Billy Bragg remembers being out on the picket lines leading striking workers in rousing labour anthems like it was yesterday. Possibly because it was yesterday.
“There’s a lot of strikes here at the moment. There’s plenty to choose from,” he says via Zoom from his home in Dorset, on the English south coast. The day before, Bragg and his guitar headed into Dorchester to support striking NHS nurses. He could tell he was dealing with folk who hadn’t been on strike before because it had snowed the previous night and no one had arranged a brazier, he laughs.
“But it was amazing because of their energy. I’d said to them, ‘You’re joining a great tradition, those of you who’ve never done this before. They were so new, I had to teach them the words to There is.”
