Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Sufjan Stevens at the Newport Folk festival in July
Osborne idol … Sufjan Stevens at the Newport Folk festival in July. Photograph: Taylor Hill/WireImage
Osborne idol … Sufjan Stevens at the Newport Folk festival in July. Photograph: Taylor Hill/WireImage

All culture is ruined: George Osborne likes the same music as you

This article is more than 8 years old
Stuart Heritage

The chancellor has deployed his ultimate weapon, revealing his love for Sufjan Stevens, St Vincent and NWA. These bands are now tainted for ever

If anything, we should have applauded George Osborne for his leniency. Yes, he’s spent his career making life hard for millions of people. Yes, he’s cutting tax credits so brutally that even the Sun has got a bit iffy about it. But, until now, he’s never been vindictive.

Because, all this time, Osborne had a secret weapon in his pocket. A weapon so powerful that it would have instantly collapsed all hope and compounded all despair. You see, George Osborne likes the same music as you. If he really wanted to slash our guts out, all he ever needed to do was to end a speech with the phrase: “By the way, I really like Sufjan Stevens too.”

But he didn’t, because that would hurt too much. He can take our money. He can force us out of our homes. He can even condemn us to a life of broken-backed servitude. But admitting that he enjoys listening to Illinois, an album of such tender beauty that Pitchfork voted it the best of 2005? That would be a step too far. Because that would mean we would for ever associate Stevens’ hushed, delicate strains with a regressive two-child universal credit restriction. And then all would be lost.

Now, though, the weapon has been deployed. For some reason, presumably to demonstrate that his hatred for humankind burns unthinkably hot, Osborne has just revealed the highlights of his cultural life to the public. As a result, all culture has been ruined.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Osborne loves the Sufjan Stevens song Come On! Feel the Illinoise! He loves St Vincent and the Blues Brothers, too. He even loves Get Carter and NWA and CHiPS. He loves all the things you used to love, until you realised that they had been tarnished by the mental image of our chancellor clapping and laughing along like a tiny-eyed sea lion wearing a monocle.

All these things have been tainted for ever. You see, the state of modern political discourse has now become so hopelessly entrenched that I – as someone who writes for a left-leaning newspaper – cannot bring myself to enjoy anything that Osborne does. Until recently, that only amounted to austerity and obnoxious Oxbridge societies. But now he has claimed that he likes the bit in Four Weddings and a Funeral where Hugh Grant wakes up late and swears a lot. I used to like that bit too, but now I hate it with the strength of a thousand suns. He also likes Monty Python, so now I’ve made a Vodou doll of Eric Idle that I keep jabbing pins into.

Worse still, Osborne even listed his personal dreams, so I can’t have any of those for myself, either. I don’t want to travel in space any more, because he does. I don’t want to open an Italian restaurant any more, because he does. He even declared that he wants his children to be happy. So, fine, my kids will have to be miserable instead. “Daddy!” my son will inevitably cry several years from now, “the damp woollen pants you force me to wear are chafing, to the extent that I can no longer enjoy my favourite toy, that dead mouse that you wrote the words ‘God is Dead’ on.” “Tough luck, son,” I’ll have to reply. “I cannot in all conscience align myself with Osborne’s ideals. Now go and eat that mouldy Weetabix out of the toilet like a good boy.”

In a sense, though, I do feel a bit sorry for Osborne. The man is in a bind. He wants to have a rich cultural life, but all the best art is created by the left. If he – or any other Conservative politician, for that matter – was only allowed to enjoy music made by people he agrees with politically, his walk-on music would immediately be limited to Ride of the Valkyries, the collected works of Phil Collins or a loop of that guy who won the Apprentice in 2008 pretending to be a pterodactyl.

Plus, whenever anyone on the right expresses any interest in art, the creator of that art will invariably voice their disapproval, as when Johnny Marr banned David Cameron from liking the Smiths. So, rather than face a lifetime of being hated by people they admire, they are forced to knuckle down and repeatedly pretend that their favourite book is Atlas Shrugged. And that, truly, is a punishment worse than death.

So, in a sense, Osborne is actually being quite brave by declaring his preferences so brazenly. And, since his list of favourite songs includes Hurricane by Bob Dylan – which is less a pop song and more an eternity spent being lectured at in a church made of wire wool – we can only assume that these are his real choices.

Compare this with the focus-grouped insanity of Gordon Brown – who was once briefed to declare his love for Arctic Monkeys, despite it being perfectly clear that the only records he actually owns are field recordings of someone’s ancient mother chewing porridge on a tundra – and what Osborne has done seems positively admirable.

Which is the worst possible outcome, frankly. This has accomplished everything it set out to do. Against all odds, I’ve somehow ended up humanising Osborne. Hopefully he’ll be the last politician ever to pull this trick, though. Imagine what will happen to political discourse in this country if we start seeing our leaders as actual people. It will be unbearable.

Most viewed

Most viewed