Billy Bragg: ‘Boris was trolling me the whole time. We’ve got a wind-up merchant as PM’

As the bard of Barking tours a new album, he reflects on modern politics, his scraps with the Daily Mail and why he could do with listening a bit more

In an Exeter pub on a wet Monday morning, Billy Bragg is talking about a day at the Glastonbury festival in 2000. The BBC had signed up an unusual guest for its coverage - Boris Johnson. In the footage (still online), Johnson - then a year from becoming an MP - forgets to get off the train, gets a comedy henna tattoo in Sanskrit, and growls the Clash's Bankrobber to Bragg in the car: It's your philosophy, isn't it?" he says. Leftwing approval of theft from capitalists?"

He was trolling me the whole time," Bragg remembers. That's what his MO still is. A wind-up merchant who became prime minister! How the fuck did that happen?" He shrugs. Modern politics needs things he doesn't have: accountability and empathy."