Brendan O'Connor: 'Greens take a leaf from the book of feelings'

The Green surge shows how you can take the tools of populism and use them for the good, says Brendan O'Connor

Brendan O'Connor

Bobby Gillespie, singer with Primal Scream, perhaps the most debauched rock and roll band of the last few decades, thinks everyone needs to calm down a bit. Gillespie caused outrage when he appeared on Newsnight recently and said, among other things, that Madonna was "a prostitute" for appearing at the Eurovision in Israel. Gillespie, it should be said, did stress that he has nothing against prostitutes.

What was interesting about it all was Gillespie's reaction to the furore caused by his comments. "Everything is emotional," he said in an interview last Friday, "There's no critical thought. Why not put your energy towards something you should be angry about, like Tory austerity?" He talked about the "intolerant culture" we now have and said he believed there was such a thing as a "digital lynch mob".