Captain Ska is a musician from Camberwell in London whose anti-cuts single “Liar Liar”, which launched on Monday, is a contender for this year’s Christmas No. 1. Since the video went online at the beginning of October it has run up over 128,000 youtube hits and attracted comment from the Observer and the BBC.
Is the “Liar Liar” refrain in your song directed at Nick Clegg?
The song is anti-coalition and anti-cuts. Clegg is dreadful but likewise so are Cameron and Osborne. The whole idea of the cuts is totally wrong.
Is making political music a new thing for you?
It’s new. I’m a freelance musician and have been writing songs with a slight political edge for awhile but this is the first time I felt really angry and that’s why I decided to get involved.
Have you thought about the effect you want to have with the song or is it just an outlet for your frustrations?
I’m really angry and think that other people should be too. My initial thought was to have an outlet for some of my frustrations but now the song seems to have taken a life of its own. I wasn’t at the protest on Thursday but my song was.
What do you think about what Nick Clegg’s comments referring to opponents of raised tuition fees as “dreamers”?
That’s outrageous, absolutely outrageous. Clegg is a liar. He’s obviously been waiting for a bit of power for awhile. He’s got his place in the government. That he can say what he said is outrageous. This is the end of Clegg. It’s probably the end of the Liberal Democrats. It will be a very long time before people vote for them ever again.
Do you think the protests will change the political landscape of this country?
They will make a difference, yes. I spoke to someone the other day who was my age in the eighties when the poll tax riots were happening. It wasn’t the violence that made a difference; it was the mass mobilisation and general feeling that something was wrong. When you had 5,000 people marching in small provincial towns and local MPs seeing it, that’s what made a difference.
It feels to me like nobody is behind these cuts, no one thinks they’re being done in the best way, even people on the right seem to think it’s being done too quickly. I know there were a couple of Tory abstainers in the vote.
So you’re optimistic about the future?
Last week’s vote on tuition fees was a disaster but I don’t see this government lasting much longer. At some point in the next few months the Liberal Democrats will realise that unless they start to vote against things they’re not happy with then they’re going to be political history. I don’t think the government’s going to last much longer and it’s really important that we keep up the pressure, especially on Liberal Democrat MPs. They are in a difficult situation and we can put pressure on them to make them think about what they’re doing.
You talk a lot about your anger but seem very calm in person.
Well, I think the anger I’ve got is similar to a lot of people’s. You don’t have to be screaming and shouting to think that things are wrong. Outlets for anger can come through a lot of things and for me it’s through my song writing. Last night, when I saw the vote come in that’s possibility the most angry I’ve felt. I thought “wow this is really happening. We really are ruining the country. It is just happening.” I had hoped that more MPs would abstain but they didn’t and the vote was passed. So what started as medium amounts of anger, enough to make a track and put together a video has now risen.
I also think that more important than being overtly angry is having your point of view out there. If you can enter the general subconscious with your point of view that this is wrong then you’re going to reach more people. You can shout and shout and be heard by 100 people or you can talk moderately and thousands of people will listen and that’s what the anti-cuts movement needs.
Proceeds from “Liar Liar” will go to False Economy, Crisis, Disability Alliance and Women’s Health Matters
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