VERY proud to do a gig in support of Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for the Labour leadership at the Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden last Monday night.

It is absolutely inspirational to see how his candidacy has caught the mood of so many grassroots Labour members and socialists sick and tired of the bland, robotic and zombie soundbites trotted out by the other candidates in the election campaign.

And it’s absolutely nauseating to see that Jeremy was the only candidate to vote against the planned government benefit cap reduction, the others being cowed by Tory tabloid propaganda lies. 

According to the government’s own impact assessment, more than 330,000 children from low-income families will be forced further into poverty — the SNP, Caroline the Green and even the DUP voted against it. Labour to the right of the DUP? You couldn’t make it up.

Come on, Jeremy. Win this! Then we can really take the bastards on. No more platitudes, no more boring toeing of party lines — let’s upset the applecart, energise the left in a way that hasn’t happened for years and stick up for the poor, the dispossessed and the hopeless in the way those who founded the Labour Party intended us to do. That’s what it’s FOR.

A few days ago I was at the Ledbury Poetry Festival. I’m always happy when I am booked for gigs like that — it makes a change from the punk gigs and real-ale pubs. It’s the kind of event where the first person you see when you arrive at the venue is Shirley Williams, sitting on a sofa in the middle of the road, glass of wine in hand, holding court.

Yes, the very same Shirley who was one of the “gang of four” who left the Labour Party to form the SDP — remember them? — all those years ago on the grounds that it was “too left-wing.” 

I did a benefit gig for an asylum-seekers’ support group with her in Crawley a while ago. She was most charming and told me she enjoyed my performance very much. On that basis, I think we can clearly state that the new Labour bland soundbite zombie faction would consider her a dangerous commie. Welcome to the ranks, comrade Shirley.

I hope you all had a great time at Tolpuddle last weekend. I wish I’d been there with you. If I had a quid for every person who has asked me: “Why are you never at Tolpuddle?” I’d be able to buy an awful lot of beer. It’s all down to a silly disagreement with the organisers, lost in the mists of time, and — given the sometimes abrasive nature of my personality — undoubtedly my fault. 

So, comrades, whatever it was I said or did that upset you, I’m really sorry. Can I please play next year?

This weekend I’m at the Something Else festival in Malpas, Cheshire. A fun time’s in prospect, plus another opportunity to visit my mother-in-law, still living in her own home aged 93 and as determinedly independent as possible. 

When it was announced 15 years ago that her daughter Robina was intending to marry a black-clad leftie punk poet, Margaret — a retired GP who reads the Daily Telegraph — decided she had better read some of my books. Having done so, she came up with possibly my favourite ever “review” of my work.

“I’ve read your books, John,” she said. “I think you’re very funny, very clever, very cynical and A LOT OF RUBBISH!”

We‘ve got on famously ever since.

Enjoy the summer, comrades!