's necessary."
The 45 year old then swiftly released a statement clarifying his position.
"In no way am I supporting or suggesting that a Conservative government is a good thing, far from it," it read.
Mr Cocker's assessment of Gordon Brown's premiership was that it was "a bit lame".
"It's difficult for me to say because I don't want to be somebody who spouts off about what's going on because I don't live there all the time. But it's all a bit lame, isn't it?" he said.
"I can't get my head around the fact he's trying to bail out a banking system that obviously doesn't work. Why don't they say, 'Well, sod that, let's do something else?'.
"We had the Stop The War march, a massive mobilisation of people and still they weren't listening to them. And that's when a lot of people disengaged."
Mr Cocker reached the height of his fame with the song Common People, during the peak of the Britpop era.
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