Kate Bush doesn't give a lot of interviews. After the last twenty-four hours, she might figure she'll do rather fewer in future.

As part of a wide-ranging discussion with Elio Iannacci for Macleans Magazine, the conversation turned to politics - and, in particular, Hillary Clinton's inability to seize the White House. It was here that Kate uttered the words which curdled many a morning yoghurt:

We have a female prime minister here in the UK. I actually really like her and think she’s wonderful. I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. She’s a very intelligent woman but I don’t see much to fear. I will say it is great to have a woman in charge of the country. She’s very sensible and I think that’s a good thing at this point in time.

Now, Kate Bush talking warmly about a Tory prime minister might be disappointing, but surely at a time when we've got actual fascists about to take office space in the White House, the small mercy that she wasn't bellowing "Brexit now" and bigging up the Farage must count for something.

More importantly, if you're going to quote the reply, you should probably look at the question, too:

A track called “Waking the Witch”—which was released in 1985—was performed for Before The Dawn. You once said that the song was about “the fear of women’s power.” With regards to Hillary Clinton’s recent defeat, do you think that this fear is stronger than ever?

So when Kate was talking about not having any reason to fear, she wasn't saying from May's policies, but fear of the idea of a woman leading a nation. Her comment was about temperament and gender, not policy and manifesto.

That's still disappointing - she seems to have confused May's caught in the headlights paralysis for a softly, softly caution - but reading Twitter over the last 24 hours you might have thought that Bush had been found negotiating the sale of NHS hospitals direct to Richard Branson.

And it's possible that Kate Bush does wholeheartedly embrace the Tory government, from the strange smell leaking out of Jeremy Hunt, through the slithering of Boris Johnson, to the chums of Liam Fox. And, let's face it, she's comfortably off and clearly had a lot of piano lessons as a small child, neither of which are signifiers of dyed-in-the-wool socialism.

But this interview doesn't really give much evidence one way or the other.

The really problematic bit of the interview was this exchange:

Q: Stephen Hawking recently said the Earth only has 1,000 years left. As someone who has written about environmental issues, does that alarm you?

A: Well, nobody really knows, do they? They told Stephen Hawking he only had a year left to live and how many years ago was that? You can’t know it all. If ever there’s been somebody to hold as an icon of sheer determination and willpower, it’s that guy, let alone any of the things he’s done scientifically. I’m sure that’s his driving force, but he’s a miracle and an aspiration.

For "someone who has written about environmental issues", giving an answer which ignores the environment and instead focuses on how Stephen Hawking didn't accept a diagnosis is heartbreaking. It seems to be implying that all we need to do abotu climate change is pop over to the burning fires of Siberia, stick up a couple of motivational posters, tell the planet to believe in itself and everything will be fine.

In all the coverage of Bush's interview yesterday, BBC News came up with the oddest angle:

Bush previously wrote a song for a sketch on a 1990 episode of TV series The Comic Strip, about the former Labour Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

The lyrics included: "Look to the left and to the right. We need help and there's nobody in sight. Where is the man that we all need? Well tell him he's to come and rescue me. Ken is the man that we all need. Ken is the leader of the GLC."
The track also describes Livingstone as "a sex machine".

This isn't wrong, but it doesn't really make much sense in the context of something she actually said about a politician - the Ken song was a soundtrack to an imaginary Hollywood movie about the GLC and part of that framing. If you really wanted to make something relevant out of it, you might have mentioned how both the movie and the satire gleefully cast Thatcher as the villain of the piece, and the gender politics around the last female Prime Minister. But I suppose 'has she written a song about a politician' was the only box they were looking to tick.

The business of "secondary ticketing" - which might look like touting to you or I, except it's done by men in suits sitting in offices rather than shady looking blokes outside stations bellowing "One Direction BIIIIII OR SELLLL" - is being investigated by the government right now.

The Line of Best Fit has everything you need to know, including the depressing likely outcome:

Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of major businesses and MPs are already attempting to sweep the consulation under the carpet, thus removing the public's right to share their opinion. Sajid Javid - the UK's Business Secretary, no less - even describes touts as "classic entrepreneurs".

Philip Davies is also expressing his opinions:

He says of secondary ticketing regulations: "Needless intervention is not the answer and will only serve to drive many consumers away from safe online platforms and into the arms of street touts."

Davies, you might remember, is the hooting arse-arrangement who most recently filibustered to stop carers being able to park free at hospitals, so it's perhaps unsurprising that someone incapable of compassion is going to bring much to the table in the way of common sense.

TLOBF also report on another shady bit of activity:

StubHub is also resorting to unscrupulous practices. They've created Fan Freedom UK to lobby for further reforms - and, apparently, "analysis of their Twitter shows that over 90% of their followers are fake".

Now, Fan Freedom started out as US thing - hilariously, they've allowed their domain name to lapse in the last couple of days, but archive.org has a grab, and they're still active on Facebook. They have a discussion policy which includes a ban of spam, which is ironic for an organisation which is basically one huge advert. They have a Change.org petition, which - while acknowledging their origins as floating on a sea of StubHub cash, starts by enthusing over their supporters:

Fan Freedom is supported by more than 150,000 live event fans, and is backed by leading consumer and business organizations such as the American Conservative Union, National Consumers League, Consumer Action, the Institute for Liberty, and the League of Fans.

Yes, that's right. Almost as if they forgot the whole "we're the voice of the fans" schtick, they start their list of supporters with a right-wing lobbying organisation.

What of the British cousin? They actually have managed to keep control of their own website, so that's a plus.

Fan Freedom UK is an organisation dedicated to fighting for the consumer rights of fans, specifically around ticketing issues. As part of this, we represent all kinds of people who enjoy live entertainment – from fans who sit in the rain week in and week out to watch their team, to music fans who stay out until the early hours to enjoy the bands they love.

From the fans who get up in the middle of the night to check their money is still there, to the fans who spend a lot of time talking to accountants and lobbyists to protect the money they love.

Like their American model, though, they don't do very much to hide the fact that they're actually a bunch of lobbyists - there's a proud "supported by Parliament Street" banner on their site, and Parliament Street are a swivel-eyed right-wing thinky tank:

We are a think tank rooted in the values of freedom. We think beyond the current policy agenda and look towards the debates that are likely to be formed by the next generation in government. We don’t have a corporate view beyond our values.

They're chaired by Craig Rimmer, who, his bio proudly proclaims:

He was Head of Information at Conservative Central Office during William Hague’s leadership.

You'll remember amongst the "information" that came out of the Tory party during what I suppose we could loosely describe as Hague's leadership was the claim that voting for Tony Blair would result in the abandonment of the pound. This was only a marginally less credible claim about losing pounds than those of Marjorie Dawes.

So, somehow, on both sides of the Atlantic, the authentic voice of people who go to gigs seems to be being filtered through extremely well-paid lobbyists, all of whom are hell-bent on right-wing, state-shrinking policies.

If these "voices" get their way, it's not going to make secondary ticketing any better. We're more likely to end up with only secondary agencies being allowed to buy tickets directly. To save us from the touts, of course.

Stop this bollocks from happening by adding your actual voice to the consultation. Don't let right wing thinky tanks steal your front row slot.

Charlotte Church was out on the protests against the new Tory government on Saturday. The Tories, of course, were unimpressed:

But in response to Ms Church and the protesters, the Welsh Conservatives' leader [Andrew RT Davies] said: "It's champagne socialists standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

"At the end of the day, to denigrate the electorate, who has just spoken, within 48 hours of the election, is slightly unfortunate and unbecoming."

Champagne socialists. Is that the best you can, Mr Davies?

You and your party suggest that we should ensure that "hard working people" have their rights protected; that they have their choices respected.

And yet as soon as someone who has a few bob in their pocket says anything that suggests caring about others might be the right thing to do, suddenly we discover that this makes them "champagne socialists" and their right to comment has, magically, become nullified.

(It's unclear where the point comes that you stop being a champagne socialist and cross into the jealous underclass - perhaps somewhere around the living wage?)

Obviously, it's a cliche. But worse than a cliche, it's not even like champagne is that much of a luxury product anyway. And worse than being a tatty cliche, it's not even right. Because Church is actually marching in the streets with a placard, which isn't what a champagne socialist is supposed to behave.

Davies also seems to have missed the point that the Tories only won the support of 27% of the voters who turned out in Wales - it came second, and yet Wales now has a Tory government. To suggest that objecting to the runners-up sitting taking pole position is denigrating the electorate is a little odd.

But then if we thought the Tories understood humility, perhaps we wouldn't all be so bloody terrified about what's going to come next.

You might think that the story about the Tories raising money through a silent auction was a spoof when you got to the bit about rich Conservatives bidding on tickets to see the last of The Hunger Games movie. But it's genuine.

There's going to be a plutocrat trying to get their money back when they discover that The Hunger Games has such a sad ending.

With lots like the chance to eat an entire chicken with Michael Gove and Sarah Vine, the line-up of items suggests a confusion between 'silent auction' and 'unspeakable horror', but there were a surprising number of music-related chances to bid.

Perhaps most surprisingly, there was a photo of Suggs. The catalogue describes the photo:

Portrait photograph of Suggs from Madness.
This framed photographic print of Suggs from Madness is a true collector's item. The photographer Stephen Perry has been described as a true visionary and has taken portrait photographs of the stars since an early age. Stephen claimed that he chose to keep Suggs' sunglasses on as he was still a recognisable figure with them on, although it later emerged that he had been in the pub before the shoot and was slightly the worse for wear!

What larks.

I wonder if there's another story about Suggs being in a pub that might be relevant here? How about this one:

Suggs is keen to point out that Madness were always very political. “We were socialists, and still are, to a greater or lesser extent. Our first gig at the Hope and Anchor was the night Margaret Thatcher got voted in, God help us. All that ‘there’s no such thing as society’ and what they did to the unions… We were a little society of our own and tried to create a feeling of belonging. Our House becomes authentic, even though it’s an abstract. It’s the idea of family.

“We did Red Wedge [aimed at raising political awareness among young people] with Billy Bragg, The Specials, Jerry Dammers, Paul Weller, and we did loads of stuff for the miners, benefits for the strikers and families.”

Perhaps the Tories knew all this. Perhaps using Suggs to raise funds for the Campaign to Re-elect The Shiny Porkfaced Cameron is a joke.

Or perhaps they're just inept.

Another lot is to get Mike Batt to write a song, just for you. "It could be a comic song" suggests the catalogue.

But there's a warning:

Not to be used for commercial purposes

Really? You're putting a ban on a person using something they've bought for their own personal enrichment. You've changed, Conservatives. You used to support the free market. Who knew the invisible hand gets slapped back the minute it tries to caress Mike Batt's bottom line.

There's also tickets to see Fleetwood Mac in Leeds, which could be a tribute to that time Republicans bought tickets to a Mac gig and then sold them at a mark-up to fundraise.

It's possible the whole event was some sort of too-clever-by-half in-joke.

But then all the opportunities to shoot things to death... well, that looks deadly earnest.

Douglas Carswell reckons the Tories are struggling because, effectively, they're HMV:

Douglas Carswell, who made history as the first elected Ukip MP last week, said he hoped more Tories joined him but insisted the party was "not the Conservative party in exile".

He likened the Tories to failed music store HMV. "The way the Tory party is retailing politics is like the way HMV retailed music. It's a defunct retail model," he said on the Andrew Marr show this morning.

Somewhere, David Cameron is punching the air and going "not Our Price. At least we're not Our Price."

Let's just leave aside the suggestion that retailing is a good metaphor for politics, because it's almost certainly depressingly true.

Carswell's wrong, of course. When it looked like HMV might vanish from the high streets of Britain, everyone thought that would be a bad thing.

The Tories slipped ten grand into party coffers recently, proceeds from auctioning backstage passes to meet Justin Bieber.

Trouble is, Universal records, who donated the prize, thought they were giving the tickets to charity:

In a statement, the Canadian star's label Universal UK said it thought it was donating to the government-backed GREAT campaign "to help spread the word globally about the UK's culture, heritage and creativity".

It added: "As part of that support we have donated tickets and Meet & Greet passes."

The Tories claim otherwise:

In response, a Conservative party spokesman said: "The Black and White Party is a Conservative party fundraising event.

"The tickets and access to Justin Bieber were donated to that event.

"Universal were aware that the money would go towards Conservative party campaigning."

So, the choice we have is do we believe a record label or the Tory party?

In this case, given the care that Universal have taken to create a frictionless, valueless, empty bucket with Justin Bieber's face on it, it seems more likely that they didn't intend to imply he was endorsing a political party.

Which puts the Tories in something of a tight spot. If they had snaffled prizes that were intended to promote the UK and used them to line their own pockets, that's bad.

If they then lied about it, why, that would be disgraceful.

Let's hope for Central Office's sake it's Universal who are lying, eh?

Oh, pity the politician who would save Ringo Starr's first home. You'll recall our old friend Flo Clucas who announced she'd preserved the house for the ages, only to mumble quietly when asked how that was going.

Then last year, Grant Shapps popped up to call a halt to the demolition, or rather to indicate he might not be unhappy if it didn't get knocked down. And this year, Shapps popped again to garner a bit of good publicity by announcing the previously-announced policy all over again.

Trouble is, he's mannaged to bugger things up and even while he was waving for the cameras, his department was busily releasing the funds to, erm, knock down the estate.

The Telegraph reported on the resulting court case earlier this week:

Grant Shapps, the former Housing Minister, accidentally signed off a regeneration project without realising it would demolish the house in which Ringo Starr was born, a court heard today.

Nine Madryn Street, in Dingle, was set to be knocked down by Liverpool City Council as part of regeneration plans for the Welsh Streets area of the city.

But a court heard the Conservative Party Chairman had not been informed that house would be bulldozed alongside 5,000 terraced homes as part of a £35.5 million regeneration project.

Perhaps it was one of Shapp's alter-egos who'd signed off on the deal? Or maybe he'd left his ministerial computer unattended, with a password of 1234 and a person or persons unknown "hacked" into the system?

The whole thing is now heading for judicial review, and at least Shapps is now simply chair of the Tory party, where if he makes a similar blunder he won't be damaging anything important to the nation.

Back in the days of the 2010 election campaign, Gary Barlow and David Cameron shared a stage in Nantwich to launch a major, eyecatching initiative. Political Scrapbook is wondering whatever happened to it?

It was to be the School Stars scheme, and the Tories press released the buttocks out of it:

"Nothing brings people together like music, said Cameron, speaking at a school in Nantwich. "With School Stars we’re going to see kids practising together in the corridors, forming bands, getting together in lunch-breaks to sing and dance."

The competition will use the inspirational power of music to reach as many pupils as possible with a format which will unearth talent, ability and excellence around the country.

The initiative is backed by Gary Barlow, one of the most successful British songwriters of all time as well as by commercial radio stations and major players in the music industry.

As Political Scrapbook point out, it's gone a bit quiet since then.

The assumption would be that the School Stars Scheme came to nothing, but that isn't true at all.

Dave got a photo-op with one of the-then most popular members of Take That in the run up to an election.

And Gary? Gary was rewarded for his work helping get Dave to Number 10 not just with an OBE, but also by being protected when his dodgy tax arrangements came to light.

Oh, yes, those kids who Dave was wanting to pump with self-belief might have got bugger all out of it, but that was never the point, was it?

[Thanks to Michael M]

Given the way Mick Jagger got cross when people found out he was planning to meet David Cameron a few weeks back, he probably won't be thrilled at his fawning over the mayoral punchline, revealed in the Telegraph:

Sir Mick, whose hits include (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, retains his affection for Boris Johnson, though. “I got an email message from Sir Mick Jagger congratulating me on winning the mayoral race,” says Johnson. “It is not impossible that I could pay him back and offer to dance with him on stage.”

Hang about, though - the Stones famously arrange their tours to avoid having to pay too much tax in the UK. Isn't that the sort of aggressive tax "avoidance" that the Tories are supposed to be decrying?

Venerable Radio Merseyside music show PMS (né The Late World Noise, etc) is on the block as part of the current round of cuts forced on the BBC by a vindictive Tory government. They're looking for messages of support, and I think they thoroughly deserve them.

It could just be one of those strange coincidences, but Christopher Shale, the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association chair found dead at Glastonbury this morning was already in today's headlines, as the Mail On Sunday had got hold of a document he produced basically slagging the Tories off:

In a sign of how hard the party is finding it to attract new members, the document concedes that the Prime Minister’s own association gained only 22 members in the past year.

Their response is ‘Operation Vanguard’, which is designed to achieve a ‘transformational increase in [West Oxfordshire Conservative Association] membership, in ways others can apply to similar effect nationally’.

The plan is brutally frank about the failings of the constituency party. Shale writes that ‘collectively we are not always an appealing proposition’.

He slams the association’s fundraising efforts, saying: ‘Over the years we have come across as graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take.’

Strange timing.

[Thanks to @dillpickle]

I don't think I've ever picked up a Guido story on No Rock before, but this one is too good to miss: The Tories' big tent has now expanded to include Courtney Love,:

newly elected as Oxford University Conservative Association’s ’Non-Executive Officer for Rock and Roll’

Like Hank Hill's observation that Christian Rock doesn't make rock music better, it just makes Christianity worse, this is probably a move which reflects more badly on Love than it does for the teeny tiny Tory types.

Still, I guess embracing an out-of-control type famed for her drug use and violent outbursts is a step forward for Conservative students compared with how they were last time round, spending their days calling for Nelson Mandela to be hanged and embracing UNITA.

[Thanks to @jimwaterson for the tip]

David Byrne isn't the first person to point out that Michael Gove is making education rubbish, and he certainly won't be the last. But he is the most famous American to do so, so far:

"I think it has already been proven that arts education in schools benefits areas beyond the arts," Byrne said. "To cut in that way is narrow-minded. It is not about how many artists you produce, it is about what it does to the thinking of everyone else."

"School is how I found art," Byrne went on. "I had an art teacher who would encourage me and didn't tell me what to do. He would give me a pass to say I didn't have to go to gym class if I had something I was trying to finish. I realised it was a way to discover things about myself and a solace."

Ah, Michael Gove would counter, but can you name the consort to the third Tudor Monarch?

Much as how we should politely turn away when Sting says "you know what Trude and I did last night? I saw her titties and everything", we should also avert our eyes whenever Ted Nugent decides to share his views with us.

He's honked out some things vaguely connected to the shootings in Tuscon:

Conservatives need to turn up the political rhetoric if they want to defeat the liberal agenda with a conservative agenda that is based on the Constitution, small government, lower taxes and much less spending.

Conservatives have liberals outnumbered and surrounded. Don't play nice with liberal snakes. Don't let them escape. Instead, do America a favor and crush liberalism.

Yes, Ted, that's right. The only reason why America still has a tax system is because you haven't yet made your face red enough; your language violent enough; your veins bulge enough; your voice screech enough. It's a well-known fact that the winner in any debate is not those who have thought through their opinions and are able to argue cogently, using evidence and logic, but those who shout the loudest.

Ted Nugent is worse at politics than he was at music. And he was terrible at music.

From Private Eye:

NOW the Tories are in power they are receiving generous donations from some intriguing sources. According to the Electoral Commission, these include a whopping £80,000 in July from record label Universal Music, whose boss Lucian Grainge was a teenage fan of the Sex Pistols and Clash.

These days he prefers to hobnob with David Cameron instead. Grainge served on the Tories’ “Creative Industries” taskforce, which looked at weakening the BBC. He is unlikely to have consulted the artistes who bring in much of Universal’s cash – including Amy Winehouse, Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox and Tinchy Stryder – about their big Tory donation.

Why would Universal be raining cash down on government? Surely not part of the plans for the long-expected bid for EMI, is it?

Ah, if only David Geffen had thought to invite a couple of Lib Dems onto his yacht, maybe things would have been different. The coalition have told the copyright industries they'll have to bear most of the costs for pursuing unlicensed filesharers.

ISPs will only be made to pay the costs of notifying their customers; 75% of the bill will be passed to the people who care about the copyright.

However, the government's decision today, based on a consultation on the cost-sharing proposal, said that the argument to split detection costs had been rejected as a "business as usual" bill for copyright holders.

"This argument was rejected as the initial proposal to share costs 75/25 was made in the full knowledge that copyright owners did have these separate costs to bear," said the government. "At the level of the individual copyright owner the level of detection activity (and any legal action) is a matter for them. It was considered these were largely 'business as usual' costs that copyright owners would face as part of protecting their own copyright material."

In a related decision, citizens won't be forced to pay a fee to appeal against one of these proceedings:

"As a free system risks the possibility of large numbers of unnecessary appeals, the government will monitor the situation closely, and reserves the right to introduce a small fee at a later stage," the government added.

This puts me in a horrible position of thinking that the coalition have made a good decision. Better if they'd scrapped the whole idea of snooping and letters, but it's a start.

You can tell its a good decision, because the copyright industry is squealing about how it's soooooo unfair:

"We continue to believe that ISPs should bear a greater proportion of the costs of communicating with their customers about illegal peer-to-peer use on their networks," said a spokesman for the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), which represents the UK's music companies.

"We will work closely with the government and Ofcom to ensure that the costs framework overall is workable and affordable, in particular for small labels, and that the Code can be swiftly implemented."

Won't it cost what it costs?

You'd have never put money on it when he was singing about wanking and chocolate, but Feargal Sharkey is being seriously talked about as a possible addition to the House Of Lords:

Allies of David Cameron say the PM is considering offering the former Undertones singer a life peerage for his efforts to support the music ­industry.

That's from the Daily Mirror, but it's one of their dwindling band of actual journalists who's written it.

Increasingly, 'singer in a punk band' is looking like the outlier in Feargal Sharkey's career, as shown by his time with the Radio Authority and later work as whatever his job title is trying to pretend musicians' interests are identical to those of multinational industrialists. Turning up on the red benches would make a kind of sense, however horrifying it would be for anyone seeing a copyright-tightener being wheeled in to government.

(Isn't this sort of celebrity-business-approved patronage the 'old politics' that Cameron was supposed to... oh, hang about, election's been over months, hasn't it? We've stopped pretending that.)

When he heard another DJ playing Teenage Kicks, John Peel had to pull over to the side of the road because he was crying so much. Whenever we hear what Sharkey's being lined up for next, I kind of worry I might lose control of a motor vehicle and it'll all end in tears, too.

[Thanks to both James M and Michael M for pointing at this one]

It's brilliant news about 6Music, isn't it? Don't you agree, Tim Montgomerie?

Oh. Apparently not:

Disgraceful that 6 Music has been saved. When will the BBC share in the pain?

Some people suggest that Montgomerie's website, ConservativeHome, is the paid-for pipe-hole through which Lord Ashcroft pipes his thoughts. That would, of course, be confusing ConservativeHome with David Cameron.

Montgomerie's sour little moan that something which a million people enjoy is going to carry on shows a lack of any grasp of the detail here - if 6Music continues, the nine million quid which would otherwise have been saved will have to come from somewhere else in the Corporation budget - it's not like closing 6Music would mean the BBC giving back a few quid to licence fee payers.

Just wanting a network to shut because you believe the BBC should be hurt is, well, the sort of nasty, spiteful reaction that will be familiar to anyone who remembers the last Conservative government.

The BBC didn't screw up the economy. 6Music listeners didn't screw up the economy - maybe there might be the odd investment banker amongst them, but generally. George Osborne might be pursuing an ideological series of deep cuts to the State, but just because he's dead set on making the nation a more miserable place doesn't mean the BBC has to follow suit.

Still, it's not like Montgomerie doesn't know a thing or two about value for money, as a little later on he tweets:

At 62p per person per year, the Queen is excellent value for taxpayers' money http://is.gd/dg1Uk

6Music costs 17p per person per year, helps generate income for the UK creative industries, cross-subsidises bands and artists and entertains a million people a week. More importantly, it doesn't have numerous other forms of income, own large swathes of the country or require extra inputs of support in the form of police protection when it goes out. I'd argue that 6Music is excellent value for your licence pence.

But then, I'm not trying to hurt the BBC.

Oh, for crying out bloody loud, I thought we'd sorted this out last year? But, no, the NOTW is fuming again that it actually involves people to cover several stages for three different media live from Glastonbury:

THE bloated BBC is again sending an army of hundreds of staff to cover Glastonbury - defying orders to cut costs.

Orders from who? Where there orders to reduce the budget for Glastonbury coverage? Isn't it an assumption that just because the number of people involved is roughly the same, that the costs haven't been reduced - for example, they might be using fewer vehicles, or being told only to work a certain number of hours rather than go into overtime. Or freelance staff might be getting fewer hours.

Around 400 Beeb workers are off to the festival at taxpayers' expense, the same as last year.

Actually, many of the workers aren't "Beeb workers", they're freelancers, and - unless there's the odd reporter from the World Service, they're not working at taxpayer's expense, they're licence-fee funded. And, in fact, with BBC Worldwide selling coverage overseas, a potion of those numbers would be paid for by commercial activities.

And that's after lavish BBC spending on the event in 2009 - an estimated £2MILLION - drew stinging criticism.

Yes, it did, but only from idiots and vested interests desperate to try and portray the event as a beano.

But despite vowing to control costs in the wake of the recession, BBC chief Mark Thompson has astonishingly signed off a fresh Glasto spend-fest.

Simply because you're taking costs out of an organisation as a whole doesn't mean you cut back everything. Even George Osborne, the first Chancellor to be incapable of telling a SpeakAndSpell from a calculator, understands that you might decide one area of spending is worth maintaining at previous levels while making cuts elsewhere.

For example, simply not having to pay Jonathan Ross next year more than covers the entire costs of Glastonbury.

The news will be music to the ears of the legion of presenters, technicians, producers and - of course - executives who can pack their bags for Somerset.

"Great! We're going to have to work seventeen hour days up to our arses in mud! Hoorah!"

But critics accused the BBC of being "woefully out of touch" by spending lavishly when Britain is sunk in debt.

Really? There aren't a few people who might say 'given that times are quite tough, it's wonderful that we can all share in one of this nation's great cultural events simply by switching on the TV or radio - and at no extra cost to ourselves.' Or did you not ask?

Still, who's such a fool as to give the NOTW an on-the-record quote which, while pleasing to James Murdoch, will out them as being someone who doesn't really grasp the subjects they're talking about?

Tory MP Philip Davies said: "The BBC is the same over-bloated organisation it's always been. It's bizarre it is not chasing the same cutbacks as everyone else."

The poor people of Shipley. They must have felt that choosing a bloke who used to work for Asda as their MP would mean he'd at least have a grasp of how organisations work. But it appears not.

Look, Philip, let's take you back to when you were at Asda. You remember when there'd be the big signs up saying 'Cut prices'? That didn't mean that everything was reduced, did it? Some things were made to cost less, and other things would cost more. Because what it was all about was balancing prices across the whole.

It's the same with the BBC. Just because the cost of one piece of programming costs a little more (and, frankly, there's not a shred of proof that's the case here) doesn't mean the BBC isn't making savings elsewhere.

I wonder if Philip Davies sits at home fuming "the BBC says it's making cuts, and yet the weather forecast still covers exactly the same area as it did before? They really should only be forecasting for 75% of the country to save money.

Wait until he finds out that the BBC are spending money on the World Cup - when they didn't spend a penny on it last year.

Davies, of course, knows profligacy when it sees it. In the last Parliament, he claimed more in expenses than any of his fellow Bradford-based MPs. And, oddly, I can't find him being angry at the 2.33% pay rise MPs got last year - but perhaps there's no reason for MPs to make "the same cutbacks as everyone else" that I've missed.

The News Of The World then offers another odd comparison:

The four-day festival at the end of the month is one of the biggest events of the BBC year, with coverage across TV, radio, and a dedicated website. The Beeb sent nearly as many staff to last year's festival as to the Olympics - despite TV viewing figures averaging just 800,000.

Actually, the BBC only sent 74 people to cover the Olympics. Unless the NOTW is thinking of Beijing Olympics, where there were 473 members of staff there. I'm a little lost as to what point is being made here, unless the News Of The World actually thinks that covering Glastonbury and an Olympics are somehow identical in their scope? I can film my cats playing in the long grass on my own - surely we just need to send one bloke with a Flip, right? And maybe Zane Lowe?

Matthew Elliott, head of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "The BBC continues to spend as if there's no tomorrow. By all means cover the event, but the number of people sent is clearly excessive."

Really? It's clearly excessive, is it, Matthew? Care to explain how? Do you have evidence that supports this, or did you merely go 'ooh, that's a lot of people, it must be too many'?

Obviously, if you can point to teams of camera crew who turn up and then disappear for three days, without filming anything, that would be scandalous. Or if there are five producers overseeing every sequence shot, that might be worth raging about. It might be you feel that having red-button coverage of the stages is an extravagance then say so - although since it will be getting filmed anyway, the marginal cost of making this available to licence fee payers seems to be good, rather than bad, use of the money. But at least point to something you actually believe is excessive, rather than stand there blinking.

I suspect the News Of The World will run the story again next year, and probably even in 2012, whether Glasto happens or not. See you in twelve months, then.

Anyone hoping for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government might unpick the rushed-through Digital Economy Act might as well be using their wishes for a magic bucket or for that Clare Grogan solo record to be released. It isn't going to happen. Jeremy Hunt has confirmed:

“We’re not going to repeal it,” the new UK government’s Conservative culture secretary Jeremy Hunt told paidContent:UK.

Funny that, given that as it was passing through Parliament Hunt insisted that great chunks of the Digital Economy Bill were terrible, terrible pieces of legislation:

I want to say plainly to the Government that, while we recognise that some parts of the Bill will have to be let through if we are to avoid serious damage to the economy, other parts of it are totally unacceptable, and we will use every parliamentary means at our disposal to remove them.

Apart from, you know, repealing the Act if they get into power.