Being a musician isn’t easy. Your parents will secretly spend most of their lives wondering when you’ll get a “proper job”. And lots of people who say they’ll come to your shows or buy your records won’t. It’s a pretty dejecting existence for many – and the Government knows it.

Dominic Cummings recently revealed his view that the Prime Minister is essentially “a pundit that stumbled into politics”. He’s correct on this – Johnson typically doesn’t care about an issue unless he can gain from it in some way. Anyone who spends just a few minutes reading about him can discover this.

Musicians – who, let’s be honest, are mostly left-wingers – aren’t anywhere near his radar, hence why musicians have such limits on touring in Europe now. Hence why there’s no government backed insurance for festivals. Hence why they’ve had no support at all since the pandemic started.

The government knows they can get away with it, too. Why? A UK Music poll reveals that 58% of those quizzed think the government should do more to “ensure musicians can work abroad post-Brexit”. Which sounds good – until you notice 35% of respondents either said don’t know (9%) or didn’t agree or disagree (26%). That’s a big chunk of people who, I’d wager, mostly don’t care about the subject.

Apathy is something that has become more of a problem over the years in politics. We’re now seeing the consequences when politicians decide to utilise apathy for their own benefit – and gimmicks like holding a rave in the streets of London masquerading under a thin veneer as a protest only aids the same politicians who already don’t care…