The Government doesn’t book the acts: Michael Eavis defends Glastonbury politics
Given what is happening in the world opining on who should or should not appear at Glastonbury seems a little beside the point. However that is exactly what Keir Starmer and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy have done in recent days. Both have complained about the fact that Irish rap band Kneecap are on the bill. Kneecap are of course pro-Palestinian. However it is Emily Eavis not Starmer or Nandy who gets to book the acts, at least while Britain remains a democracy.
Michael Eavis has rightly spoken out and underlined that not only is Glastonbury political, and always has been, but its on the left side of politics.
Indeed Glastonbury has a long tradition of supporting radical politics
The late historian and peace campaigner E P Thompson spoke at Glastonbury on several occasions in the 1980s (I think).
The official 50th anniversary published in 2020 book records him as speaking in 1984 the day after the Smiths played. Personally invited by Michael Eavis he made his alternative nation speech from the Pyramid stage
Likening the crowd to a medieval army “with its tents, all over the fields” he argued “this has not only been a nation of money-makers and imperialists, it has been a nation of inventors, of writers of activists, artists,theatres and musicians. Looking directly at the assembled crowds he told them “it is this alternative nation which I can see in front of me now.”
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